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Abstract
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I would like to opine on the commentary, "Gun Violence: The Physician's Response," written by my colleague, Dr. Hoffer. I appreciate that this is an editorial, but it is published in a respected peer-reviewed journal, and I would expect evidence and argument to achieve a higher standard of excellence than from the editorial column of a local newspaper. I have no complaint that addressing mortality from any cause is in the arena of public health and medical investigation. However, I do expect that we as physicians do not abandon the objective investigative approach that we would apply to a disease or injury process simply because we have a personal disdain for the subject matter; in this case, firearms. Abandoning scientific rigor on the subject diminishes the medical community's opinion as another uninformed voice with no potential solutions.
Dr. Hoffer groups several distinctly different situations together, but just because there was the commonality of a firearm present, it does not make them epidemiologically the same. The mass murder of children in a school is different than the Mercy Hospital murder of Tamara O'Neal and others as an extension of domestic violence continued into the workplace. Physicians are not immune from violence from their estranged intimate partners nor attacks from their patients, but there is certainly a difference in the context and risk of each of these circumstances. First appreciating these distinctions may be useful in mitigating needless violence of all types perpetrated with firearms as well as other lethal means. Homicides reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are not reported in the legal context, but this is a subject where this is relevant to the circumstances, as intervention has potential legal implications as well. There exist justifiable homicides, unless you are of the nature to equate shooting a home intruder with a disgruntled employee murdering his coworkers. In the CDC's statistics, they are counted the same. Homicides and suicides have different epidemiological risk factors; perhaps they should be approached in this context. Approach the public health concern of reduction of depression and suicide, and the means of death becomes less significant, be it overdose, asphyxiation, or self-inflicted gunshot wound. The author proposes a solution for registering and restricting access to firearms, assuming that a potential perpetrator will follow these laws, despite some future intention to do harm. This proposal defies reason...
Language: en |