Anyone go for a Physical lately, and get asked to take "the survey". Gun Control

[HOWARD J]

One of my Dr asked me if I carry a gun ( about 5 years ago) I said yes & he wanted to see it.
I took the bullets out & he looked it over.
He wanted to know where he could get one
End of story

 

[Bang!]

Have you ever been to Wyoming?

Mid March on the eastern plains with snow on the ground since October, - 17 degrees, and the wind howling incessantly (24/7) and you could have the entire cast of the Victoria's Secret Fall Catalogue having just taken delivery of a case of bourbon banging on your bedroom door and you'd still be giving serious consideration to ending it all. The fact that anybody makes it to June is a testament to the moral fiber and sheer toughness of the average Wyoman.

Laughed till I couldn't breath. Thanks!

 

[Koolmoose]

The best way to answer any questions about firearms on a medical questionnaire is no. IMHO a blank answer may be interpreted as a yes. Also completing surveys but fibbing (sort of like exit polls) should keep you off the medical and psychiatric radar, at least until the .gov can cross reference medical data with NICS records. Least you think I'm paranoid, let me tell you a story.

In 1977 Jimmy Carter was coming to the city where I worked in mental health. The Secret Service requested approximately 1500 records of severe and persistent mentally ill patients, who had been in the area state hospital. After initial resistance around confidentiality, we were told that the community hospital caved and turned over the records due to threats by the .gov. For the rest of my career I believed corporate medical and psychiatric record confidentiality is a joke. HIPPA is a joke when the .gov becomes involved. The only confidentiality I trusted for my patients were my own records. I either did not keep records or wrote them as if someone would find them on Main St. All my patients were informed of my records policy.

Please be very very careful about your medical records. They can and will be used against you.
Steve

 

[Deanimator]

Please be very very careful about your medical records. They can and will be used against you.

There are a small number of "gun owners" who will tell you that that's just paranoia... sort of like believing that the IRS would be used to illegally advance certain political agendas and suppress disfavored political speech.

You're just supposed to disbbelieve your lying eyes (and the public statements of the perpetrators) and meekly comply.

 

[Dog Soldier]

The Gun Violence Orgs. like using Wyoming as an example of available guns and suicide. Wyoming has the lowest population of any state. Wyoming has more guns per person than any state. Wyoming has the most 2nd Amendment freedoms in the Union. Wyoming is rated the most politically conservative state in the Union.
Most of the suicides occur in Fremont County where there is a high addiction rate and large Reservations. There are in real numbers 110 suicides in the entire state per year. Cook County Illinois with strict gun control has more than that on one week end.

 

[76shuvlinoff]

The just ask me if I feel safe. I answer yes but I don''t tell them why.

 

[OC-Trainer]

The Gun Violence Orgs. like using Wyoming as an example of available guns and suicide. Wyoming has the lowest population of any state. Wyoming has more guns per person than any state. Wyoming has the most 2nd Amendment freedoms in the Union. Wyoming is rated the most politically conservative state in the Union.
Most of the suicides occur in Fremont County where there is a high addiction rate and large Reservations. There are in real numbers 110 suicides in the entire state per year. Cook County Illinois with strict gun control has more than that on one week end.

Oh good, you're back. Perhaps you overlooked my question. Earlier you stated:

Far more people die from prescription medicine than firearms.

Where are you getting your information from? I'm curious to see it.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Carl N. Brown said:
"Three, the CDC advocates of the germ theory of gun violence (guns = the germ) have already decided it is their crusade to generate research to prove to Congress that the "germ" needs to be eradicated to solve the problem, same as the polio virus was eradicated to prevent polio."
Please support this statement. - RX-79G, 1 Dec 2016 1:37 AM

The Anti-Lobbying Act bars agencies under the executive branch from using federal grant money from Congress to lobby Congress on specific legislation. This is described in CDC Grant Additional Requirement 12 Lobbying Restrictions. http://www.cdc.gov/grants/additionalrequirements/ar-12.html
"Applicants should be aware that award recipients are prohibited from using CDC/HHS funds to engage in any lobbying activity. "

Then you have the medical crusaders who feel lobbying against guns is different. They were especially vocal in the Clinton Administration.

Examples of the gun-as-germ and eradication advocacy:

Katherine Christoffel, M.D.: "Guns are a virus that must be eradicated.... Get rid of the guns, get rid of the bullets, and you get rid of the deaths." in Janice Somerville, "Gun Control as Immunization," American Medical News, January 3, 1994, p. 9.

