“The intersection of guns and health care is undeniable. As the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania concluded, ‘Healthcare providers thus have a vital role in preventing firearm injuries and their impact on patients, families and communities.’ And that’s why the group Doctors for America, which Murthy co-founded, applauded Obama’s gun violence imitative (sic) last year.” – Media Matters for America’s Eric Boehlert in More Guns, Less Health Care: How The Right Wing Is Making America Less Safe [at mediamatters.org]

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77 COMMENTS

  1. How exactly does a health care provider PREVENT any injury, firearm related or otherwise?

    Health care providers in general, like cops, REACT. What’s the doctor going to do, stand with his patient at the range to make sure he does not shoot himself?

    This guy should get some Doctors Without Borders or similar experience in the real world, then MAYBE he would have something upon which to base his lectures to the rest of us.

    • How, exactly, is Murthy going to justify his partisan stance while jostling his ICD-10 codes from gunshot deaths from muggers to Taser deaths from the uniformed gestapo? They’ll continue to pile up the data on gunshot wounds, for sure, but conveniently fail to find any codes for being tasered to death in your own wheelchair or beaten to death by the police for trying to stop a fight between two other people. Being shot by police, even if you are innocent, is more likely to happen than serving in Afghanistan.

      Put this Murthy moron back on the freakin’ boat to India. Jeez, is this the best they could come up with?

      • agree with all, except that Murthy was born in the UK, so I just wanted to inform you that you put him on the wrong boat.

        • I say we deport him to Sweden. Sure, he claims to not be from there, but the Moronis are a bunch of fargin liars.

    • The doctor wont stand by you at the range, he will accompany wherever you go, and he will be armed to the teeth to shoot anyone that wants to put hurt on you.

    • Before you all waste too much time hyperventilating about what real doctors might do, or not-
      just read the connections here: Doctors for America is a Soros funded progressive group founded to support single payer health care- ie ObamaCare. We see how thats working out…

      SURE, I will trust you, you sorry sockpuppet nitwit “Doctor” from the UK with no experience being the US Surgeon General…That would be like giving the UN the right to decide what kind of firearm I can buy…

      http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6709

      That anyone thinks “media_nutters” is anything more than another proglibtard agitprop org is simply amazing to me. I blame the StateRunMedia for not calling them out, but then that would be the pot calling the kettle black, I suppose…

  2. Hell, while we are at it, why don’t we have doctors dictate all of our eating, sleeping, recreational, and reproductive habits? After all, those things impact your health, which impacts public health.

    The bigger debate here is individual freedom and choice VS “public health”. You can be damn sure that if the government is footing the bills for your healthcare, you will be required to go to the gym, eat your broccoli, and hand over your guns.

    My freedom is worth more than ensuring that everyone has access to a doctor – simple as that.

    • Reducing their whole bit to the ridiculous:

      You can get hurt playing football with your friends at the part on Saturday afternoon. Are they going to have input on that too? Tell people they shouldn’t play at the park?

      You can get hurt by cooking your own dinner in your kitchen. Is telling people not to cook for themselves next?

      What about at a job? There are all kinds of injuries that can happen at work. Should people not work?

      This whole line of reasoning smacks of “talking problems away” which is a technique statists are fond of but is woefully inadequate here in the real world. Let’s call it a public health problem, run our mouths about how to prevent it and it will go away.

      Or not.

      If the problems really DO go away, the need for them is gone.

  3. this MODERATED was born in England and was made a USA citizen….anything he says about guns is with a British mentality

  4. So this means that they will start banning showers and tubs since such a large number of injuries result from falling in the bathroom right?

    I’m going to write a book called “how to make money in the USA” It will have have three chapters. 1. Suing people for profit, 2. start a ‘nonprofit organization’ to crusade against something stupid people don’t understand, and 3. learn to lie, kiss ass, and manipulate others *aka how to become a politician*.

    • We should ban health care, seeing as how death and injury from malpractice and infections dwarf those from firearms.

      • lol that is a great idea actually. Toss that in that self important jerk’s face. How many people die to malpractice each year…. doctors should be banned. Maybe they should have to take countless hours of training and have to be licensed….. oh wait…. all that and they still kill people by the thousands. Maybe it could be that some people are just worthless and there is no way to know until they actually DO something wrong.

        If we keep removing people because of ‘what ifs’ then you are 100% correct, remove all doctors.

      • The old nonsense of “deaths from medical malpractice” is nearly as bad as the stats the antis use. Utterly misleading. It’d be like showing how many houses burn down due to fireman malpractice. People aren’t at the hospital ’cause they’re healthy or uninjured…they’re usually there because they have a life-threatening or life-shortening condition. Dumb analyses by those with political axes to grind like the IOM (Institute of Medicine, whatever that is).

