Lawyers for Lawlessness, Doctors for Death

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By David Codrea, February 27th 2015
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.

Say you were starting to notice it getting harder to shift from “Park” to other gears, and there was also a faint rattling and whirring noise coming from under the hood at intermediate speeds that you don’t recall hearing before. If you wanted to ask a professional for advice, and maybe have your car inspected, who better to take it to than a “progressive” doctor for the first issue, and a “liberal” lawyer for the second? No?

Come on, these guys are professionals. Chances are they’re a lot better educated than you are. I’ll bet they make a lot more money than most of you do, too.

Still “no”? Even the ones with specialist certifications and professional society accolades?

So just because they have expert credentials – even impressive ones – in some areas, that does not make them authorities in all? Even if they act like they are?

That’s what’s going on with eight health organizations, notably the American College of Physicians, joining with the American Bar Association to demand more “gun control” in a “Call to Action” published earlier this week. Assuming you probably won’t have time to read the whole thing – and besides, what could be more fun than wading through technical journals (with the possible exception of driving spikes through your skull)? – the ACP has provided us with a handy overview of what it is they’re plotting.

Among the ways the “professionals” recommend “to reduce firearm-related injuries and death:

Support criminal background checks for all firearm purchases, including sales by gun dealers, sales at gun shows, and private sales from one person to another;
Oppose state and federal mandates that interfere with physician free speech and the patient-physician relationship, including physician "gag laws" that forbid physicians to discuss a patient's gun ownership;
Oppose the sale or ownership of "assault weapons" and large-capacity magazines for private citizens;
and Advocate for research into the causes and consequences of firearm violence and unintentional injuries so that evidence-based policies may be developed.

If I may:

No less a source than the Department of Justice says “Effectiveness [of background checks] depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration,” and we all know where that leads.
There’s this little matter of boundary violations, along with physician qualifications, not to mention assuming liability should patients listen to unqualified advice and end up with increased injuries and death.
I guess we could start reviewing numbers, or recalling the testimony of Deputy Chief of Police Joseph Constance of Trenton, NJ, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee in Aug 1993 “[M]y officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets.” We could, but in this case, I think the preferred response actually comes from another “doctor”.
You guys had your shot at that. Like gluttons at an all-you-can-eat buffet that somebody else paid for, unable to control yourselves, you blew it. Now we’re supposed to let you back in, when we see you’ve only doubled down on your appetite for our freedom?

Imagine that. These experts become fallible and even dead wrong once they deviate from their fields of specialty. That can be a real “Behold a god who bleeds!” realization for some.

So these quacks and sharks are interested in reducing injuries and deaths? They ought to start with the Number One Cause, instead of escalating tensions between those demanding freedom be surrendered to a monopoly of violence and those who, if forced to choose between obedience or resistance, will not go gentle into that good night.

Now that we’ve got that settled, the backup battery to the sump pump in the basement has been setting off an alarm every 24 hours or so, requiring me to push a reset button so it will start charging again. There’s gotta be a politically-motivated physician or attorney somewhere who can help me with that...

David Codrea is a field editor at GUNS Magazine, penning their monthly "Rights Watch" column. He provides regular reporting and commentary at Gun Rights Examiner and blogs at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. David Codrea's Archive page.