FLORIDA: Physicians ask for injunction against ‘Docs v. Glocks’ law. “The physician groups suing to block a new Florida law that bans doctors from asking patients about guns in their homes asked a federal judge in Miami Friday for an injunction to block enforcement of the law.”
From the comments: “Why does a doctor need a specific list of your guns to warn you to keep them safe or whatever?”
If a doctor asks questions you think inappropriate, make an ethics complaint to the state medical board. Nothing will happen, probably, but the hassle-value is so high that they’ll soon quit.
UPDATE: A reader who asks anonymity writes:
I am an Emergency Physician, and this article is just rife with manipulative inferences. First, it clearly states that if you have a good faith reason to ask about guns pursuant to the patients *MEDICAL* well-being, then you may do so. Nowhere is it mentioned that you cannot say “If you have guns in the home, keep them locked up,” which is not a question, but a statement. Nobody is bringing the govermnet into the exam room with this law. OTOH, this law is keeping the doctors from using the exam room to get the government into the patient’s home.
When I was a resident, and had to ask questions about guns, I would often watch parents of these kids start to become suspicious of me as I entered such an area of discourse. Make no mistake; when physicians ask this question, they are threatening the trust of the relationship. Once this happens, then parents start wondering if you, as a physician, have an agenda, which dissuades them from honest disclosure, and instead they will say what they think you want to hear, or become hostile, which destroys communication.
Personally I would follow up such an interrogation with suggestion that the child get firearms training as soon as they are intellectually, physically and emotionally capable. My reasoning is the same as to why I advocate for all children to learn how to swim; While you may not have a gun or a pool at your house, your child will someday be in a circumstance which does. If you have not trained your child in how to deal with these circumstances, then you have left them exposed to great peril.
I also got a little chuckle when I give this same suggestion to the parents who were brimming with pride when they say there are no guns in the house. They become almost apoplectic when I suggest that they take junior to an NRA gun safety course.
Heh.