OT: Asked if I had a gun in my home during physical.

[NightMonkey]

Maybe they were worried about THEIR health. I would be.
In Wisconsin now, Reublics have made hidden weapons completely legal everywhere.
I wouldn't invite anyone into my office or classroom or even near my front lawn now without
ascertaining if they had items that could kill me on their person. And i would inspect personal
effects, also.

You think this is an infringement on your privacy? Your "privacy" is precious but other's lives are not?
(Now you see why people will continue to ask you, your privacy be damned.
You can thank the current crop of new "legislators" for the permanent loss of your "privacy.")
Nobody can hope to be safe anymore with lunatics with hidden guns.

Big deal.

Wisconsin became the 49th State this year to license concealed carry. Only Illinois still bans concealed carry.

Would you feel safer from guns in East St. Louis as compared to Madison?

[Ticman]

Maybe they were worried about THEIR health. I would be.
In Wisconsin now, Reublics have made hidden weapons completely legal everywhere.
I wouldn't invite anyone into my office or classroom or even near my front lawn now without
ascertaining if they had items that could kill me on their person. And i would inspect personal
effects, also.

You think this is an infringement on your privacy? Your "privacy" is precious but other's lives are not?
(Now you see why people will continue to ask you, your privacy be damned.
You can thank the current crop of new "legislators" for the permanent loss of your "privacy.")
Nobody can hope to be safe anymore with lunatics with hidden guns.

You need to do some research before making false statements. Concealed Weapon Permit holders as a sub set of people are one of the most law abiding peoples in the US. Not knocking the police, but the police are far more likely to commit a crime than CWP holders. Labeling gun owners as 'lunatics" is bigotry. Like calling a black person, well you know.

If you want proof just go to the FBI or Department of Justice web sites. Heck, even the Brady Campaign’s web sites shows CWP holders as being extremely law abiding. This whole blood in the streets thing is getting very, very old since it’s never happened and never will.

[Birddog]

I would have said no regardless of haveing guns or not,like politics,it's your business what you favor.
i agree with you ticman,we've had CCW's here in fl since 1987 and state just passed in october they are the only
ones statewide that can pass any firearms legislation,no city or county,just uniform laws across the state

[VVV]

Surge in handgun ownership propelled by shifting politics, demographics
Teaching Queers To Shoot
By Ken Wells, Bloomberg News
Posted Dec. 11, 2011, at 4:11 p.m.

....

In decades past, mass shootings, such as the Jan. 8 rampage that killed six and wounded Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, provided a potent rallying cry for the anti-gun movement. These days, pro-gun forces are as likely to parade them out as evidence that citizens need to arm themselves against attacks that authorities are often helpless to prevent. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which claims 45,000 adherents on Facebook, sprang up in response to the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings.

.....

the conceal-carry movement has gained momentum, in part because the dire predictions of anti-gun groups in the early years of the fight — that carriers of hidden guns would deploy them to settle disputes over road rage and the like — haven’t materialized.

“We don’t look around and see blood spreading across the country,” says Deborah Homsher, an Ithaca, N.Y., writer whose 2001 book, “Women & Guns,” explored gun politics in the 1990s. “I think that fact deflates the anti-argument.”

....

Stallard, who had a sex-change operation in 2007, is in a documentary that amounts to a call to arms for gays. The title, “Arming Laramie,” derives from Laramie, Wyo., the site of the 1988 murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student, that led to the passage of a 2009 federal hate crimes law named after him.

As Gwen Patton, a former spokeswoman for the Pink Pistols, says in the trailer: “We teach queers to shoot — then we teach everybody that we’ve done it.”

....

Full article: http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/11/n ... ographics/

[ButtermilkBuoy]

I wonder if Adam Lanza's doctors asked Nancy if she had a gun in the home?

[49er]

I wonder if Adam Lanza's doctors asked Nancy if she had a gun in the home?

Great question.

As one who wants strict gun control, I agree with the points that Starlette made in her initial post. If physicians can ask about this, what is to prevent them from asking about even more personal things? Where do you draw the line?

