NRA and Florida gag pediatricians: no more firearm safety advice for parents

[sigh]

Here I thought my brilliant four-part solution would end this discussion as everyone would clearly see the beacon of truth emanating from their monitor.....I was so naive.

Fuck, even Injun almost agreed with me. C'mon guys, let's end this, get drunk and have some really crazy sex. Oh, and by the way, according to CJ's links, your doctor can even recommend getting high on marijuana instead of booze. Your choice!

 

[Peregrinator]

A lib that's ashamed to admit it, cool.

Ah, shame, yes, well...

Are you ashamed to be supporting this law or not?

 

[koalabear]

Ah, shame, yes, well...

Are you ashamed to be supporting this law or not?

Indiana passed a law last year making lists of gun owners private. Take a guess.

 

[Peregrinator]

Here I thought my brilliant four-part solution would end this discussion as everyone would clearly see the beacon of truth emanating from their monitor.....I was so naive.

Fuck, even Injun almost agreed with me. C'mon guys, let's end this, get drunk and have some really crazy sex. Oh, and by the way, according to CJ's links, your doctor can even recommend getting high on marijuana instead of booze. Your choice!

What you don't understand is that a law like this one would be irrelevant, except that it's about GUNS, and therefore a horrible thing. Your pediatrician can talk to you about cabinets, and that's fine. But don't let the bastard mention GUNS or there will be constitutional hell to pay.

 

[Peregrinator]

Indiana passed a law last year making lists of gun owners private. Take a guess.

My guess is that you cannot read.

 

[koalabear]

My guess is that you cannot read.

My guess you are a bleeding heart lib. If the Dr. is so worried about gun safety, he should refer his patients to the NRA. They have been around since 1871, how long has that Fla. Doc been doing it?

 

[Peregrinator]

My guess you are a bleeding heart lib. If the Dr. is so worried about gun safety, he should refer his patients to the NRA. They have been around since 1871, how long has that Fla. Doc been doing it?

You mean, how long has the American Academy Of Pediatrics been around? That would be 1930, sometime close to when the NRA was founded. There seems to be some discussion about when the NRA was founded.

In any case, I would think a sensible pediatrician would refer his patients' parents to the NRA for safety information.

You are wrong about me being a "bleeding heart."

 

[Peregrinator]

Ah, shame, yes, well...

Are you ashamed to be supporting this law or not?

Indiana passed a law last year making lists of gun owners private. Take a guess.

My guess is that you cannot read.

My guess you are a bleeding heart lib. If the Dr. is so worried about gun safety, he should refer his patients to the NRA. They have been around since 1871, how long has that Fla. Doc been doing it?

Are you ashamed to be supporting it or not?

 

[koalabear]

You mean, how long has the American Academy Of Pediatrics been around? That would be 1930, sometime close to when the NRA was founded. There seems to be some discussion about when the NRA was founded.

In any case, I would think a sensible pediatrician would refer his patients' parents to the NRA for safety information.

You are wrong about me being a "bleeding heart."

He would be bound by the Hippocratic Oath to refer his patients to the best possible place for anything.

NRA was founded in 1871. "After being granted a charter by the state of New York on November 17, 1871, the NRA was founded."

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[Peregrinator]

He would be bound by the Hippocratic Oath to refer his patients to the best possible place for anything.

Okay with me. Are you in favor of the jackbooted thug approach this law recommends?

 

[koalabear]

Okay with me. Are you in favor of the jackbooted thug approach this law recommends?

Personally it's to easy on them. They should be shot.

 

[Ishmael]

for those of you interested in the analytical framework girding this issue, the discussion beginning at page 1778 of this article is informative: http://***************/viewer?a=v&q...e8dDGD&sig=AHIEtbS16ugW2tURnXGxXp7iri2gutP4RQ

so is this supreme court opinion--in particular section ii beginning at page 366: http://supreme.justia.com/us/535/357/index.html

Both of your citations are in-arguably medical/health related. The court further finds that dialog between the patient and doctor are germane to any treatment that may be prescribed. However, the court restricted itself to medical treatments without addressing risks that may arise from safety related issues, ie. driving a race car or mountain climbing, or sky diving.

The Florida law does not muzzle the doctors (shall not) but uses dissuasion (should not). I presume that only those physicians that are strident anti-gun evangelists need fear being brought before the board.

Further, having handouts available in the office concerning where one might obtain firearm safety training for the home is quite acceptable to me, and I'm sure any reasonable individual. I'm all for it, all of my children went through firearm safety and hunter's safety programs at quite young ages. So in that regard I'm an advocate.