Patrick O'Carroll, Acting Section Head of the Division of Injury Control, Centers for Disease Control: "We’re going to systematically build a case that owning firearms causes deaths. We’re doing the most we can do, given the political realities."

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, CDC's National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, 1994: "We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes.... Now [smoking] is dirty, deadly, and banned."

This meant collecting data with the view of proving an apriori assumption and using it to lobby Congress to act on the assumption. It is taking a public position before starting the research that is not easy to abandon if the data shows different results. It practically guarantees that the research is biased and the data is slanted. This is not the model for scientific method or pure empirical research: gather the data then draw conclusions and recommend course of action. The conclusion was assumed (guns cause violence), the course of action was assumed (eliminate the cause), all they needed was to build the case by researching data to support the assumptions.

This crusading drive led to the need for Additional Requiremnt 13: the Anti-Lobbying Act restrictions of AR-12 were supplemented by CDC Appropriations Act restriction "AR-13: Prohibition on Use of CDC Funds for Certain Gun Control Activities" which states that lobbying for gun control is not an exception to the anti-lobbying act.

This is usually condemned in the media as preventing empirical research on causes of gun violence. It did not prevent empirical research (see the CDC 2003 and NRC 2004 reviews of empirical reseearch on guns, crime and violence). As a restatement of AR12, AR13 prevented using CDC grant money to lobby Congress for gun legislation. It can be read at: http://www.cdc.gov/grants/additionalrequirements/ar-13.html

 

[hdwhit]

I've never had a doctor ask me about my guns or anything gun-related but then most of my doctors have been Osteopaths (D.O. not M.D.) and they are trained a little differently.

I don't think I would fill out a questionnaire with a bunch of leading questions about guns.

 

[Eleanor416Rigby]

Head in the sand? I'll admit that some RKBA folks can be as biased as the Anti's; however, what looks like head in the sand to me on this thread is the insistence that the good doctors are just looking out for their patients and that there is no possible way that there could be any motivations other than pure altruistic doctoring.

 

[RX-79G]

Head in the sand? I'll admit that some RKBA folks can be as biased as the Anti's; however, what looks like head in the sand to me on this thread is the insistence that the good doctors are just looking out for their patients and that there is no possible way that there could be any motivations other than pure altruistic doctoring.

Okay, please spell that out: What is your evil doctor's sinister plan against you, and how is she going to make that happen?

 

[larryh1108]

the insistence that the good doctors are just looking out for their patients and that there is no possible way that there could be any motivations other than pure altruistic doctoring.

We can agree to disagree.

I don't think the good doctors are doing this on their own. I believe they were told to gather this information from the .gov or face losing a ton of $$$ in federal funds. I do not believe they are doing this on their own.

 

[Eleanor416Rigby]

Okay, please spell that out: What is your evil doctor's sinister plan against you, and how is she going to make that happen?

It's spelled out pretty clearly a couple of posts up.

 

[Coop45]

About 84 people commit suicide every day in this country. A firearm is the most common method. I've seen this come up often and think some guys are reading more into this than there is. You're doctor is trying to determine if you are a suicide risk. No more no less.

LOL!! Try going to a new VA shrink. After you convince them you are not suicidal things get better. There was a big turnover locally. Three new ones in a year. Enough to drive you crazy. LOL!

 

[RX-79G]

It's spelled out pretty clearly a couple of posts up.

Only in most abstract way. Doctors, individually or as a group have so little power or influence in the US.

 

[guyfromohio]

I figured it was over a year since my last one, so why not get it done since the Ins. pays for it anyway. The nurse is kind of pleasent and we get along, until she said I was one of the lucky ones selected to take a survey. They know I carry and it never even came up in 5 years that I have used this doctor, only because when you go to a doctors office you sometimes need to empty your pockets, or drop your drawers.
So I took a look at the survey, and it asked a lot of round about questions that could be used, "more likely if Obama or Hillary were in office", to make a list of gun owners over 60. Along with a Psycological evaluation, "in a hidden fashion".
So I asked her if she would take such an evasive test, she said no way. I answered good, because I was just going to tell you I was leaving if that was a precursor to taking a physical.
The stupid part is that they had me down for 3 diseases that I never had, on my record. RA, COPD, and something else.
I was realy pissed off that this stuff was on my medical record, along with drugs I have never even taken or perscribed.
So be careful when you go to see your friendly doctor, because we don't know how friendly he really is.

