IN FORBES: Why Doctors Should Not Ask Their Patients About Guns. “Doctors already have a professional and legal responsibility to notify the authorities if they believe patients pose an imminent threat to others or themselves. But routine inquiry about gun ownership goes far beyond this obligation. Such inquiries will instead only offend and alienate many responsible gun owners, compromising the trust essential to the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors should not put themselves in a position where patients view them as willing (or unwitting) agents of the government working against their interests.”

UPDATE: Reader Steve Kellmeyer writes: “I thought the government wasn’t supposed to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship?” Only for abortions.