Stanford Doctors: It's Time To Ban All Semi-Automatic Firearms

Townhall ^ | 09/18/18 | Beth Baumann

[Simon Green]

Over 2,500 medical students and healthcare professionals at over 30 leading medical centers held events on Monday urging the public to treat "gun violence" as a public health crisis, The Mercury News reported.

The events were part of Scrubs Addressing the Firearms Epidemic (SAFE), a non-partisan action co-founded by Stanford’s Professor of Medicine Dr. Dean Winslow, a Republican, and fourth year medical student Sarabeth Spitzer, a Democrat. Winslow is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and flight surgeon who was deployed six times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

At Stanford, healthcare professionals spoke about the health risk associated with guns, the gun epidemic and trauma care. At the University of California San Francisco, two panels discussed California's firearms laws and recommended ways to talk to patients about firearm access, safety, and risk.

According to Spain, it's difficult for medical professionals to get involved in the gun debate because of the political nature surrounding firearms.

“If this were any other public health problem, we wouldn’t stand for it. But it’s such a hot button political topic that we lose the ability to talk about it," Spain told The Mercury News. “We’ve been a little slow. We’re politically adverse. Our mission is education and research. This is advocacy.”

Medical associations and groups have become involved in the gun control debate. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Association are just a few who have thrown their hat into the arena.

[dila813]

that’s why you have to ban them, they may spontaneously shoot you or a friend

[from occupied ga]

•A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. •Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

And these pompous self-impressed blowhards think they deserve to have an opinion on firearms? They can't even get their own field of expertise safe.

[freeandfreezing]

The doctors should spend more time and effort on reducing the number of people killed each year by their mistakes. Collectively, the mistakes and poor performance of doctors and nurses kill more people each year than the total number of people whose life is ended through the use of a firearm.

As one example, many suicides are preventable, but the medical community has done little to successfully reduce suicides, often missing or mistreating individuals at risk for suicide.

Tens of thousands of patients die from errors in medication, infections from hospital stays, and missed or incorrect diagnosis by doctors.

Instead of focusing on firearms, the doctors should focus on improving the treatment they provide.

[ZULU]

It’s time to permanently ban all crap about gun laws.

These “doctors” are memtal.

[AlaskaErik]

According to Consumer Reports, a bastion of liberalism, 440,000 Americans die each year in hospitals due to medical errors. It would take 34 years of firearms murders to reach 440,000. And that’s all firearms related murders. Take out criminal on criminal deaths, and the number is closer to 60 years. So, if you a law abiding American, you are 60 times more likely to die in a hospital from a medical error than you are to die from gun violence. Where is the outrage over that?

[Zathras]

I am almost as fast with a 357 mag revolver as I am with my 1911 Kimber.
Just not as accurate.
Note they are calling for a ban on ALL semi-auto firearms

[Still Thinking]

That’s funny, I was just thinking it was time to ban medical malpractice (which is far more dangerous than semi-automatic small arms).

[Hugin]

“If this were any other public health problem, we wouldn’t stand for it. But it’s such a hot button political topic that we lose the ability to talk about it," Spain told The Mercury News. “We’ve been a little slow. We’re politically adverse. Our mission is education and research. This is advocacy.”

Yes it is. Since they've decided to be a political organization Congress should cur off all their federal funding.

[vp9sk]

This whole term “gun violence” irritates the hell out of me. Violence is violence, the TOOL has no bearing on it.

Back when was a younger man I dated a college educated liberal school teacher. She was easy on the eyes so I put up with her BS as long as I could. One evening she had one of her friends over for dinner. Inevitably, they both started harping on guns.

After listening to this garbage for about 20 minutes, I went to my gun safe (yes we were living together), grabbed my S & W 686, brought it out and laid it on the table in front of them . I looked them in the eyes and asked them to tell me when the gun was going to shoot someone, explaining that GUNS DON’T PULL THEIR OWN TRIGGERS.

Took about 5 minutes for her guest to leave - quickly. After a very ‘interesting’ evening I moved out the next day. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I know I could have dealt with the situation more appropriately, but sometimes you have to have a little fun with the children. The look on their faces was PRICELESS!

[Sopater]

Oh, so Doctors have sufficiently reduced medical errors such that they now have tons of time to focus on things like guns.

Nice.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html

[gundog]

And doctors. The saving grace of swimming pools, cars, and doctors is that more good comes from them than bad. The same with firearms, but nobody says so.