Gun ownership is now an indicator of mental illness

[fiundagner]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/public- ... l-disease/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/sto ... 56979706/1

MILWAUKEE ? Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease.
What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.
One example: Guardrails are now curved to the ground instead of having sharp metal ends that stick out and pose a hazard in a crash.
"People used to spear themselves and we blamed the drivers for that," said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
It wasn't enough back then to curb deaths just by trying to make people better drivers, and it isn't enough now to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting, he and other doctors say.

Dr. David Satcher tried to make gun violence a public health issue when he became CDC director in 1993. Four years later, laws that allow the carrying of concealed weapons drew attention when two women were shot at an Indianapolis restaurant after a patron's gun fell out of his pocket and accidentally fired. Ironically, the victims were health educators in town for an American Public Health Association convention.
That same year, Hargarten won a federal grant to establish the nation's first Firearm Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"Unlike almost all other consumer products, there is no national product safety oversight of firearms," he wrote in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.
That's just one aspect of a public health approach. Other elements:
?? "Host" factors: What makes someone more likely to shoot, or someone more likely to be a victim. One recent study found firearm owners were more likely than those with no firearms at home to binge drink or to drink and drive, and other research has tied alcohol and gun violence. That suggests that people with driving under the influence convictions should be barred from buying a gun, Wintemute said.
? Product features: Which firearms are most dangerous and why. Manufacturers could be pressured to fix design defects that let guns go off accidentally, and to add technology that allows only the owner of the gun to fire it (many police officers and others are shot with their own weapons). Bans on assault weapons and multiple magazines that allow rapid and repeat firing are other possible steps.? "Environmental" risk factors: What conditions allow or contribute to shootings. Gun shops must do background checks and refuse to sell firearms to people convicted of felonies or domestic violence misdemeanors, but those convicted of other violent misdemeanors can buy whatever they want. The rules also don't apply to private sales, which one study estimates as 40% of the market.
? Disease patterns, observing how a problem spreads. Gun ownership ? a precursor to gun violence ? can spread "much like an infectious disease circulates," said Daniel Webster, a health policy expert and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.

The only thing that surprises me about this story is how long it took for this to become a mainstream story. I figured they would have jumped on this bandwagon ages ago. On the other hand maybe they were just waiting for the healthcare law to be upheld, and then for a suitable crisis to arise.

So now that the government can force you to carry health insurance (at least for the time being) someone in the government is trying to classify gun ownership as a health problem. Since I don?t see that they will be able to find a specific bacteria or viral infection, my guess is they will classify it as a mental health problem (think mass hysteria). Once that happens the mere desire to own a gun will disqualify you from owning a gun. Oh, yeah. can't forget this part too. Gun owners are irresponsible reckless alcoholics. Does that exempt cops, since their weapons are department issue and they dont actually own them, or are they irresponsible reckless alcoholics too?

Another telling point in the article is the mention of the consumer product safety commission. No firearm ever made would ever be able to pass inspection. A firearm is specifically designed to injure and or kill. The CPSC is designed to prevent injury. The song ?one of these things is not like the other? springs to mind when I think of the two meeting. There is a reason kitchen knives do not (at least to my knowledge) go through the CPSC. Since they are designed to have a cutting edge they are inherently unsafe. If it was up to these people if we were allowed to keep any weapons at all they would be back to muzzle loaders or maybe one shot disposable weapons (the plastic silverware version of firearms).

I realize that the CPSC and public health approach has been tried before, and failed before, but when it gets combined with a healthcare bill that allows the government to tell you what you can and can?t do I start to worry.

If gun control is now part of ?public health,? will it become the responsibility of the government to monitor the issue like any other ?infectious disease??

 

[armaborealis]

I love quotes like this:
"Unlike almost all other consumer products, there is no national product safety oversight of firearms," he wrote in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.

Apparently the esteemed doctor has never heard of the BATFE, either. An entire federal agency designed to exercise oversight over the firearms industry, including an entire technical analysis branch which determines if the requisite number of safety features are present in several types of weapons.

 

[Calamitus]

As I posted in another forum, the doctors have it backwards. Just like they did for generations regarding fever, they confuse a symptom with the disease. Criminal violence is the disease, and gun ownership is the healthy response designed to eliminate the cause of the illness.

 

[Dave29461]

As I posted in another forum, the doctors have it backwards. Just like they did for generations regarding fever, they confuse a symptom with the disease. Criminal violence is the disease, and gun ownership is the healthy response designed to eliminate the cause of the illness.

+1

 

[ReefShark]

Calamitous for the win!

 

[fiundagner]

Don't forget for hundreds of years doctors thought bloodletting was the solution to all your ills. this is just a return to older medical practices. why didn't i think of that. We dont need no stinking anti bodies. let em bleed :lol: :roll: