A typical visit to the doctor will always raise some questions. Alcohol habits, smoking history, illicit drug use, mental health status, and even history of sexual partners.
For the most part, these questions are routine and do not cause any pause. However, medical institutions across the country are experimenting with a new line of questioning: gun ownership status.
By comparing conversations about gun safety to seat belt and bicycle helmet precautions, doctors are immersing themselves in their new gun control role. The question is, does this conversation have a place in the doctor’s office or is it just a tool to monitor and limit gun ownership?
Doctors ask about firearms
Recently, The Atlantic published a piece titled Now the doctor will ask you about your gun which explored the nuances of this latest medicinal trend. Many doctors interviewed for the article argued that learning about gun safety makes perfect sense in the doctor’s office.
Emergency medicine physician Emmy Betz explained:
“It’s the same way we encourage people to wear seatbelts and not drink and drive, to exercise.”
Put in these terms, it is difficult to initially see any harm in encouraging safe gun ownership by the doctor. The booklets greatly encourage safe sexual practices among other safe social engagement practices.
However, the article points out that this invasion of firearms discussions in the medical community is not new. The article explains:
“Not long ago, powerful doctors argued that if firearms caused so much harm, people should simply abandon them.”
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Recalling a 1990s New York Times interview with then-director of the CDC’s Injury Center, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the article highlights the attempt to make gun ownership a social misstep:
“We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like we did with cigarettes. Once upon a time, smoking was a glamorous, cool, sexy, macho symbol. Now it is dirty, deadly and forbidden.”
Is this why doctors ask for guns?
It could be argued that society has exchanged the unhealthy habit of smoking for others that are equally, if not equally, dangerous. Regardless, the reality is that gun ownership is not viewed by gun owners in the same way as vices like smoking.
Not a connection, a right
In my experience, there are two types of gun owners. You have those who convey their ownership through vehicle decals, flags, and clothing.
So you have the type most in line with myself; I own firearms, but do not pass them on. The second group highlights the difficulty that the medical community and gun control advocates have with their messages and initiatives.
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Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine co-founder Paul Hsieh wrote that gun owners:
“…they find the question about firearm ownership intrusive differently than questions about substance abuse or sexual partners.”
At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. In fact, questions surrounding something as intimate as sexual habits or what an individual puts into their body are more intrusive than gun ownership.
The reason becomes more apparent when we delve into what doctors can do with that information.
One way or another
The article explains that while doctors can:
“…tell someone with diabetes to stop drinking soda three times a day, but they literally can’t take soda away from a patient. With weapons, they could do it.”
The above alludes to some states having laws in place that allow doctors to cooperate with law enforcement and courts to remove guns from a patient if they deem it necessary. The Biden administration is promoting a similar effort nationwide, known as the National Resource Center for Extreme Risk Protection (ERPO).
Readers may know it better as “red flag” laws.
This is why doctors ask about guns.
The Department of Justice notes that:
“ERPO laws, which are modeled after domestic violence protection orders, create a civil process that allows law enforcement, family members (in most states), and medical professionals or other groups (in most states) to petition a court to temporarily prohibit someone at risk of harming themselves or others by purchasing and possessing firearms for the duration of the order.”
While it may seem obvious what constitutes risk, the reality is that risk is a goal that can be moved by political pressure. Is someone at risk for seeing a mental health professional?
Is someone “at risk” if they are a combat veteran? Is someone “at risk” if they are a white Christian?
Ultimately, simply owning a gun will be considered “unsafe.”
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More harm than good
Amy Barnhorst, a firearms injury prevention researcher at UC Davis, explains:
“There is a lot more psychological meaning behind firearms for people than there is behind soft drinks.”
This is because of a little thing called the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms allows citizens to defend their lives, families and homes.
Gun ownership allows citizens to provide protection not only for their most prized possessions, but also for their most valuable possessions from their government in case it is necessary.
Some states have tried to prevent doctors from discussing gun ownership, as the article explains:
“Over the past two decades, some states have toyed with laws that limit doctors’ ability to talk to patients about firearms and the information they can gather, to assuage gun owners’ privacy concerns.”
Rightly so, documenting whether or not patients own guns looks a lot like a firearms registry. The push to incorporate firearms into doctors’ offices under the guise of safety will undoubtedly make patients less Safe.
Mental health counselor Jake Wiskerchen explains how patients:
“…all over America right now those who own guns and don’t come to therapy because they don’t want their rights taken away for real or imagined reasons.”
The treatment of medical conditions and mental health problems is where medicine should be here and stay. Otherwise they risk sacrificing care for gun control.
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