OT: Asked if I had a gun in my home during physical.

[archangle]

Guys and Gals,

Take a deep breath on this one. Asking about firearm ownership is not any sinister plot.

Recording "race" on census data was not part of any sinister plot. It has been used by the US government to track down and imprison law abiding US citizens solely based on their race.

[JayR_1945]

I posted earlier on Veterans having their their second amendment rights restricted.

However the post at VAWatchdogToday.org
PTSD VETERAN LOSES CONCEALED WEAPONS PERMIT
shows how complicated and difficult this whole issue is.

The Veteran had his CCW permit revoked. And yes his doctor and the Sheriff should have explained it better. But when fully explained, how and why, ...the Veteran agreed.

If a patient is taking one of these more powerful, dangerous psychotropic drugs (like Chantix), they should not be near a gun, kids, ...or drive either. If you have seen the black box warning on Chantix, still heavily hawked by physicians and pharmaceutical companies, you can understand why many pass on that insidious stuff and just deal with life.

[Starlette]

Thanks for pointing that out Jay. I never would have thought of that. Still, I just didn't like being asked that.

Starlette

[mars]

Hi All

And the latest news on this issue is from Medscape Medical News at -

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/744 ... &src=nldne

For those who do not wish to login, the large print copy is below -

From Medscape Medical News

Physicians Fight Florida 'Gag Law' on Gun Questions

by Robert Lowes

June 8, 2011 — A group of physicians and medical societies has sued Florida Governor Rick Scott and other state officials in a Miami federal court to overturn a new Florida law forbidding clinicians from asking patients whether they own a gun.

The physicians argue that this "gag law" will prevent them from counseling patients about keeping guns unloaded and locked up, which can spare children and adults from shooting deaths, both accidental and otherwise. Supporters of the law such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) counter that it will protect the privacy of gun owners and "keep politics out of the examination room."

The lawsuit seeks a temporary injunction against the new law and a declaration that it violates the plaintiffs' constitutional right to free speech, as well as due process. The outcome of the case could have a bearing on a "don't ask" bill pending in North Carolina, as well as future legislation in other states.

"If the court upholds our law, it's free rein everywhere," said Louis St. Petery, MD, a pediatric cardiologist in Tallahassee, Florida, and executive vice president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

The suit, filed on June 6, comes 4 days after Scott signed the law. The measure prohibits both written and oral inquiries regarding firearms ownership, entering such information into a medical record, "unnecessarily harassing" gun owners, or turning away patients who refuse to answer gun questions.

That last provision speaks to what supposedly prompted the Florida law. In 2007, a pediatrician in Ocala, Florida, told a young mother to find a new physician after she refused to say whether she had a gun in the house, according to a local newspaper. The pediatrician was quoted as saying that his question was merely one part of a general discussion about household safety, and that physicians have a right to drop patients who do not trust them.

An early version of the legislation stipulated that a violation would amount to a third-degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison, in addition to a fine as high as $5 million. An amendment scaled down the consequences to possible disciplinary action by the state health department.

Many Patients Lack Knowledge About Gun Safety, Says Suit

The group seeking to overturn the new Florida law consists of family physician Bernd Wollschlaeger, MD; pediatricians Judith Schaechter, MD, and Tommy Schechtman, MD; and the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, and the AAP. Those national organizations, along with the American Osteopathic Association, also have gone on record opposing the law.

The plaintiffs lay out the dangers associated with household firearms that physicians seek to minimize.

"Every year, thousands of Americans are seriously injured or killed when a child finds a gun and accidentally pulls the trigger, an argument between acquaintances or family members spins out of control, or a depressed teenager or adult becomes suicidal," the suit states.

The risk for those tragedies increases when guns are too handy, according to the suit, which asserts that one third of US homes with children younger than age 18 years have a firearm, and of these homes, more than 40% store them unlocked. Of this last subset of homes, one fourth store their guns loaded.

Dr. Wollschlaeger, Dr. Schaechter, and Dr. Schechtman all stated in the suit that in the past, patients have been amenable to guidance on gun safety. Dr. Wollschlaeger, who is himself a gun owner and a concealed weapon permit holder, noted that "many patients and parents are unaware of how to use child safety mechanisms and lock boxes and the importance of separately storing guns and ammunition."

In addition to objecting to what they consider to be infringement on the physician–patient relationship, the plaintiffs criticize the new Florida law as vague. For example, the law makes an exception for questions about firearms if a clinician in good faith believes "that this information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others." The plaintiffs complain that the law never defines the criteria for relevance, nor does it define harassment, for that matter.

Both Dr. Schaechter and Dr. Schechtman said they will continue to ask about guns in the home because they consider the subject always relevant, but would refrain from posing follow-up questions when patients respond unfavorably. In contrast, Dr. Wollschlaeger said that as long as the law is on the books, he would never bring up guns for fear a patient will complain to the Florida Board of Medicine.

