Bob Barr | Former Congressman (R-GA)
The latest gun control dust-up is not between the Bloomberg-funded “Everytown for Gun Safety” and the National Rifle Association; nor is it an argument between law enforcement groups on opposing sides of the issue.
The most recent and ongoing dispute between Second Amendment supporters and gun control advocates pits the NRA against doctors.
Shortly before the November 6 mid-term elections (from which candidates on both sides of the gun-control debate can claim victories), the NRA rebuked the American College of Physicians (ACP) for the organization’s continuing advocacy of gun-control legislation having nothing directly to do with the practice of medicine.
In response, physicians associated with the ACP, along with some doctors not directly related to that group, engaged the gun-rights association in a Twitter war. The battle centered on the question of whether physicians should use their platform as medical professionals to press for political policy changes rather than to improve doctors’ ability to treat victims of gun violence.
Physicians, just like members of any other profession, are certainly free to express their views on firearms-related issues or any other matter falling within the broad parameters of public policy. That some physicians have determined to do so as doctors — using the platforms available to them as doctors to advocate for gun control measures — is not a new phenomenon.
Almost a quarter century ago, in 1995, the “Annuals of Internal Medicine” (the flagship publication of the ACP) declared that “firearm violence” was a “public health imperative” that had reached “epidemic proportions” and therefore measures to limit access to firearms through legislation was an appropriate responsibility of physicians qua physicians.
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