Firearms - The new health threat.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

It's not illogical that people who work in health care are concerned about firearm related health issues -- you have to remember that these people are on the bloody end of every gang shooting and negligent discharge.

From a wellness point of view, firearms are a detriment- it's just pure logic. If you point of view is that anything that causes harm is "bad" (and all physicians are honor-bound to "do no harm") than firearms are thusly bad, because their stated purpose is to do harm (yes, we use them for hunting/sport/etc, but their original intent was for military use) .

I don't exactly agree with this line of thinking, but I can at least understand it.

 

[tinygnat219]

View from the Other Side

You have to take a look at what a Trauma nurse actually sees. I have a friend who is an ER nurse. She sees lots of Gunshot wounds coming in and has seen first hand the damage they do to people. My guess is it kind of wears on you after a while. I can't say I blame the nurse profession for hating handguns. Not that I agree mind you, I can just kind of see where they are coming from.

TJ

 

[real_name]

But tinygnat, if that logic was followed then Trauma Nurses would dislike cars and hospitals equally as much as guns, if not more.
The bottom line is, gun phobia is irrational. It would be rational if there was only one gun in the world and it was solely responsible for single handedly killing all the victims of firearm fatalities unaided, but in the real world there are other factors, and the cliche abides. Guns don't kill people, gangsters kill people.

 

[wacki]

The SAF was on the ground first after Katrina.

????? Explain please.

 

[XavierBreath]

????? Explain please

Before the NRA voiced a position on the New Orleans gun confiscations, the SAF was collecting testimony. It has been the SAF that was instrumental in forcing New Orleans to admit to the confiscations, and it is the SAF who continues to fight for the return of those guns.

Here is a link. I do not understand why you ask these questions wacki. Visit the SAF website, read a bit, and decide if you want to contribute. If you do not, it's no skin off my nose.

Perhaps I should ask you why not the SAF?

 

[thexrayboy]

It's not illogical that people who work in health care are concerned about firearm related health issues -- you have to remember that these people are on the bloody end of every gang shooting and negligent discharge.

Of course we are concerned and affected by the above...we are also concerned and affected by drunk drivers, kids who don't wear helmets, drownings, drug abuse, tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse.....need I go on. Most rational healthcare workers are concerned about the symphony of abuses that is woven into the lives of many socioeconomic classes. Gun violence is just a single score in that tune. A few really vocal and politically agendized
members of healthcare use their positions to espouse anti 2A postions.


The people who are in high level postions in various professional societies and other venues tend to gravitate to that type of employment for a reason. They like being in charge of something. That mindset tends to lend itself very
well to wanting to be in charge of other things, such as telling people they can't have guns because "guns are bad and dangerous" Most rank and file members of healthcare live in the real world. And as such we usually share more realistic views of life. The same could be said for most teachers vs Education administrators or street cops having different views about guns than the Police Chief or Commissioner posing for a camera.

It's a bit of the tail wagging the dog phenomena. When you see a dog if his tail is wagging vigorously you notice it immediately even though it makes up not even 10% of the dog. Human tendency is to notice that which seeks to be noticed.
High level mucky mucks in all walks of life seek notice. Thats why we know what they think believe and want. The error is when we assume they are speaking for a majority when in fact they do not.

 

[telomerase]

From a wellness point of view, firearms are a detriment- it's just pure logic. If you point of view is that anything that causes harm is "bad" (and all physicians are honor-bound to "do no harm") than firearms are thusly bad, because their stated purpose is to do harm (yes, we use them for hunting/sport/etc, but their original intent was for military use) .

Right. And since scalpels intrinsically cause harm, they may never be used by doctors (I think this actually may have been the original point of the Oath to "do no harm", since pre-technology surgeons were pretty bad).

I work at a certain large medical institution in Rochester MN... that has unarmed "guards" and big signs that ban MN concealed-carry holders. VIPs have their own bodyguards, presumably with their own illegal weapons. Everyone else is about as defenseless as they are in the airport... which is pretty weird in a town where half the women hunt deer or geese, let alone the men.

 

[wacki]

Perhaps I should ask you why not the SAF?

Membership costs money? The more I am impressed by them the more I am likely to donate.

 

[SomeKid]

Second Semester

So, here I am, in my second semester. Wouldn't it be great if the propaganda was passed? It sure would, but pipe dreams are still dreams.

Guns haven't been mentioned too much, with one exception. Mental Health Nursing. The teacher herself stays pretty neutral, but the book sure has bias issues.

Suicide was when they first started bringing up guns.

"The presence of a gun in the house, as for younger individuals, poses a significant threat for suicide in the elderly as well." (Frisch & Frisch, Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, Third Ed. 2006 p340)

That is right all you dirty fellow gun owners. The sheer presence of a dreaded gun poses a significant threat that may cause you to commit suicide. Them guns CAUSE suicide.

Same paragraph, further on:

"These data emphasize the importance of screening for both suicidal ideation and firearms presence among elderly clients." (Frisch & Frisch, Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, Third Ed. 2006 p340)

Yes, we must screen for firearms presence the same way we screen for suicidal thoughts. After all, guns cause suicide. I cannot believe I am expected to learn from these...people. Yet, there is MORE!

In a 'Reflective Thinking' box, they talk about this:

Gun control as Primary Prevention of Suicide

What a lovely headline. (For those who may not understand the real significance of that, primary prevention is like preventative maintenance, applied to the whole population regardless of risk factors. Example: giving blood pressure checks, and now; gun ownership.) IOW, they are saying gun control as a way of saving lives. We have all heard this one before.) You can guess what the body of that piece was on.