I'd dig a little to see if your insurance has been billed based on those dx. Fraud is not unheard-of in medicine.

 

[rust collector]

While there is always a search for more data, we have all seen the distortions that come from push polls and studies designed to achieve a specific result (such as the Wyoming statistics mentioned above). There is always much more to the story, but we as a culture have become content to have media and other special interest groups do our thinking and analysis for us. We forget that correlation is not the same as causation. HIPAA and the like do a better job of making folks think health information is protected than protecting it.

I believe the gun inquiry originates with CDC, which is an entity that depends for funding upon politicians and the special interests that have their attention. It's not necessarily a conspiracy, but a half-hearted stab at developing nonscientific data that can be used to make whatever point is desired. I don't think docs have an agenda here, but the data will be mined and defined in a way that has the potential for mischief. Most here will choose not to be involved in silly surveys, but we'll see the results whether valid or not. We're not asking for a household risk assessment, and we're not getting a valid one unless they want to know the vintage of the car we drive, and check out the shower and the stair railings.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Only in most abstract way. Doctors, individually or as a group have so little power or influence in the US.

Not true.

The American Medical Associatuon is the "strongest" (read: "most powerful") trade/labor union in the United States, and possibly the world.

And part of their mission involves lobbying for laws favorable to their interests.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/09/03/the-doctors-union/#1ab6208e2753

https://www.aei.org/publication/american-medical-association-the-strongest-trade-union-in-the-u-s-a/

https://www.ama-assn.org/about/our-vision

https://www1.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/a...ion/about-us/purpose-mission-commitment.page?

 

[larryh1108]

Only in most abstract way. Doctors, individually or as a group have so little power or influence in the US.

I agree with the USN Chief above.
Think about it for a minute, if an anti-gun doctor decides that you pose a risk to yourself or others (real or imagined) then all he has to do is mark your file as such and you can/will lose your rights to own a firearm and I seriously doubt you have much recourse without spending a lot of time and money to "fix" the issue. To me, that is a lot of power wielded by one man.

 

[ontarget]

Some people here drive me crazy. No, your doctor is probably not on the side of the leftists. However, who do you think determines the content of those surveys? And since we are currently under a more or less government controlled health care system what could possibly go wrong?
PLEASE WAKE UP!

 

[RX-79G]

I agree with the USN Chief above.
Think about it for a minute, if an anti-gun doctor decides that you pose a risk to yourself or others (real or imagined) then all he has to do is mark your file as such and you can/will lose your rights to own a firearm and I seriously doubt you have much recourse without spending a lot of time and money to "fix" the issue. To me, that is a lot of power wielded by one man.

Individual doctors certainly don't have that power. You don't know what you're talking about. Even a 72 hour hold is difficult if it isn't supported by family or witnesses, and involuntary commitment requires multiple physicians and a court order.

The AMA has no special influence outside the concerns of its profession, and internally is certainly not of one mind about any political issue.


Doctors in general don't have the time an inclination to attack their patients personal lives. Some medical associations may be anti-gun, but so is AARP. Are we to assume that those over 50 are all anti-gun?

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

No, that's a silly over-generalization.

Of course not all doctors are anti-gun, I think we all realize this.

But the medical profession as a whole, as represented by the AMA, is most definately anti-gun. Whereas doctors as individuals may or may not be anti-gun, their most powerful union IS and as part of their mission, they will lobby for anti-gun measures.

 

[RX-79G]

I am much more concerned about the influence of the many anti-gun police chiefs than the AMA.

 

[larryh1108]

A month after Sandy Hook, this Executive Action was released by the president. You can read it any way you want. So can I. We can see it in different ways but these are the words.

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...-on-the-causes-and-prevention-of-gun-violence

from the EA:

In addition to being a law enforcement challenge, gun violence is also a serious public health issue that affects thousands of individuals, families, and communities across the Nation. Each year in the United States there are approximately 30,000 firearm-related deaths, and approximately 11,000 of those deaths result from homicides. Addressing this critical issue requires a comprehensive, multifaceted approach.

 

[fallout mike]

I've got a strategy I use when I get asked a question that's no one's business. I in turn ask them a question that's none of my business and it's usually something I'm not allowed to put here.