But according to Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a pro-firearms medical organization that “values the foundational tradition of firearm ownership in the lives of Americans,” you are under no obligation to tell your doctor anything about guns in your home — what kind, how they are kept, where they are kept, whether they are locked, etc.
“It’s no accident that doctors’ or health plans’ questions about guns in your home have become routine. In the 1980s and 1990s medical professional organizations declared a culture war on gun ownership in America,” DRGO says on the group’s website.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) developed an official policy (2012 version here) urging pediatricians to probe their young patients’ parents about guns in their homes,” the group continues.
“Claiming only to be concerned about ‘gun safety’, the latest code term for gun control, the AAP pushed its member doctors to advise families to get rid of their guns. One of the authors of the original AAP anti-gun policy, Dr. Katherine Christoffel, was quoted in an AMA journal as saying, ‘Guns are a virus that must be eradicated,’” the organization noted further.
The AMA — the American Medical Association — as well as the American College of Physicians (ACP) both have mounted public relations campaigns aimed at subverting gun ownership and turning it into something that patients and their families ought to be ashamed of or consider a public health issue. The aim is the same as every other Leftist effort regarding guns: To convince you that you must, not should, get rid of all guns in your home — as a way of improving your own health and safety, of course.
Gun ownership is a civil right — and YOUR business
As far back as 2016, the AMA issued a statement calling gun violence “a public health crisis,” citing the high-profile but nevertheless extremely rare instances of mass shootings. The group said in a statement:
In the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history and with more than 6,000 deaths already in 2016 from gun violence, the American Medical Association (AMA) today adopted policy calling gun violence in the United States "a public health crisis" requiring a comprehensive public health response and solution.
What are the responses and ‘solutions’ the AMA called for? Government regulation, of course. Gun control.
The AMA “recognizes that uncontrolled ownership and use of firearms, especially handguns, is a serious threat to the public’s health inasmuch as the weapons are one of the main causes of intentional and unintentional injuries and deaths,” the group says. The AMA has called for waiting periods before allowing anyone to purchase guns as well as universal background checks. (Related: States quietly giving judges the power to confiscate guns without due process.)
As for informing doctors about your guns, the DRGO says you don’t have to — and you shouldn’t. Here’s why:
— Doctors don’t have any specialized firearms training regarding the safety, mechanics, or tactics surrounding their use, so they’re not ‘experts.’
— Owning a gun is a “civil right,” and a constitutionally protected civil right, at that. Pressuring patients to give up a civil right “is professionally and morally wrong,” DRGO explains, and “in some states it is illegal. You DO NOT have to tolerate it.”
— As a consumer of healthcare, you “have great power in the doctor-patient relationship,” the group says. “Do not be afraid to use it.”
If you’re asked about guns by your doctor, politely refuse to answer questions about them. You can also file a formal written complaint about any gun ownership questions on your health plan’s routine health assessment. Next step: File a formal complaint with the state agency that regulates health plans.
There are lots of other ways to resist. See them all here.
Read more about your rights as a gun owner under the Second Amendment at Guns.news and SecondAmendment.news.
Sources include:
Please contact us for more information.
