Once again, I feel a need to discuss gun violence as we have had our 307th mass shooting of 2018 at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Sadly, I fear that No. 308 and even No. 309 may occur before this article even hits the press.
I have heard mass shooting defined as more than four people either wounded or killed in a single gun violence episode. If that is the definition used, then I wonder if there have been even more than 307 mass shootings this year.
What has spurred outrage in the medical profession this month has to do with an article written in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the American College of Physicians. The article was based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data and was titled, “Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States.”
This seems a very timely article in light of our continuing and regular mass shootings in this country.
In fact, the topic was in some of the lectures given at the annual N.H. Medical Association meeting this month and one of the topics of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s address at the same meeting.
Once again this drew the ire of the NRA. And once again their fear-producing and totally inappropriate statements have caused gun owners to fear for their Second Amendment rights.
On Nov. 2, the NRA wrote that physicians were “only interested in pseudoscience “evidence” that supports their preferred anti-gun policies. Pseudoscience? These are real hard numbers of people killed over decades. How is that pseudo anything?
They followed this up Nov. 7 with a tweet that came out just hours before the Borderline Bar and Grill attack. The tweet stated, “Someone should tell important anti-gun doctors to stay
