Posted on 07/06/2011 5:31:56 AM PDT by marktwain
Tallahassee, FL - With a federal judge ready to hear arguments next week, the National Rifle Association and doctors are feuding about the NRA’s role in a legal challenge to Florida’s new “docs v. glocks” law.
The NRA is seeking to formally intervene in the case, contending it was a “foremost supporter” when lawmakers approved the measure to restrict doctors from asking patients about gun ownership.
“The Firearm Owners’ Privacy Law protects NRA members from intrusive, irrelevant questions by health care practitioners and from discrimination on account of their exercise of Second Amendment rights,’’ the NRA said last week in a motion to intervene.
But physicians, who argue the law is a violation of their First Amendment free-speech rights, are trying to block the NRA from playing a large role in the case. In a document Friday, the doctors said the state can adequately defend the law and that the NRA “offers only inflammatory hyperbole.’’
“The interest at issue here is a doctor’s and patient’s First Amendment right to engage in an open and frank discussion free of government interference,’’ the document says.
The legal sparring follows a major lobbying fight during this year’s legislative session about the law, which Gov. Rick Scott signed June 2.
A group of physicians quickly challenged the constitutionality of the law in federal court in Miami. U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke has scheduled a July 13 hearing on the doctors’ request for an injunction to block the law.
The law, which passed largely along party lines, says doctors and other health-care practitioners “shall respect a patient’s right to privacy and should refrain” from asking about gun ownership or whether people have guns in their homes. It also, however, says health providers may ask about guns if they believe in “good faith” that the information is relevant to a patient’s medical care or safety.
The issue centers, at least in part, on pediatricians who ask questions about household safety issues that could affect children. The law’s supporters point to episodes such as an Ocala couple complaining that a doctor told them to find another physician after they refused to answer questions about guns.
Former NRA President Marion Hammer, an influential Tallahassee lobbyist, played a major role in pushing the bill (HB 155) through the Legislature.
The law took effect immediately when Scott signed it. That helped prompt the plaintiffs, who include six individual doctors and three physician organizations, to seek an injunction.
The state has backed the NRA’s attempt to intervene in the case.
With no ruling on the motion to intervene --- and the injunction hearing next week --- the NRA filed another motion Tuesday aimed at allowing it to submit a brief and participate in the hearing.
Doctors are in a position of authority over their patients, especially children. To ask if their parents have guns in the home, and to record it in data bases available to the government, is a violation of that authority.
All well and good, but what other issues exist that we might want to circumscribe as topics for discussions by doctors with their patients? The list could probably fill a volume or two.
Pediatricians should ask parents if they had an abortion in the past as that is an indicator that they are bad parents.
Then, let’s see what the liberals say!
Doctors previously would hand out pamphlets to patients that covered topics such as safety in the home, etc.
If that sort of intrusive questioning were allowed to stand, the patient should then be allowed to ask the patient how many elective abortions the doctor had performed in the past year....and how much the doctor had given to charites (and the charities’ names)....and how the doctor had voted in the last three elections...... Position of authority? More like “position of intrusion.”
>what other issues exist that we might want to circumscribe as topics for discussions by doctors with their patients? The list could probably fill a volume or two.
Perhaps these esteemed scholars of soaring intellect can inform us how the 1st amendment is also bad if children are in the house.
Yes, we might even call those volumes “The Constitution.”
Imagine if doctors actually had to *read* the document...
If I were asked this question by my doctor, instead of answering, I’d ask him about the contents of his liquor cabinet.
That should pretty much change the subject as well as make a point that his question was a bit over the top.
ERRRR... Just wondering. How many of the “no” votes on the law were cast by FL congressional members which were backed by the NRA in the last election, hmmmmmm?
The doctors should be allowed to ask the question of adults. I, of course, reserve the right to lie to them, or to tell to go f*** themselves.
Not that the question would have a damn thing to do with medical science, but the doctors aren't just asking. The answers go on forms that become part of a person's medical record.
In other words it's a type of electronic gun/gun-owner registration.
Then lying sounds like a perfectly adequate response...
I don't see where's the problem, IMHO.
Not that the question would have a damn thing to do with medical science, but the doctors aren't just asking.
It has to do with medical malpractice. If someone is a threat to themselves or others, docs could be sued if someone is shot. I would have preferred that Gerald Loughner was committed in Arizona before his murderous rampage.
All the viable mental threats I have encountered over my years as a sheriffs deputy etc ....have been been very quiet people.
Sort of the barking dog never bites theory I use.
There is a way to ask the question without violating the patient’s right to privacy. I have used it in my practice for over 30 years. It goes like this, “If there are firearms in the home, are the adults familiar with safe storage and handling?” A yes answer can mean the adults are familiar with gun safety regardless if there are guns or not. Usually, people who don’t own guns answer, “We don’t have any guns.” No one has ever said, “I leave my loaded guns lying around on the coffee table for the kids to play with.”
Either way, what gets recorded in the medical records is, “Firearm safety in the home discussed with patient.”
Just curious - do you ask similar questions about swimming pools?
Yeah, better to just give the wrong answer than to show any sign of displeasure or hostility. That way it poisons the database by filling it with false information.
or how many times a day the patient washes his/her hands, or safe use of extension cords, or toxic chemicals such as weed killers, fertilizers, aerosols, etc?
I was just going for the big killer when it comes to household safety, much bigger than firearms. But sure, the real question is: Are doctors trained to deal with general household safety advice, and is this something they should take on? If not, why are they venturing into an area they are untrained to deal with? Other than for political reasons that constitute a boundary violation, of course.
Doctors are issued a license to practice medicine. Yes, I said “practice” medicine. This is why we should not expect expert treatment when we visit our local MD. They use us to practice on. That’s fine. I just wish they would stop writing scripts for expensive medicines only to tell me in five days to stop taking them.
I know and he knows he’s not an expert in medicine so why in the hell would he be an expert at anything else especially something as complicated as the art of self defense?
If the government tells him he must ask this question in order to maintain his license, he’s going to ask the question, “Do you have guns in your home?” He will enter the proper notations in the records which will be reviewed by a government employee who will record who has firearms. Someday further down the road to dictatorship, these notations will be used to retrieve the firearms from the civilian population.
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