Appeals Court: Yes, Doctors can inquire about Firearm ownership

Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 2 months ago to News
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Maybe one of our resident lawyers can weigh in here, but it seems to me that the justices in this case were way more concerned about evidence of actual speech rather than the principle that it is none of a doctor's business. I also found the claim that someone can find a different doctor not only insulting, but specious given that the doctors are being pressed by legislators to make their treatment conditional.

My hoping is that this goes to the Supreme Court and gets overturned.


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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't believe Galt's Gulch had a Board of Medical Examiners. It had only a Committee of Safety, and I suspect they recognized Thomas Hendrix, M.D., as eminently qualified without requiring him to take "Boards" or any such thing.
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  • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's a naive point of view, California already has gun seizure on the books if a doctor, family member, friend, neighbor, or passed off ex girlfriend reports a person as being a danger to themselves or others.

    Sounds good in theory, although with a large collection that wouldn't be the same connotation for me as someone losing a Glock from under the bed. I think about all the looney HOA conflict crap that happens in suburbs and I'm assuming it will go too far. Fortunately I don't have many neighbors either (and all of them own guns).
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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It used to be that you didn't have to get a government license to practice medicine. You showed your certificate of graduation and then served people well, who in turn told other people about you. I wouldn't mind quite so much if the Board was private, but having the Government run the thing is controlling.
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  • Posted by $ rainman0720 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Very well said. The issue is not about the answer, but what gets done with that answer. And I also agree that it's a pseudo gun registration.
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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "I think they're trying to manage all aspects of troubled people's lives, and that's the problem."

    Yes, it is. Because that is when people lose their freedom. And that is what is at stake in this issue: the loss of freedom.
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  • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Interesting, I'm in the electronic health industry, the firearms DROS system is paper-based and unusable, the health records systems are being interconnected with HIE's at a state level with provisions for a national system any time there was a desire to do so. Health informatics is very effective with big data, would be easy to report on that.

    Fortunately, my doctor has never asked me in 15 years¦ he was born in Afghanistan though and doesn't like or trust government. My ENT used to be my C5 flight surgeon, he knows better than to ask (or doesn't need to ask).
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh, I buy it. Barack Obama belonged to that class of politicians seeking to disarm everyone, except for LEO's, active-duty military, VIP's, and their bodyguards.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What we need, is a registry of alternative practitioners that don't answer to any Boards of Medical Examiners.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, I would go out and find another doctor. I wouldn't care to labor under the treatment of a doctor who harbored the slightest question in his mind that I posed a threat to self or others. A doctor in that position has a "duty to warn." I wouldn't care to trigger it.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 2 months ago
    I'm not a lawyer, either. But I am a Constitutional activist. And I say the Eleventh Circuit (hearing the case en banc) ignored the central issue in this matter.

    At issue was not whether a given doctor may inquire into such matters, but whether said doctor would report the answers to higher authority. Most jurisdictions recognize and prescribe a psychiatrist's duty to warn higher authority if they have a patient who, in their considered opinion, poses a threat to self or others. I believe, and I'm sure I'm on solid ground, that Barack Obama, who promulgated the idea of doctors inquiring about weapons, sought to impress upon doctors the notion that the mere possession of weapons other than kitchen implements and hand or power tools made the possessor ipso facto a threat to self and others. It would then logically follow that the doctor would have a duty to report to higher authority who among his patients kept or bore weapons, and what kinds. That way lies the registry of weapons, the first essential step toward their confiscation.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I suspect the standards were like how they ask if you have CO and fire alarms and an extinguisher. I wonder if these requirements applied to private transactions outside of a ACA-compliant plan.

    It doesn't ring true to me that there was any conspiracy to harass people about their guns, but given how much the gov't dicks with the healthcare market; anything's possible.

    Much of what they did was geared at making the healthcare market into a "system" that protects citizens as if they were children. I know a child of dual alcoholic parents who was grateful when the gov't treated his parents like children. I do not agree with gov't acting as a parent, but it's definitely not as simple as all gov't paternalism always being a ploy. I'm for less paternalism and letting people rise to the occasion. It's not simple issue.

    I would obviously be against any ploy to harass people about the guns, but I don't buy it. I think they're trying to manage all aspects of troubled people's lives, and that's the problem.
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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And that is where these types of initiatives run into problems. There were many under Obamacare attempting to require doctors to ask and placing the reception of care determinant on those answers. Doctors could also alert HHS and others if there were children in the home where firearms were present, etc.
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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, that is part of what some people in government want to require so they can create under-the-radar lists of gun owners.

    And just a clarification, but this isn't trashing the First Amendment at all. It is making divulgence of non-relevant information a precursor to even getting treatment.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 8 years, 2 months ago
    You must understand that the government sees "health care" only as a way to control you. They have completely bastardized the health care industry. I know - I work in it. It's a f&^*ing mess.
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  • Posted by $ Suzanne43 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Unfortunately my looks never worked with my husband. He was a school administer and was immune.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, I never noticed till 1000's of years later I did that to my wife of 25 years and discovered that SHE was the recipient of those looks. She screamed, Stop! Stop! I don't like that!!!
    Now I have a weapon when she misbehaves...laughing.
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  • Posted by $ Suzanne43 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    LOL I see that you have either been a teacher orhave been the recipient of those looks as a student.
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  • Posted by $ Suzanne43 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Like your answer. If my doctor asked me about gun ownership, I'd give him my best elementary school teacher look (believe me I have a good one) and tell him to mind his own business. I think that he'd get the point.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago
    I actually think the 1st Amendment gives anyone the right to ask anything, but you also have the right not to answer.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 2 months ago
    If a doctor asked me about guns, I'd say, Oh, you mean my Sherman Tank?...it's not exactly a concealed carry weapon...

    Seriously, I would hope No one would answer that question...if they do, they are probably sick puppies, or deserve what they get for being so stupid.
    No conversation is "Confidential" anymore in this tattle tale world.
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