"Guns kept in the home nearly triple the risk of homicide; guns in the home increase the risk of death from assault and the risk of suicide nearly fivefold." (Frisch & Frisch, Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, Third Ed. 2006 p345)

Nothing like an outright lie, eh?

Then of course, they take this quote from someone else (Lancet editors, 1995a) "CDC's support of firearms research "has the gun lobby up in arms"". (Underlines mine, good ole gun lobby reference.)

Then, after all that, and a bit more, they ask us to ask ourselves what our views as a nurse and a citizen are on the role of public policy with regard to primary prevention of suicide by limiting access to firearms.

Very specifically, on p347, it lists Access Control as a primary prevention strategy. Anyone want to guess what the core of this is? It starts off innocuously enough. "Access control focuses on making it harder for people to gain access to lethal means." The rest of that paragraph talks other ways of killing yourself (and, after reading this all, I can add one way to kill yourself: read this book while knowing the truth). Then the second paragraph starts.

"Finally, while the data are challenging by some , much evidence supports the concept that reducing access to guns would significantly decrease prevalence of suicide...Guns are commonly available, highly lethal, and frequently used for suicidal purposes. Many feel that further restrictions on gun availability would likely constitute the strongest primary prevention possible." (Frisch & Frisch, Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, Third Ed. 2006 p347-348)

In other words, more guns bans will save lives! For the sake of not typing a few paragraphs, it goes on to state that gun laws have become polarized (shocker there) and we probably won't see many changes there. It then states: "This is particularly unfortunate from a public health point of view since data suggest gun control would reduce homicide rates as well."

What a crock. Another, possibly greater problem that arises, is that many of my classmates will view this as the unvarnished truth. After all, why would we be using a book that prints falsehoods? If the schools keep brainwashing my generation like this, there is no way we can reverse it all.

"If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth." No idea who coined it, or if I even got it right, but it sure does apply to the here and now regarding 'higher' education. I guess that about wraps up this rant. I can't wait to be out of that stinking class.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

One of the first people I knew of who got a handgun carry
permit was a female Doctor (wife of a co-worker of mine.)

And I hate to have to say it, but some of the people who show
up in ER trauma rooms with gunshots are criminals shot by
other criminals or by armed victims.

 

[SteveS]

Suicide was when they first started bringing up guns.

For several years, I did on-call work for a local hospital. If someone came in that they thought was suicidal, one of us would do an assessment to see if they needed to be admitted. Even though I stopped doing this 5 years ago, I would still get suicidal clients.

At some point in the interview, I would ask about guns. I didn't believe having a gun would make them suicidal, but thought they should consider storing it some where else, temporarily. The same held true for medications. If they lived alone, I'd suggest having them stay with a friend or family member. People that are suicidal can be very impulsive and irrational.

 

[MikePGS]

The only health threat that we should be concerned with in regards to firearms is the amount of lead that enters out bloodstream. I don't mean bullets but rather little bits of lead from shooting at the range. Guns and ammo a few months ago (maybe two?) had a pretty good article on this, and i'm sure if you do a quick search online you could find information about it.

 

[SomeKid]

Third Semester

I am resurrecting my thread again, ah the chronicles of being a student in an anti-gun major, in an anti-gun setting. (For anyone who doesn't like thread resurrections, in this case I think it gives a good contrast of what goes on, shown over time.) Either way, here is the third of five semesters, I wonder what anti-gun crap I get to deal with if I decide to stay around for the fourth?

So here we are, third semester of nursing school. We were force fed some of the same drivel as we were in the first (annual assessment tests to ensure we are still qualified). It was nothing much new, usual questions about what are risk factors for workplace violence? Correct answer: Community with those dirty evil guns.

Of course, the thing that really has stood out so far this semester has been my Maternal/Child instructor. Thats right folks, this semester is Pediatrics!

The instructor was raised in the Bronx, grew up, graduated from some local college, and worked there, then in Chicago for a while. For those not keeping score and who may need a reminder before they guess where this professor stands on things: Female, raised in Bronx, spent early part of life in NYC, then Chicago. Works specifically with kids. I knew sooner or later we would have the lecture we had today.

I knew it was coming, but somehow I had not expected the following quote. "Did you know that if you have a gun in the home, YOU are more likely to be injured if there is a home invasion?" (Quote taken from lecture on things killing children.) "A study was done that shows having a gun in the home makes you less safe." I knew the study. I also knew it was bogus. She prattled on about how keeping ammo separate was a good idea (then commented how that removed the need and purpose for even having a gun for HD), talked about how we don't have waiting periods (a good thing, but I don't think she was praising us for it), and cool-down periods and having a gun accessible if you get mad how it is bad (because you might hurt someone in your passion, too bad we don't have a cooling down period), but I fully admit to not paying her much attention. Kind of hard to learn/listen to someone I have lost all respect for.

On the plus side, I know a good chunk of my classmates thought she was idiot. Even better, I kept my hole shut (barely). While I wanted to ask her if she ever had even so much as fired a gun, or if she was a ware the study she cited earlier was a fraud, having a teacher who can simply write "F" for me as an enemy doesn't really strike me as a wise move. Regardless, only 12 or so more weeks of dealing with the pediatric moonbat. Lord, give me patience.

 

[Odd Job]

Even better, I kept my hole shut (barely).

Best thing you can do.
You aren't going to win any arguments there, not as a student. Sad but true. Walk softly and carry a big stick. Unfortunately you don't get a stick until you are qualified, and even then it is a small one. But keep up the rational thinking and resist assimilation. After a while when you have made your mark you can start turning things around, little by little.
On Sunday I am trying again to 'recruit' hospital staff. I am taking another Superintendent radiographer to the rifle range (his wife and kid will be coming too).