While editorial opinion seemed to be running against the recent 11-District ruling that reinstated Florida's gag law, there were some notable exceptions, chief among them being an op-ed that appeared in the Pensacola News Journal written by Marion Hammer. As a career NRA lobbyist, this lady has a long and courageous history fighting for the rights of gun owners in the Gunshine state, as well as for standing up for the oppressed in general, having been responsible not only for Florida's concealed-carry law but also as the architect of Florida's Stand Your Ground law, the first of its kind in the U.S.
Hammer begins her diatribe by reminding readers that the real agenda of physicians is to rid the country of guns, and she lifts anti-gun statements from the AAP website to support her case. She then goes on to remind physicians that if they "genuinely wish to offer safety information [they] can simply hand out firearms safety and safe storage brochures to all patients. Interrogating parents and children about what they own or have in the home is not only an intrusion but is a violation of privacy rights."
Now I know that the press is very sensitive to anything that even remotely smacks of censorship, hence, if someone wants to express their opinions the editorial policy usually means that the writer can say more or less anything they damn well want to say. But if Hammer thinks she's presenting anything other than a total fiction about the role and responsibilities of the physician in counseling patients, then either her own physician never went to medical school, or she simply doesn't have the faintest idea about what physicians actually do. Her statement that doctors are violating privacy by inquiring about items in the home is a mind-boggling distortion of the doctor-patient relationship and I only hope that she has the good sense to avail herself of medical care that's a little more aware of the requirements of the Hippocratic Oath than she seems to be.
In a way I can't blame her for promoting a vision of medical care that's so at odds with the reality of doctor-patient relationships, because there's even a physician out there named Robert Young, who basically said the same thing in an op-ed piece published by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Like Hammer, Dr. Young also believes that physicians should limit their concern about gun ownership to handing out gun safety brochures developed by the NRA, whose gun-safety program for children, Eddie Eagle, has never been shown to have any positive safety results at all.
I'm not surprised that Ms. Hammer would follow Dr. Young's lead in advocating the distribution of gun safety materials to patients. After all, she's a lobbyist for the NRA and all their training courses emphasize safe use of guns. On the other hand, the NRA avoids the issue of safe gun storage like the plague, because the last thing they would endorse are mandatory laws requiring gun owners to lock away their guns. After all, if guns are locked away to keep them from the kids, how will the "good guys" with the guns stop the "bad guys" with the guns?
Physicians need to ask patients if they lock away their guns for the same reason they ask patients whether their children are constrained while sitting in the car. Unlocked guns are a health risk just like unlocked seat belts, and if Marion Hammer wants to dispute the studies which link gun ownership to higher levels of child mortality and morbidity, she's also has the Constitutional right to promote the idea that the moon is made out of cheese.