Warning: This articles contains images that are graphic in nature.
It’s the mass shootings that tend to make the headlines. Seventeen students and staff killed at a Parkland high school. Ten at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Five in the newsroom of the Minneapolis Capital Gazette.
But these are among more than 49,500 incidents of gun violence in the United States so far this year. Incidents that have claimed the lives of more than 12,600 people, and killed or injured 577 children.
Yet last week the country’s powerful firearm lobby group, the National Rifle Association, reserved their scrutiny for doctors. Men and women who perform compressions on the tiny chests of those children, who rush them into emergency surgery, who sit opposite loved ones and break the news that their baby couldn’t be saved.
“Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” the National Rifle Association tweeted on Thursday. “Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves.”
The NRA was referring to a new position paper released by the American College of Physicians’ that outlined its public health approach to reducing firearm-related deaths and injuries. The tweet was posted just hours before a gunman opened fire in a country and western bar in Thousand Oaks, California, killing 12.
In response, doctors have inundated the NRA with messages via social media, attempting to show what it looks like in their “lane”.
“Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane. It’s my f***ing highway,” forensic pathologist Judy Melinek wrote in tweet that has since gone viral.
Several of them shared images of their blood-stained scrubs and shoes, of bloodied rags and footprints on the theatre floor; the messy reality of treating patients with gun-shot wounds.
In the past, the NRA has successfully lobbied to limited the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research into gun violence.
While a bill passed in March gave the CDC authority to do research on the “causes” of gun violence, a 1996 NRA-lobbied law still blocks it from using federal money for anything that advocates for or promotes gun control. Funding for any kind of gun-violence related research is also heavily restricted.
Makes it tricky for the medical community to, as the NRA put it, consult anyone but themselves.
“We need to do something, and telling doctors to stay in their own lane is not the way to do it,” Dr Judy Melink told The Guardian. “We’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences. We’re the ones who have to testify in court about the wounds. We’re the ones who have to talk to the family members. It breaks my heart, and it’s just another day in America.”
Top Comments
Question: Do more people die from gunshot wounds or medical mistakes in hospitals?
Medical MISTAKES (!) or 100% unnecessary deaths are pretty different, aren't they?
Both result in death, they have that in common. Suggest the doctor concentrate on his own business and the supervision of his staff. That’s the most practical thing he can do to prevent unnecessary deaths.
Not to the dead.
It is amazing that the NRA, which has trained military members and police officers, which offers the Eddie Eagle Safety program to school aged children, and promotes safe gun handling and ownership, is being blamed for the irresponsible and criminal actions of idiots and criminals. When are the physicians going to fight as hard to encourage healthy eating, regular EFFECTIVE exercise (not fads,) and preventive medicine, as well as effective nurse to patient ratios and the elimination of negligent physicians who are responsible for thousands of deaths each year? I have worked in an Emergency Department for over 26 years, I am a veteran paratrooper and drill sergeant, and volunteer assisting our local law enforcement organizations. I am a former 4-H member, Boy Scout, firefighter, and EMS provider. I am also a Life Member of the National Rifle Association. It is the appeal to the emotions rather than rational, logical thought about human nature that renders hatred and disgust towards the NRA so foolish and ineffective. Alcohol, obesity, preventable cancers and hypertension kill exponentially more people than responsible firearms owners. Address the real problems, not the "social justice/warrior" ones.
What you have listed - alcohol, obesity, preventable cancers, and hypertension -are but the causes and consequences of one's choice of life style. No one chooses to get shot on a school day.
Further, idiots and criminals are everywhere in the world but only in the good old USA do they get a chance to mass shoot high schools and colleges every so often. Really wonder what's different about our country that leads to this.
Yes, if we just take away all the guns from innocent, law abiding people things will get better.
Perhaps culture? We’ve always had firearms, but mass shootings are for the most part relatively new. (Yes, there are a few exceptions)
And while the total number of privately owned firearms has massively increased, gun crime is at a near historical low, again suggesting cultural drivers, not firearms availability.
I know it’s easier to blame the gun, but there’s a reasonable body of evidence that it’s not valid and thus not useful.
Many countries take away all (unlicensed) guns from innocent, law abiding people, and generally speaking, things ARE better.