The fact is that this law did not come about as a result of physicians advocating firearm safety programs. It came about as a result of their using their privileged relationship to institute record keeping and out and out ban advocacy to the point of refusing professional services based on what a person owns.

More than a few here have argued that the physician, as a private practitioner, can refuse service to anyone. I believe that that was the same argument used to refuse service to blacks, Italians, Irish, etc. back in the day. They have counter argued that this is not about race. And while that is true, it is also true that the right to own firearms is as equally protected under the constitution. I contend that you can't have it one way in one case and another way because we are taking about a different amendment.

Add to that that many of these patients do not have alternatives. Under an HMO or other managed program they are assigned a physician. And the physician has contracted with the insurance/management firm to see those patients (I have no idea what contract laws may apply there).

Regardless, interesting reads CJ.

Ishmael

 

[Peregrinator]

Owning a gun = being black.

Ishmael

 

[garbage can]

Here I thought my brilliant four-part solution would end this discussion as everyone would clearly see the beacon of truth emanating from their monitor.....I was so naive.

Fuck, even Injun almost agreed with me. C'mon guys, let's end this, get drunk and have some really crazy sex. Oh, and by the way, according to CJ's links, your doctor can even recommend getting high on marijuana instead of booze. Your choice!

Sigh, I like the crazy sex idea.....

 

[Ishmael]

Owning a gun = being black.

Ishmael

You can engage in all the hyperbole you want. It changes nothing.

As a side note, if you do a little research you'll find that many of the gun restriction laws were passed purposely to keep "those darkies" from owning guns. A sordid history indeed.

Ishmael

 

[Byron In Exile]

Here I thought my brilliant four-part solution would end this discussion as everyone would clearly see the beacon of truth emanating from their monitor.....I was so naive.

Yeah, I don't know what happened, either.

Fuck, even Injun almost agreed with me.

Maybe it was the shock of that that drove everything off the rails.

 

[unregistered]

 

[cjh]

Both of your citations are in-arguably medical/health related. The court further finds that dialog between the patient and doctor are germane to any treatment that may be prescribed. However, the court restricted itself to medical treatments without addressing risks that may arise from safety related issues, ie. driving a race car or mountain climbing, or sky diving.

<snip>

Regardless, interesting reads CJ.

Ishmael

I won't repeat the whole of your post simply to save space, but I'm going to try to address the main points. I'm taking them a bit out of order.

First, I agree with you that Florida can prohibit doctors from discriminating against gun owners, but I get there differently. You have to forge new law to get there the way in which you suggest. I am not saying that it can't be done, but a first amendment freedom of association analysis gets you there more directly.

The leading case on the right of an association to establish and apply its own membership rules is the 1984 case of Roberts v. United States Jaycees. In Roberts, the Court recognized that the power to determine its own membership is central to the free speech rights of expressive organizations. (Imagine how the speech of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League might be affected if it could be forced to admit as members anti-Semites.) Nonetheless, the Court in Roberts upheld a Minnesota public accomodations law requiring the Jaycees to admit women as members in contravention of that organization's rules. Justice Brennan, for the Court, found that Minnesota had a compelling interest in providing the women of Minnesota the economic benefits that came with membership in the Jaycees. Justice O'Connor, in a concurring opinion, found that the Jaycees were a commercial organization and therefore subject to state regualtion of its membership. On the other hand, according to O'Connor, a predominately expressive association has an absolute right to determine its own membership. In subsequent cases in 1987 (Rotary International v Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 US 537) and 1988 (N. Y. State Club Ass'n v New York, 487 US 1), the Court extended Roberts.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/association.htm

Similar to your argument, surely Florida has a compelling interest in ensuring all of its citizens have access to health care; further, medicine is a tightly regulated profession; if membership of the Jaycees can be regulated, surely a physician's patient base can be regulated.

Second, I don't think the medical treatment/safety distinction is legally significant. The state would be hard pressed to argue that parents don't have a right to learn about safety issues related to their children or that doctors don't have a right to disseminate it. The state would be buried in an avalanche of expert opinions confirming that pediatricians engage in that dialog all of the time, be it about lead paint chips or electrical outlets or car seats or whatever. Individual parents can elect not to participate in that dialog if they so choose, but I don't think the state can simply prohibit it. That's content-based censorship which runs afoul of the first amendment.

Third, presuming that the state has an interest in regulating the manner in which a physician and patient talk about guns in the household, the state must use the least restrictive means available of doing it.

