Full 11th Circuit appeals court to consider gun speech law

[Aim1]

Hope we don't lose this one.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/3/full-11th-circuit-appeals-court-to-consider-gun-sp/

Full 11th Circuit appeals court to consider gun speech law

By - Associated Press - Wednesday, February 3, 2016


MIAMI (AP) - A federal appeals court has agreed to reconsider previous rulings that upheld a Florida law restricting what doctors can ask patients about guns.

The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday tossed out the earlier decisions by divided three-judge panels of the same court. The full court agreed to requests by organizations representing some 11,000 medical providers and other groups to rehear arguments about the so-called “Docs vs. Glocks” law.

The three-judge panel had rejected challenges to the law claiming it violates constitutional free speech rights.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I understand what the legislature of Florida was trying to prevent but they are restricting speech here.

Mike

 

[Frank Ettin]

I understand what the legislature of Florida was trying to prevent but they are restricting speech here.

Well, what did the District Court say about that? What did the Eleventh Circuit panel say about that?

What counts is what the courts said. And if you think they should have said something different, why based on the law, not your feelings about things?

 

[gc70]

The case was Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida, 797 F. 3d 859. The 11th Circuit's third opinion (first and second opinions here) ruled that one section of the law regulates professional conduct and three sections of the law regulate protected speech, but "withstands intermediate scrutiny as a permissible restriction of professional speech".

Eugene Volokh provides a different opinion in this article.

 

[barnbwt]

"why based on the law, not your feelings about things?"
Because historically the law has granted respect towards the professional opinions of medical professionals to seek information on topics they feel are pertinent to their patients' health. One of the main reasons we originally had doctor-patient confidentiality, for instance.

Seeing as it may be difficult for a court (rather than doctors) to claim the expertise to definitively rule whether or not guns/gun safety are topics that fall under the concerns of a medical professional (at least in theory, even if we all know that standardized .gov inquiries on the matter are at least as useless as unjustified), it does seem to support the anti-gun side of the argument. The law should have been written to prohibit any record (even by the doctors themselves) of these discussions about firearms unless breaking confidentiality to contact authorities, and limit them to a case-by-case usage rather than a standard inquisition. These are the sorts of things they wanted to avoid, but the approach they used in forbidding speech itself was very ham-fisted and the sort of thing we'd howl about if it were about guns in history classrooms.

TCB

 

[Frank Ettin]

"why based on the law, not your feelings about things?"
Because historically the law has granted respect towards the professional opinions of medical professionals to seek information on topics they feel are pertinent to their patients' health. One of the main reasons we originally had doctor-patient confidentiality, for instance.

Seeing as it may be difficult for a court (rather than doctors) to claim the expertise to definitively rule whether or not guns/gun safety are topics that fall under the concerns of a medical professional (at least in theory, even if we all know that standardized .gov inquiries on the matter are at least as useless as unjustified), it does seem to support the anti-gun side of the argument....

Phooey! All conjecture. Let's see documentation. Let's see evidence.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Folks are continuing to post their personal opinions about whether it's okay or not okay for doctors to ask questions about guns. That topic has been discussed a number of times in other THR Sub-Forums.

But such posts are off-topic for this thread. The topic of this thread is the case, Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida (see post 4) and the legal issues involved.

This thread will be closed if there are any more off-topic posts.