NRA Sees Gun Ban Agenda

To physicians, talking with patients about gun safety has a noble goal: averting injury or death. The NRA, however, views these discussions in a more sinister light. Its Web site speaks of pediatricians and other physicians "prying into our personal lives." Patients receive an "arrogant berating" if they refuse to answer questions "that violate privacy rights and offend common decency." And "horrified parents" worry that the federal government or private insurers will tap into computerized medical records, discover that they own firearms, and consequently deny them healthcare coverage.

More than anything, a distrustful NRA sees a political agenda in questions about gun ownership. "This is not about safety, but the gun-ban politics of the American Academy of Pediatrics," said NRA board member and former president Marion Hammer in a recent interview posted on the group's Web site. Hammer, also the executive director of a Florida gun rights lobbying group, points to AAP statements of support for banning handguns and assault rifles, as well as the academy's advice that "the best way to keep your children safe from injury or death from guns is to never have a gun in the home."

Dr. St. Petery told Medscape Medical News that the NRA takes those AAP pronouncements out of context. "The NRA says we're out to wipe guns from the face of the earth," said Dr. St. Petery. "That's not true."

Although the scientific evidence points to children being safer when homes are gun-free, he said, pediatricians also accept the reality that many parents own pistols and rifles. "If you have a gun, let's talk about how to store it," said Dr. St. Petery, a father of 3 and a shotgun owner. He added that he has never heard of a pediatrician attempting to convince parents to get rid of their firearms.

The cause of safe gun storage became dear to him, he said, after he and his wife Julia St. Petery, MD, also a pediatrician, attended the funeral early in their careers of a 2-year-old child who was shot by a 5-year-old sibling with a handgun plucked from their parents' bedside drawer.

"It impressed me for life," Dr. St. Petery said about the shooting. "I thought to myself, 'This is an issue I have to pay attention to.' "

The NRA also acknowledges the need to teach people about storing and handling firearms, but contends that this job belongs to parents and private groups like itself. It claims that "voluntary firearms safety training, not government intrusion," is responsible for a dramatic decrease in firearm accidents. According to the NRA, the rate of accidental deaths related to firearms has declined 94% since an all-time high in 1904, whereas the annual number of these accidents has decreased by 80% since 1930.

The new Florida law, Hammer said, does not completely silence physicians on the subject of gun ownership. The "relevance" exception could come into play when physicians fear, for example, that a depressed person may be a danger to himself or others. In addition, the law leaves physicians free to distribute brochures on gun safety and any other public health issue to all their patients, without asking any questions.

The physicians who sued in federal court to overturn the law find little benefit in these prerogatives. Again, they argue that the relevance exception is too vague to give them any assurance that they obeying the law. They also consider it bad medicine to give gun safety advice to every patient without asking questions to personalize their care.

"Such counseling, to be effective, requires a back-and-forth between patient and practitioner," their suit states. "Healthcare practitioners are not effective when they simply lecture their patients or hand them a pamphlet."

Medscape Medical News © 2011 WebMD, LLC

Mars

Bye the way - in Victoria, Australia - having a longarm licence would mean the police consider you a person of good character, with no diagnosed mental illness or other impairment. This is a distinction that not many of the population have . Only competition shooters can apply for a handgun permit, even though the person may never have handled a handgun in his life. Replica handguns are treated as real handguns under the law.

Our Doctor's rarely ask questions about gun ownership

[So Well]

I wonder if his gun collection was detailed for the world to see?

Medical dossiers spilled onto Internet, exposing intimate details; shows digital records risk

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Until recently, medical files belonging to nearly 300,000 Californians sat unsecured on the Internet for the entire world to see.

There were insurance forms, Social Security numbers and doctors' notes. Among the files were summaries that spelled out, in painstaking detail, a trucker's crushed fingers, a maintenance worker's broken ribs and one man's bout with sexual dysfunction.

Article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 2032.story

[mars]

Hi All

And the latest on this contentious subject is at Medscape News -

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749 ... &src=nldne

and the large print version is below -

Judge Blocks Florida 'Gag Law' on Physicians’ Gun Questions

by Robert Lowes

September 14, 2011 — A federal judge in Miami, Florida, today issued a preliminary injunction against a Florida law that prohibits physicians from asking patients if they own a gun, saying that it infringes on their constitutional right to free speech.

The Florida law, enacted earlier this year, bans inquiries regarding firearms ownership, recording the answers in a patient's chart, "unnecessarily harassing" gun owners, or turning away patients who refuse to answer gun questions. There is an exception for questions about firearms if a clinician believes "that this information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others." However, critics say physicians are afraid of claiming this exception because the criteria for relevance are not spelled out.