And if Nancy Lanza said yes, then what? Are they now going to play cop and call the authorities?

Physicians don't even have time to do what they are supposed to do which is to focus on the person's health.

49er

[Julie]

Not to take this off track, but good doctors do (and should) ask 'personal' questions to get the whole picture of a patient's life, what stressors may be relevant to physical probems, etc. You don't have to answer them, but I don't think it's wrong to ask.

[greatunclebill]

i think goofproof hit the nail square on the head. the day is coming, maybe sooner, maybe much later, when there will be an attempt to confiscate all firearms. at this point and for the last several years they have been gathering intel. think about it, it was no accident that concealed carry pistol permits suddenly became much easier to get. people have also been buying hunting licences for years building a data base. now, in the computer age where everything is digitized and the computers do all the leg work, locating the people with guns will be the easy part. they simply scan data files for gun sales, gun registrations, gun transfers, hunting licenses, concealed carry permits and now add to that medical records and they have a whooping big list of where to likely find 95% of all firearms. first they call for people to turn them in. after that phase is done, they have a list of who to check and where to go to find the rest. big brother has been here a long time and is getting prepared to b*tch slap us on many levels.

[archangle]

I wonder if Adam Lanza's doctors asked Nancy if she had a gun in the home?

Would it give you some sort of ghoulish pleasure if the doctors had asked her?

If anything, you point out why it's a really stupid idea for a doctor to ask about guns in the house. Can you imagine how much abuse the doctor would take from the sensationalist press and scumbag trial lawyers if someone found out he'd asked Nancy if she had guns?

If you're a doctor, you're a real idiot if you normally ask this. You're really unlikely to make a problem patient get rid of their guns, or to make a careless gun owner clean up their act. If one of your patients does do something bad, you're opening yourself up to liability or damage to your reputation.

[ems]

I wonder if Adam Lanza's doctors asked Nancy if she had a gun in the home?

I understand your point. But, in all probability, she would have said no.

I can't imagine having a gun in my home or owning one. Definitely not on the side of the NRA. However, if I did and a doctor asked if I had a gun, I'd say no ... like most people would.

I think a doctor asking a question like that is bizarre.

[chunkyfrog]

If they don't already know, it's none of their beeswax.

[hyperlexis]

Just when I thought we could go for five whole minutes without someone dragging fing guns back onto the blog after Connecticuit...

Perhaps for New Year's then....

[greatunclebill]

you're helping keep it alive too.

[SleepyToo2]

We were asked by our physician before our son was born (nearly 15 years ago). I had no problem with it then, and I am not sure that I would have a problem if they asked now - in the correct context. Obviously, a physician should be concerned about my health and that of my nearest and dearest. The problem with guns is not the gun itself, but the damage that it can do in the wrong hands. If they are kept under lock and key, they should be safe. However, can you then argue that you keep a gun for self-defense? By the time the gun was unlocked, loaded, armed, aimed and fired, the home invader is likely to have driven off in his/her car, perhaps leaving you dead. I like the idea of fingerprint/palm-print locks on guns so that only the registered owners/users can fire them. I am just not sure how practical that is given the availability of guns already in the community, or the cost and reliability of such devices. Just because it works in James Bond movies is no guarantee that it will work in the real world.

Although I am a pacifist by nature, I think this is a very important discussion to have throughout the country. Legislation alone is not going to work (how many people drive without seat-belts, for example). Education alone is probably not going to work. Gun locks alone will not work. A complete ban on "rifles" that have 30-round magazines is probably not going to work on its own. What is needed is better enforcement of the current laws, education, gun locks, and selective bans, and probably a further dozen or so additional things. Not least of which should be better diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems that lead to irrational behavior. If this discussion can be had, maybe we will all sleep much better at night (xpap permitting?)?

[chunkyfrog]

Safety for children is a great initiative.
I have always thought a great thing to display in public would be a windshield
with a shattered bump in the center, with the first name of the child that made it,
along with dates of birth and death. Sadly, you can still find them in the salvage yard.
People are getting better with buckling their kids in now, but some morons still don't.
More children die this way; and it is so easily prevented.