Once again, we find the socialists attempting to obtain power and create public policies beneficial to international socialism by claiming that all social issues are, in reality, medical issues. And while one should commend doctors for their attempts at “preventative medicine,” most physicians barely understand the complexities of their own area of medicine, let alone economic and sociological issues involved with maintaining societal order. While some practitioners may have a sense of enlightened entitlement due to the stature conveyed by society to healers, physicians cannot often detect nor deter crazies and criminals. Which is the real issue: human behavior and the failure of society to adequately deter criminals and crazies. Remove guns and increase deaths is a proven equation.
So here we have another attempt to grab political recognition and power …
Statement of the New York Academy of Medicine on Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue
Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue
As a nation, we can only improve the health of the public when we get our priorities straight.
Recent acts of gun violence in Chicago, Webster, NY, and Newtown, CT cannot be ignored. Neither can the 31,000 Americans who die each year at the hands of a gun. This number exceeds the number of babies who die each year during their first year of life (25,000) or people who die from AIDS (9,500) or illicit drugs (17,000).
We institute protective measures enforcing speed limits and requiring the use of safety belts; we implement public health measures such as child vaccinations and regulations around the safety of food, drugs, and products. Yet guns escape this type of regulation despite their significant contribution to the mortality rate each year. We must view gun violence as a serious threat to the public’s health if we want to reduce the number of deaths associated with guns.
We can start by banning the sale of assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, and other facilitators of mass murder. And we must allow government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fully exercise their duties in both surveillance of the incidence and impact of gun violence, and in educating the public on steps for preventing death and injury through the use of firearms.
The evidence is clear, and we must now take action to protect our neighbors and ourselves from this devastating public health crisis. Source: Statement of the New York Academy of Medicine on Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue
Bullpucky …
First, I would be concerned about the damage done to society by physicians who seem to be at the heart of the healthcare system and who care little about cost containment and the practice of cost-effective medicine.
Second, there are no statistical sources given – and one that overlooks the fact that the lives of more people may be saved by accessing, brandishing and using a gun than are taken by gun violence. Guns do not cause criminality, so the link between cause and effect does not seem to be honestly stated.
What they don’t want you to know … Florida criminalist Gary Kleck has impeccably researched the subject of gun control and claims that 2.5 million Americans each year use a firearm for self-defense? And of this number, approximately 400,000 people believe that, were it not for the gun they used, they would have been killed?
Third, there is absolutely no evidence that the banning of assault rifles will have a significant effect on society, since most crimes are not committed with so-call assault rifles. However, there is a better case to be made that more people are killed by medical misadventures and the lack of available medical care (due to price, delays and denials); thus leading to the suggestion maybe more lives can be saved if the physicians follow the age-old dictum: physician heal thyself.
Fourth, how many doctors, dentists, psychologists and psychiatrists commit suicide each year – shouldn’t that be a concern with a dwindling supply of trained professionals?
And if we want to speak about making public policy – let’s remove the secrecy from doctors who are treated for mental illness, drug and alcohol usage and who have been subject to disciplinary matters. Listing the allegations – as well as the confidential “off book” settlements – to better protect the public.
Bottom line …
Physicians should stick to improving their own fiefdom, letting nurse practitioners assume a greater role in medicine and avoid meddling in areas in which they have little or no expertise; or have little or no ability to affect criminality or craziness.
To allow doctors to use the prestige of their office to push socialist public policies and to interfere with the Constitution of the United States is intolerable. Especially when their ilk has displayed stunningly bad judgement in allowing the socialists to take over healthcare; turning insurance companies into the gatekeepers of medical practice by dictating payment terms.
If these physicians want to save lives – how about ameliorating medical misadventures and bringing cost-effective healthcare back to America.
-- steve
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