If the communication is neither misleading nor related to unlawful activity, the government's power is more circumscribed. The State must assert a substantial interest to be achieved by restrictions on commercial speech. Moreover, the regulatory technique must be in proportion to that interest. The limitation on expression must be designed carefully to achieve the State's goal. Compliance with this requirement may be measured by two criteria. First, the restriction must directly advance the state interest involved; the regulation may not be sustained if it provides only ineffective or remote support for the government's purpose. Second, if the governmental interest could be served as well by a more limited restriction on commercial speech, the excessive restrictions cannot survive.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=447&invol=557

It's hard to believe that an outright prohibition can survive this test. It's too easy to come up with less restrictive alternatives. For example, a statute might require a physician to simply identify possible risks to a young child and ask the parent to identify which, if any, she might like to discuss further; that would address many of the concerns expressed above in the thread.

Similarly, I don't think the state mandating that the physician refer the parent to the NRA or a Game Warden's gun safety class or something similar would survive scrutiny under this prong, either, just as requiring a physician to refer a parent to an electrician to talk about plugging outlets would probably fail; it places an unecessary burden on the communication.

Fourth, you rightly note the distinction between shall and should. From looking at the statute, though, I cannot tell whether a physician can be reprimanded for asking questions about firearms. ( http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0432/Amendment/422568/HTML ) If the physician can be reprimanded, I think that portion of the statute would be deemed unconstitutional, too. My guess is that the word "should" was used to try to prevent the statute from being declared unconstitutional on its face.

Lots of sticky wickets in this statute. It's interesting observing the different ways they are being addressed.

 

[cjh]

That's because you can't point to the "right," stupid.

I just did, stupid.

Ish, unlike you, can make sense of the law.

 

[Ishmael]

Here I thought my brilliant four-part solution would end this discussion as everyone would clearly see the beacon of truth emanating from their monitor.....I was so naive.

Fuck, even Injun almost agreed with me. C'mon guys, let's end this, get drunk and have some really crazy sex. Oh, and by the way, according to CJ's links, your doctor can even recommend getting high on marijuana instead of booze. Your choice!

Your solutions were perfectly reasonable sigh, unfortunately this is a subject where reason is often left out in the cold.

Just who is being punished by the actions of these physicians? It is a child, a child who is being denied patient care based on the "ownership" of some material thing that the physician finds offensive. If that can be allowed to stand then why not deny care to the child whose parent/guardian/household member owns an automobile, or a swimming pool, or chooses plastic over paper at the grocery checkout. From a purely logical standpoint the denial of service for any of the aforementioned makes considerably more sense, and presents a stronger legal case, than the ownership of a firearm based solely on known statistical evidence. Further, neither the automobile, pool, or plastic bag enjoy any special consideration constitutionally.

The courts have consistently upheld that an individual cannot be discriminated against based on race, cultural affiliation, gender, or religious beliefs. You can march around in a Nazi suit, white robes, black panther garb, or dressed as a Hari Krishna. You can set up a soap box and engage in the most outlandish speech and burn the flag while doing so and no one has the right to deny you those privileges.

But once the second amendment is invoked there is a group that say, "Hold on there, the second amendment is different." Even though the SCOTUS has held it's an individual right these same folks that want to uphold every other amendment, sometimes to the extreme, want to draw a box around the second amendment and declare that is is essentially different, or a constitutional aberration. I find that somewhat contradictory.

The Florida law, one which is being brought forth is several other states, was based on the organized actions of a group of Pediatricians who thought they had found a backdoor method of instituting firearm ownership record keeping as well as enforcing a gun ban. The fact that similar legislation is working its way through the process in other states indicates that it is organized and not just the action of one or two rabidly anti-firearm physicians. As I mentioned before, if these activists can continue to proceed with these actions then there is no bar to their ability to deny treatment, or keep records, of anything that an individual might own based merely on the notion that they, as a group, proscribe said ownership.

Ishmael

 

[Sean]

What's fascinating is the way you insert stupid comments into discussions as though nobody can tell how obviously out of your depth you are.

Out of my depth? It would appear that people more conversant with con law than I agree it is a first amendment violation. Run along and find some more racists to defend, LTalike.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Out of my depth? It would appear that people more conversant with con law than I agree it is a first amendment violation.

Absolutely out of your depth. You just answered your own question in the affirmative.

Run along and find some more racists to defend, LTalike.

Make me, dipshit.

 

[Sean]

Absolutely out of your depth. You just answered your own question in the affirmative.

Make me, dipshit.

LMAO. Stick to bumping your own Drivelesque threads LTalike.

 

[Byron In Exile]

LMAO. Stick to bumping your own Drivelesque threads LTalike.

I'm not Drivel or LT, idiot, I'm Cade.

Boo!

 

[Sean]

I'm not Drivel or LT, idiot, I'm Cade.

Boo!

You exhibit characteristics of all three. As you've been drinking, I'll spell it out, that isn't a good thing.