One wonders if trauma Docs muse over such things when they are working on victims of an armed robbery, rape or violent home invasion. I think of the Doctor in Connecticut whose family was slaughtered by two ex-felons, and wonder if the idea of having a gun to protect the family might not be such a bad idea after all...

What the heck does the NE journal of medicine have to do with Constitutional firearms rights??

“...In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death...”

Funny, in places that already have “liberal” licensing and carry laws the incidents of violent crime are much lower.

Hmmm, I wonder why that is?

-DT

If there is a widespread loosening of gun regulations, we will learn over the next few years — in a before-and-after experiment — whether the laws we had in place had a significant impact in mitigating death and injury from handguns.

We already had that "experiment" when nearly 40 states eased restrictions on carrying firearms and no matter what the Brady Bunch tells you, it HAS NOT INCREASED CRIMES.

Other than the second ammendment guaranteeing their first ammendment right to speak freely, nothing.

-DT

Ha! Good one. back during the Co-Presidency guns were looked at as a public health problem, so NEJM, AMA, and others got into the fray with loads of studies and articles.

The “you are 40 times more likely to be shot with your own gun” study was among these.

Now in desperation the antis are pulling out all the stops lest people get the idea that choice includes choice in self defense, not just in babies.

Funny, in places that already have “liberal” licensing and carry laws the incidents of violent crime are much lower.

Also, funny that the places which have the tighest licensing and carry laws have violent crime rates which are much higher than those with "liberal" licensing.

Exactly!

Look to Philthydelphia, D.C., Chicago, or Detroit for real world examples.

-DT

...whether the laws we had in place had a significant impact in mitigating death and injury from handguns. In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death.

Of course handgun deaths are going to go up. So what? The number of deaths is what is the key. Men usually choose guns to commit suicide with, women usually pills or something. Will men not commit suicide because handguns aren't available? Any respectable publication should understand the concept of composition fallacy. In their non-political studies they wouldn't consider facing this kind of peer review with such bs arguments.

Oh yeah xDGx. Don't change the title of an article you publish. Use brackets or something to indicate your alterations to a title. Accuracy is a big deal here on FR.

In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death...

This may very well turn out to be true. The HUGE caveat here though is that those injured and killed will be criminal predators rather than innocent victims. But I guess to your average libtard, we are all guilty of something so I wouldn't expect them to see the distinction.

“What the heck does the NE journal of medicine have to do with Constitutional firearms rights??”

They have been anti gun since at least the early 90’s.

So I wonder how they feel about the mass deaths due to misdiagnosis, medical misadventure, and wrongly prescribed drugs?

The stats on doctor’s negligent deaths reach into the 100,000’s...

“...The HUGE caveat here though is that those injured and killed will be criminal predators rather than innocent victims...”

Thus making it a net gain. Works for me.

-DT

“...The stats on doctor’s negligent deaths reach into the 100,000’s...”

Which, if I’m not mistaken is about 7 times the homicide rate.

Maybe we need to take another look at doctors access to dangerous drugs.

The stats on doctor’s negligent deaths reach into the 100,000’s...

Yep I calculated it one time, maybe I can dig up the figures, but it seems like it came out that you are statistically around 9,000 time more likely to die from inept doctors as you are from being shot

In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death...

Putting aside liberal "research" and "logic" for a moment, this sound much like the squeals of "piles of bodies" and rivers of blood in the streets" when many states moved from "may" issue to "shall" issue regulations for concealed carry permits.

Of course all of the liberal fears were proven unfounded, but that merely makes the screaming liberal mind all the more fearful.

Bunch of liberal idealogues. The “jury” has been back for yeras, with the data collected from the states that passed CCW and saw crime rates DROP.

thanks for the title edit mods :)

Since when do liberals worry about sociological experimentation. Feminism, gay marriage, animal rights, outlawing corporal punishment at home and school, ridiculing religion, denigrating traditional marriage and family, multiculturalism, gays in the military, etc. All of their radical changes have irreversibly damaged society.

From opensecrets.org, one of the author’s donations:

Morrissey, Stephen
Brookline,MA Massachusetts Medical Society 8/6/04 $500 Kerry, John (D)

I didn’t try the other two. but you get the point.

And doctors cause about 9,000 times the accidental deaths that guns do. Whatever shall we do with these dangerous carbon-based threats to our safety?

You absolutely nailed it. What a clear case of composition fallacy. As you say:

“Of course handgun deaths are going to go up. So what? The number of deaths is what is the key. Men usually choose guns to commit suicide with, women usually pills or something. Will men not commit suicide because handguns aren’t available? Any respectable publication should understand the concept of composition fallacy. In their non-political studies they wouldn’t consider facing this kind of peer review with such bs arguments.”

There argument is based on a trueism, the more handguns, very likely more accidents and suicides with handguns. But, so what? People in a free society get to make choices.
even if others think they are risky.

But the question even fails the “pragmatic” test, because it doesn’t consider that there is very likely a large amount of substitution. It is the *total* amount of suicides or accidents that should matter to a nanny stater, not whether they go up or down from one particular cause.

I suspect that if you look at the timing carefully in the study below, that they also cherry picked the times to make their study fulfill their expectations. There has been a lot of that with D.C. “studies”. It is highly suspicious that they choose the dates from 1968 to 1987. That is 8 years before the ban and 11 years after the ban. Why the weird time frame, unless to skew the results?

“For example, a careful study4 demonstrated that the 1976 restrictive handgun law in the District of Columbia, which was the focus of the Heller case, resulted in an immediate decline of approximately 25% in homicides and suicides by firearms, but there was no such decline in adjacent areas that did not have restrictive laws.”

In Boston, innocents are shot at Quincy Market in the daytime.
Children and adults are shot all over Boston and almost NONE
of the perps are arrested.

The Doc obviously just wants more victims for their already
overfilled ERs, laden with Crimmigrants and vics.

Boston has crime. Who knew? I thought it was paradise up there.

In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death...

Based on this flawed reasoning DC, Chicago, and San Francisco should currently have low incidents of gun violence since they have strict gun control measures in place now. But these good doctors shouldn't worry themselves too much since these cities will continue to obstruct law abiding citizens from using guns to protect themselves. Meanwhile the criminals are plea bargained and paroled back onto the streets to find more victims.

What the heck does the NE journal of medicine have to do with Constitutional firearms rights??

As one of the NE citizens, I will just say..........It's NE, the socialist states of America. Universal healthcare gives them the right to say anything they want. Nuff said.

Do they have carry in MA?

Help me understand something...

If liberals are not having babies then why does NE keep getting WORSE?

“What the heck does the NE journal of medicine have to do with Constitutional firearms rights??”

Every human activity - food, drink, recreation, transportation, guns, lifestyle, etc., has some impact on your health. That’s why any thinking person is against government-provided health care. It will give them the excuse to regulate everything you do.

Also gives them justification (or so they think) to grill the kiddies who come to see them for a physical, about whether or not Mommy and Daddy have guns at home, which they have done.

The Supreme Court has launched the country on a risky epidemiologic experiment.

Sorry Doc. That "experiment" was launched over 200 years ago. The Supreme Court just reaffirmed it.

Nice try though.

A. Some of them do. and B. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL INDOCRINATION CENTER. Of course we cannot discount, in MA anyway, the corrupt political climate. All liberal all the time. Anytime an activist group has a cause they want to propel, they start in MA. Sad really, the birthplace of the Revolution has become a communist mecca. Neighboring states are only very marginally better.

I have heard that the AMA encourages doctors to find out if their patients own firearms and enter this information into their medical records.

I can’t source that, so if someone else can, please do so.

“The stats on doctor’s negligent deaths reach into the 100,000’s...”

Why do you think that limitations on malpractice awards are so popular.

we will learn over the next few years — in a before-and-after experiment — whether the laws we had in place had a significant impact in mitigating death and injury from handguns.

Do these stupid b@$t@rds not realize that we ALREADY HAVE the before and after experiment with DC, San Francisco and Chicago? The gun bans are a TOTAL failure. God what morons. I'm glad none of these idiots are my personal physician.

