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Unintended Consequences: Docs & Glocks Edition
Several years ago, the American Medical Association instituted a new policy of recommending that doctors enquire about their patients’ firearms. This was pitched as a matter of household and child safety and — while the policy stressed “education” — its language makes it pretty clear that this is not something Eddie Eagle would endorse. Despite not having kids, I’ve been asked about my guns at least twice at the doctor’s. The first time, I wasn’t expecting it and simply answered the nice nurse’s question. The second time, I said something to the effect of, “Thank you, but I don’t think that’s a medical question.” The nurse shrugged and the appointment proceeded as before.
Unsurprisingly, stories soon emerged about doctors dropping patients who refused to answer the question, as well as others who (chillingly) tried to talk to children about it behind their parents’ backs. In response, several states, including Florida, passed legislation that forbade doctors and other medical professionals to bring up the subject of guns under most circumstances.
Much has been written about this: I came across a discussion of it on Science-Based Medicine earlier this week, which made reference to a recent post on the Volokh Conspiracy that I’d missed. We’ve also talked about it on Ricochet. The most recent news is that the Florida law has again been found constitutional, this time on First Amendment grounds subject to strict scrutiny. That seems like a bad decision to me, but I’ll recommend you read others’ takes to form a legal opinion.
I do, however, have a political opinion on the matter: This sort of high-temper, confrontational situation is a direct consequence of progressive big government. The more entangled the medical profession becomes with the state, the more its practitioners will find themselves on the receiving end of the I’m-calling-my-lawyer and show-me-the-warrant attitude that Americans have long harbored toward their government. This is especially so when its executive praises the idea of abridging their natural rights while his party flirts with a candidate who advocates a single-payer system.
Doctors have long held a special place of trust in our culture, and doctor-patient confidentiality enjoys a respect exceeded only by that of spouses, clergy, and attorneys. If you want to damage that trust, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better way than to invite the government in.
Published in Domestic Policy, Guns, Healthcare
With the changes in healthcare legislation and government mandated record keeping, I’ve taken the approach that any information I give my doctor will be available to any government employee. And as the information is not really secure on the govt systems (no information is), the information may ultimately be available to the general public.
I answer all Dr’s questions with this in mind.
I can see buying cigarettes with cash – in Great Briton I heard some people have been denied surgeries because they’re smokers (read it in the Daily Mail, so it must be true, right?).
From your keyboard to every physician’s ears.
In the sales world, that’s called silent chicken. It gets awkward enough someone will speak, which means they lost.
If I say “None of your business” I am sure my name goes into a database as having one.
My doctor has the question on a paper questionnaire. I leave it blank.
The issue has become more pertinent here in New York State because the state is looking for more reasons to say people are not permitted to have guns. I have been relatively pleased that the medical providers have realized that this is not in their interest. The more the state makes the medical provider the link to denying people their right to own firearms, the more people will avoid getting medical care.
No. Predict it.
Inshah’allah.
Do urologists have to ask The Question?
The possibilities for mockery are gratifyingly endless. It’s almost too bad my doctor would never ask me such a question. In fact, I could tell her I own “an arsenal” (the average reporter’s term for two guns or more), and she would respond with her next medical question without changing her regard or inflection.
There are a few Russell Kirk conservatives remaining in the country…
I remember when, back in the ’90s, a dentist sent me a form asking whether I had ever engaged in unsafe sex.
So I called the dentist’s office, got the dentist himself on the phone, and asked whether he had ever engaged in unsafe sex? After all, as of that moment, the only dentist-patient transmission of the AIDS virus (the issue the question was intended to address) had happened FROM the dentist TO the patient. As the 30-ish wife of a state trooper with four young children, I figured he was safer drilling my teeth than I was having the fingers of a divorced forty-something with a Don Johnson hairdo anywhere near my bleeding gums.
The dentist stammered something like “no, I don’t think I’ve ever…that is, I mean, I had a few moments back in the ’70’s…” and we agreed to drop the subject.
