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While one can certainly make the claim that gang violence or domestic violence is a public health issue, I find it hard to believe that placing oneself as a proponent for a form for legal policy regarding gun ownership is reasonable for a physician to do.
Unfortunately most of the physicians involved in the Docs4GunControl have demonstrated very little knowledge in either firearms or the current laws and regulations surrounding them. Using your title as a physician to grandstand is bad enough, using it to grandstand about a subject you are ignorant of is inexcusable.
If these physicians wish to weigh in on the gun control debate as private citizens, I absolutely support their decision to do so. To use the title of "doctor"to convince people you are somehow an authority on a subject with minimal relationship to medicine is inappropriate, and makes the rest of us look bad.
The fact is, gun owners, hunters, and target shooters are patients as well and using our credentials to attack them on subject that they actually know better than we serves only to alienate and increase distrust of the medical community. Our job is to be moral and ethical in our approach with patients and public health, to educate and inform the population, not to manipulate and deceive to change policy to suit our personal beliefs.
I actually do know something about firearms and hunting, and I find myself cringing every time I see a post or a media clip. Believe and a...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.References
- Matthew B. Stanbrook. Gun control: a health issue for which physicians rightfully advocate. CMAJ 2019;191:E434-E435.
- Page navigation anchor for RE: Gun controlRE: Gun control
Dr. Stanbrook's editorial comes across as a bit of a petulant rant, and in that respect is as bad as the actions of the "Canadian gun lobby". It's full of manipulative but questionable analogies, but short on facts. I'm sure he is aware that in the case of the Danforth shooting, the weapon involved was a handgun originating in the US, and of course, completely illegal in Canada under existing law. It goes without saying that stricter gun control would have made absolutely no difference to that event, so it strikes me as emotional manipulation to include it in the argument.
If there is a public heath crisis here it is inadequate resources for mental health treatment in Canada. This applies to the perpetrators of these horrendous but rare acts such as Danforth, and also to the many who choose to end their lives with a gun due to mental illness.
Would tougher gun control laws change this? I doubt it. What it would do is punish the 2 million legal gun owners in Canada who would never dream of harming another person.
Dr. Stanbrook suggests that physicians are well equipped to analyze information and come to sensible conclusions. If that is correct the first thing we need to do before drawing any conclusions about the adequacy of gun control is to be familiar with the current law. I invite anyone with an interest to read the Firearms Act. It's 70 pages long, but each page is English and French, so unless you want to read...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for RE: Gun Control facts being obscuredRE: Gun Control facts being obscured
Firstly Dr. Najma Ahmed and her group recently launched an aggressive, coordinated attack on Restricted gun owners blaming them for deaths caused by gangs and unlicensed gun owners. Until this colleague of a Coalition For Gun Control member decided to leverage the respect Canadian's hold for our health professionals to call for the confiscation up to a billion dollars of legal, responsibly used property Canadian gun owners could not care if individual doctors lobbied for tighter laws. Some of the information she uses is wrong, the Canadian Coalition For Firearms Rights reached out to her and her group to educate them on the restrictions already in place and the misinformation used in some reports, they were rebuffed and blocked . Some things in your article here are not quite correct , the thought that there could be innocent deaths when police come to collect guns that have been banned and not turned in .. why would the police NOT send a SWAT team to a non compliant gun owners house .... they know he has guns and has not obeyed the law . These gun owners may just be waiting for the winds of change and not be all forted up for a standoff and so children and guests may be in the house when police break down the door. You have a misconception regarding Bill C 71 , it has nothing to do with the Danforth shooter ... the Liberal Party campaigned with it as plank in their platform in 2015.Also New Zealand's gun laws were not terribly weaker then Canada's are. I s...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: Ordinary PAL holder and CFFR supporter - Page navigation anchor for Gun Control: a health issue, a legal issue or bothGun Control: a health issue, a legal issue or both
I have followed the gun control debate in the US for a couple of years and now the current physician-gun lobbyist confrontation here in Canada . All those who have been debating this issue are in agreement in their wish to prevent gunshot injuries. No one is pro-gunshot injuries.
Those trying to demonize those who disagree with them do the debate itself a great disservice. Except for some fanatics, everyone would agree that weaponizing the College of Physicians and Surgeons against Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns was innaproptiate wrong. BY the same token the inflammatory comment in this editorial that “the gun lobby has been good at hindering both production and discourse of evidence linking guns and health,” serves to lower the discourse of the gun control debate making logical discussion and ultimate agreement on some solutions less likely. I agree that “no one should be marginalized or silenced from engaging in reasonable debate about where the line should best be drawn between public health and safety and individual choices,” and that should also include those that disagree with Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns solutions.
Some physicians are experts on the EFFECTS OF GUNSHOTS on the human body and their treatment. There is nothing intrinsic in physician experience or training that makes physicians experts on GUN CONTROL POLICY. Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns may or may notl be absolutely correct in their goals and metho...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for RE: Your gun control article.RE: Your gun control article.
We feel rather the same way about preventable medical mistakes... And since they kill, and injure far more people than firearms do, perhaps focus would be better shifted to the much larger problem of reducing the number of preventable medical mistakes... After all, since medical practitioners seem to love saving people so much, the least we should expect is a dramatic reduction in their own contributions to unnecessary death, and injury... Should we not?
Competing Interests: None declared.