On another note, all you whiny liberals out there: CRAM IT!!! All your whining and crying and editorializing doesn't matter. The Supreme Beings have spoken. Don't like being dictated to by 5 men in black robes? Neither do we on the right. That's why judicial activism is an evil that we cannot tolerate in this country. Cry me a river. You lost. Get over it.

My comments are not, of course, directed to you, xDGx.

Frakkin' politically correct BS. They don't know what they're talkin' about! You have a better chance of drowning in your own bathtub than you do of getting killed by your own gun. Yet the trauma docs aren't calling for a bathtub ban!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

then why, doctors, do the cities with the strictest gun laws have the highest rates of gun violence? could it be the people and not the guns?

“...research has shown and logic would dictate...”

Ya gotta love these guys.

I wonder if they tried that tack when asking for dates in high school?

(They didn’t date much.)

If the New England Journal of Medicine insists on commenting on gun issues they know nothing about the NRA should put a column on Medical malpractice in the American Rifleman.

Strange as is may seem, this journal has been engaged in an anti-Second Amendment vendetta for years.

Medical malpractice kills nearly 195,000 people each year. Firearms are cited to kill around 45,000. That makes doctors 5 times more dangerous. The medical profession needs to clean up its own house before attacking a Constitutionally protected right. Read more here.

"In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death...

Your Opinion is faulty, your logic is flawed, and research does NOT show gun ownership results in higher injury and death. In fact research shows gun laws do not prevent gun crime at all, it increases. Criminals do not follow the law. They are more brazen knowing their victims aren't armed and can't defend themselves.

This is 5 years old and I still see it quoted:

My one-year-old’s doctor mentioned this, not specifically to ask about firearms, but to mention that firearms should be locked up in a safe. No problem with that...one of my best friends was crippled as a child from the use (my another yound child handling a loaded revolver).

One of the books I read on handling newborn babies had a blurb on how “in the opinion of the panel/author/committee/something” guns should not be present in the home of a newborn. I don’t think that book was an appropriate venue for such a political statement.

When I was about seven years old, my dad showed me the revolver he had in his nightstand, with the strict directive never to touch it. Maybe it was “him”, maybe it was the times, but I didn’t consider it as “forbidden, so therefore I should pick it up”. I just did what my dad told me. He was serious, not at all like a 30 year old child.

I’d offer this up for consideration...in a society where firearms are evil/verboten/etc....we don’t see them...we don’t handle them, they are unknown to many of us. (Not “us”, but you get my point). Lack of familiarity, lack of skill with them, could increase the likelihood that accidents occur that involve them.

"Boston has crime. Who knew? I thought it was paradise up there."

Boston? My wife often joked that, whenever I went to Boston, I made sure to stay well away from the water -- because I carried so much "ballast"... '-}

(FWIW, my MA LTC was marked, "For all lawful purposes.")

I want my personal Gestapo of my Mind to search these doctors’ houses immediately. I want to make sure they have no violent means of resistance, in case some robber might get hurt.

bump

Do they have carry in MA?

Are you kidding? Handguns are damn near outlawed. Having an unlicensed handgun carries a MANDATORY one year prison sentence.

Statistics and studies abound on both sides of the issue. They all seem flawed in some way, or at least logically questionable, such as in this instance which claims:

“For example, a careful study demonstrated that the 1976 restrictive handgun law in the District of Columbia, which was the focus of the Heller case, resulted in an immediate decline of approximately 25% in homicides and suicides by firearms, but there was no such decline in adjacent areas that did not have restrictive laws.”

However, one has to wonder how many of these additional homicides were homeowners blowing away intruders with their newly-acquired house guns. Studies usually include these self-protection incidents as “homicides.”

Similarly, I suspect a lot of suicides started using their new handgun instead of a less-preferred instrument.

Let’s just stick to tradition and get past this whole argument:

“Right now, someone out there is preparing to invade someone’s home. You should prepare also, in the event that that home is yours.”
— Anonymous

and

“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...”
— Samuel Adams

and

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms....disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
— Thomas Jefferson

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