I think this may fall a bit into paranoia, but doesn’t a de facto gun registry exist? So if you said no, the government* could look it up and see that you were lying. I would have a very hard time answering that question in any way and since, as several people have mentioned, I’m also with Group Health Cooperative /soon to be Kaiser, I guess I’m going to have to figure it out soon.
*This is likely more complicated than I envision, but still, I think, not an unreasonable fear.
My doctor has a membership practice. She has never asked me this question, and if she did, we’d probably discuss why, without discussing whether. She is a gem, and a rarity-a sole practitioner in the time of hospitals and big medical groups buying up practices. She will be my doctor until…..
Yes, through the federal paperwork for each purchase which dealers are required to maintain in their records indefinitely, and which are subject to inspection at any time by the ATF.
I haven’t worried about whether USG knows I have guns or not. I just figure they know (background checks, etc).
But I’d be interested in being a fly on the wall if a doc interviewed one of my daughters on having a gun in the house.
For about the last 9~10 years, every time I walk into the house at the end of the day, I grab a child ‘o mine at random and have her: safe and clear the weapon, take the round that was chambered and add it back to the magazine, then talk me through re-inserting the magazine, chambering a round and making the weapon “hot,” then going through the whole process again until the weapon is cleared.
My li’l ladies love doing it, they have to recite the 4 rules of gun safety while they do it, and it makes range time much more efficient.
On those rare occasions one of my darlin’s is up when I’m getting ready to leave the house, she’ll be required to render the weapon hot, then hand it off to me.
If the doc really is interested in drilling down on the subject of guns in the house, he’ll get an earful.
That’s what I wrote on the medical form last month that asked me 1) whether I have fire detectors in my house and 2) some other safety-related question that I don’t remember. I just wrote that it wasn’t a medical question, and didn’t say any more. I had the gun question in the back of my mind, but that one hasn’t come up yet.
I was on the search for a new primary physician after having lost my previous one to ObamaCare at least two years ago. The first two places I called to try to make an appointment weren’t taking new patients, and almost all of the doctors are now consolidated into bigger clinics, of which there aren’t that many around. So I was starting to wonder if I was going to have a primary physician.
Choice #3 was successful. The white coat aides and assistants have all been very friendly, and the one who went through my paperwork most thoroughly said she was glad to have met me. I don’t know if that means I’m now a target or if the staff have just been trained to treat their patients like people.
When I was bicycling in Alabama ten years ago, in early spring, I stopped at a state park for the historical setting. I was the only person there other than a host, who struck up a conversation (somewhat racist in nature) in which he eventually he tried in an indirect, offhand way to elicit information on what (if anything) I was packing.
My policy is not to get into those conversations. If I have a gun, I don’t want anybody else to know it. If I don’t have a gun, I don’t want anybody else to know it.
On a bicycle touring mail list I’ve been on for over 20 years, there are two topics that are off limits due to the rancor they will cause: 1) helmets, and 2) packing heat.
My new doctor did discuss bicycling with me, though I was the one who brought it up. I assured him that yes, I ride on the roads, and yes, I sometimes ride on the same road where an esteemed colleague of his was killed on a ride last year. He was somewhat taken aback, and urged me to be careful. I didn’t give him the lecture I’ve given to some of my friends, that he should instead wish me to have an exciting and adventurous time, and that I should ride a lot to keep my cholesterol down.
In my part of the country the doctor would probably just go ahead and check that little “Yes” box without even bothering to ask.
The Four Rules
Ret, really? I heard POTUS say that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor…
Setting boundaries when social custom fails to, or when individuals fail to respect appropriate social boundaries, is what legislatures do. The First Amendment is not absolute. We protect workers against sexual harassment without First Amendment issues.
Parents should not have to endure harassment as a condition of receiving medical care for their children. If the AMA thought otherwise, they deserved to be slapped down.
I see it is about the same as “Do you floss? …in honesty of response, that is