Medical societies in Florida that challenged the law in federal court counter that they are obliged to broach the subject of guns so they can counsel patients about safe-storage practices and prevent accidental shootings, especially of children. The American Medical Association had supported the Florida physicians in their lawsuit.

In her ruling today, which blocks enforcement of the Florida statute, US District Court Judge Marcia Cooke wrote that the case "concerns one of our Constitution's most precious rights — the freedom of speech." Cooke stated that Florida physicians were "self-censoring themselves" out of fear that they would be disciplined for supposedly violating the law.

"Plaintiffs’ injury," she wrote, "is their chilled free speech."

The National Rifle Association (NRA) had lobbied on behalf of the law, which it deems a defense of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. It views an antigun agenda behind firearm questions from physicians and claims some have harassed gun owners and dropped at least one as a patient.

Cooke, however, ruled that the litigation before her did not involve the Second Amendment because physician questions and statements about gun ownership do not interfere with anyone owning firearms. She also noted that the state legislature had relied heavily on anecdotal information about gun conversations between physicians and patients as opposed to "studies, research, and statistics."

Medscape Medical News contacted the NRA and asked to speak to Marion Hammer, the group's lobbyist in Florida, about the judge's ruling. An NRA spokesperson said Hammer would issue a comment once she had finished studying the decision.

The Florida medical societies and individual physicians who had sued the state in federal court over the law applauded Cooke's ruling.

"Pediatricians simply want to do what they do best: Protect children," said Lisa Cosgrove, MD, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a press release. "We hope that now we will be able to get back to working with parents to maintain their guns, pools and poisons to keep kids safe."

"Reversing this law is essential in order to preserve the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship by keeping the government out of the exam room," added Stuart Himmelstein, MD, a governor of the Florida chapter of the American College of Physicians.

Medscape Medical News © 2011 WebMD, LLC

Mars

[ozze_dollar]

If you dont want them to know you have a gun you say ....NO.
If you dont have a gun but you want them to think you do say....YES.
I would not be comfortable telling people about my guns. People might steal them.

[Goofproof]

If you dont want them to know you have a gun you say ....NO.
If you dont have a gun but you want them to think you do say....YES.
I would not be comfortable telling people about my guns. People might steal them.

As Dr. House says, everyone lies! Jim

I'd hate for anyone to steal mine, it would go off and I'd have another mess to clean up. Jim

[Kody]

I would have told them, why no it was taken away after I shot my last Dr.

[Cuda]

Doctors should be able to ask if they want to, its no more the business of the government to tell doctors they cant ask as to tell them they must ask. They should have nothing to do with it. You can choose not to answer, you can lie or just accept they are asking to better serve you as a doctor. Its a form question you do not have to answer.

[remstarcpap]

At the risk of wading into a political battle, as a mental health specialist, I think it's actually a health issue. And doctors should ask about it. The mere presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of successful suicide by anywhere from 4 times to 8 times depending on the study and the sex of the people committing suicide. And 24% of all suicides are impulsive acts, with less than 5 minutes between the decision and the act. Your doctor asks you if you smoke or drink heavily, and whether you eat a lot of cholesterol, so why not ask about guns? It's not a plot to take away your guns---it's an attempt to know enough about you so that they can take care of your physical and mental health. See this article for more on this issue:http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923

[archangle]

The mere presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of successful suicide by anywhere from 4 times to 8 times depending on the study and the sex of the people committing suicide. And 24% of all suicides are impulsive acts, with less than 5 minutes between the decision and the act. It's not a plot to take away your guns---it's an attempt to know enough about you so that they can take care of your physical and mental health.

So, if the doctor knows someone owns a gun, how does that stop the gun owner from deciding to kill himself in the 5 minutes between decision and act?

1) The doctor somehow gets the gun taken away from the gun owner.

2) The doctor decides to confine the patient to a mental institution because of his mental condition, but he wouldn't have confined the patient if he wasn't a gun owner. Remember, you're claiming that the doctor's knowledge of the gun makes the difference between suicide or life.

3) The fact that the doctor knows the patient has a gun somehow allows the doctor to more effectively treat the patient than he would have without this knowledge. Do you put gun owners on anti-depressants more quickly than non-gun owners? Do you have a little mental or written scorecard where "gun owner" adds to the "needs help" score?

Exactly how else does the doctor knowing about the gun prevent the suicide?

Doesn't it all boil down to taking the gun away or treating the patient as a nut job because he has a gun?

[davelikesbeer]

Do they ask if you have a pool? Children are more at risk from drowning in pools than gunshots.

[Carl LaFong]

My doc has a gun rack in the cab of his pickup. Nuff said.

[chunkyfrog]

......when they pry my cold, dead fingers......