For my friends in Washington State, you might want to reconsider treatment from this particular doctor (although he isn’t wrong about the training problem):
Gun owners tell me how important good training is to preventing injury. Though I myself do not own a gun, I believe them. Yet more than 40 percent of owners receive no formal training in operating a gun. …
There are more than 300 million guns in our country today. With guns so ubiquitous, parents should ask whether guns are present and properly locked in the homes their children visit. In Washington state, more than 200,000 children live in homes where guns are not locked securely.
“More than 200,000” huh?
Personal opinion here. Soft-pedaling gun control like this is more dangerous than those who are bold and up-front about it. Soft-pedaling gun control is how antis find their way into pro-gun groups and create problems from within.
I want my patients, neighbors and fellow citizens, both gun owners and non-owners, to appreciate the risks and benefits of owning a gun and the things we can do to make our homes and communities safer. Armed with accurate information, most people will make choices that promote health and safety. Physicians, as stewards of public health, need to take the lead in promoting gun literacy, both in our practices and in the public domain.
– Gregory Engel, physician/epidemiologist in Washington State, for the Seattle Times, Physicians Should Be on Front Lines of Gun-Safety Education
