As physicians, we want to do the right thing, both for individual patients and overall public health. We may endanger the very people we desire to protect, however, if we see every controversial issue through the lens of public health and assume that our medical knowledge and good intentions automatically qualify us to design public policy. The “gun control” debate, addressed by Dr. Susman in his recent editorial, “Locked, loaded—and lethal” (J Fam Pract. 2011;60:63), is a case in point.
Sadly, Dr. Susman seems to be on a crusade to rid our society of guns, without having anything other than some Brady group talking points and a gut-level dislike for the National Rifle Association to base it on. Some of us, who certainly share his disgust when innocent people suffer from violence, most certainly do not agree with his plan of action.
We have a fundamental problem when those who crusade for tougher gun laws are not only unaware of the documented problems restrictive legislation has caused domestically,1 but fail to take into account the biggest human-induced loss of lives worldwide— genocide.
Throughout the 20th century, genocide dwarfed the number of murders and accidents associated with firearms, terrorism, and battle-field deaths combined.2 Yet genocide never happens where there is widespread possession of serious firearms (what the news media would call “assault weapons”) by the citizenry.3 Even if strict gun laws could prevent the relatively few innocent deaths associated with less restrictive legislation, the increased risk of societal instability, and even genocide, is immeasurably more destructive.
Claiming that an issue is a matter of public health does not make it so. Nor do physicians who abandon objectivity and become emotionally driven gun-control crusaders serve the greater good. Writing off anyone who opposes what may seem like common sense gun control ignores reality, and is nothing more than hoplophobic grandstanding at the expense of innocents like Christina Green.
Andrew Johnstone, MD, RPh
Co-founder, Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws
Indianapolis, Ind
1. Kates DB, Schaffer HE, Lattimer JK, et al. Guns and public health: epidemic of violence or pandemic of propaganda?. Tenn Law Rev. 1994;61:513-596.
2. Rummel RJ. Power kills: genocide and mass murder. 1994. Available at: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POWER.ART.HTM. Accessed February 17, 2011.
3. Zelman AS, Stevens RW. Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament. Hartford, Wis: Mazel Freedom Press; 2001.
Dr. Susman’s emotional outburst ignores the multifaceted issues of gun ownership and utilization and is unencumbered by a balanced review of the facts and research (if there were any facts in his editorial at all).
Anybody can have an opinion. What’s needed is evidence of a sage and clear thought process to help guide people to rational decisions. We physicians should spread light, not heat. The vision of the world, illuminated from the glow of an ivory tower, sometimes distorts the reality of the world outside.
Carl Meisner, MD
Sugar Land, Tex