        That said, this hoplophobe, Murthy, is provably a poor choice since he can’t understand basic epidemiological data regarding “gun violence.”

  5. Damn those right – wingers who want government accountability, lower taxes, and freedom!

    /sarc

    • As is often said, it’s a giant libertarian conspiracy. We are slowly hatching an evil plot to restore freedom, give people back their money, and then leave them the hell alone.

        • @ Rich

          I hit your web page and your basic philosophy makes perfect sense to me.

          But Hillary? It’s too horrible to contemplate.

          • I foresee an anti-D bloodbath in the mid-terms, but the Sheeple will elect a bunch of RINOs, Neocons, Theocrats, and other bloodthirsty warmongers; then within two more years they’ll take Obama’s bad situation and make it about 10X worse in ways nobody has even thought of, like pandering to the POTG to get elected, then using them as Brownshirts in the insane, immoral, unconstitutional war on disapproved drugs, and of course the Imperial Guard and the National Security Blanket have been the purview of the R’s since Nixon.

  6. Perhaps health care providers should start administering the driving test for teenagers. After all, they can “play a vital role in preventing injuries from reckless driving”.

  8. I find this attitude tiresome. Why are leftists compelled to intrude, forcefully if necessary, into others’ lives? Why is every intrusion a good thing? Why is nearly every intrusion then discovered to be ineffective, harmful at times, but still the leftist response is more of the same crap. It’s like an addict who believes only larger doses will save them from their addiction. (For the addict, this eventually “frees” them from their addiction).

    Thanks for letting me vent.

    • “Why are leftists compelled to intrude, forcefully if necessary, into others’ lives?”

      There are two simple answers that cover 99% of leftists:
      (1) “Benevolent” leftists think of everyone as toddlers who have no idea what is good for themselves and will quite literally perish without intervention from the leftists. Being the pillars of virtue and knowledge that they claim themselves to be, the leftists believe they have an obligation to “intervene”.
      (2) “Malevolent” leftists think of everyone as a resource to be exploited, consumed, used, and abused at their pleasure … and rail for the means to accomplish that mindset.

    • As long as there is one one remaining freedom left to the lowly, one privately held piece of property in the hands of the common man, any hope of living life as we wish [and one Bloomberg or Soros dollar left to spend], the leftists will bravely continue their great three-part scheme:

      1) Disarm and dispossess all but the ruling elite
      2) [Do something else that is never quite defined or thought through]
      3) Live peacefully and happily forever in the grand leftist utopia of tomorrow (it will work this time, guys!]

  9. Both Doctors for America and Media Matters are partisan political organizations that work directly with the Obama White House. Any policy they advocate is based on politics, not science.

  10. It’s no one’s business if I have guns or not. If ever asked by anyone answer is nope. I’ll continue to pay premiums for private insurance. No government (non-affordable health care act) for me! It’s just a glorified Medcaid program, which is bankrupting states as it is now.

  11. Perhaps we should start having doctors inspect our vehicles since they cause far more injuries than firearms. They could lay down on a creeper, inspect pur brakes, check our tires, etc., since they are the experts in public health they must be the most qualified mechanics, right?

  12. Has anyone ever considered this fact: more people arriving at hospitals with mortal injuries == more money for doctors? And the more “gun control” we have, the more people will be going to hospitals with mortal injuries?

  14. I’m not sure why Boehlert bothers to excoriate the right wing for being against Obamacare. The president himself acknowledges how awful it is by delaying its implementation until he is about to leave office.

  15. This statement just in from the Firearm & Injury Center: “Citizen! Do your part toward Injurystop! Only participate in party-sanctioned activities at the indicated appropriate times! Those in possession of or interest in firearms are perpetrators of thoughtcrime and will be dealt with accordingly!”

    Guns as a health issue means protective stupidity.

  16. As a physician, I most certainly CAN have a positive impact on gun safety…in my own house, with my own kids. That is it. I can’t (and wouldn’t, if I could) police anyone else’s behavior. If O-care startes allowing (read: requiring) docs to ask about gun ownership, my patients will know that they do not have to answer that question. I wouldn’t. Trying to make gun ownership a public health issue is simply a different way to push a gun control agenda.

    • “Trying to make gun ownership a public health issue is simply a different way to push a gun control agenda.”

      And that is why the CDC was shut down in “firearm research”, something Obama wanted to start again. If you want a laugh check out how the CDC conducted their “research” and their “findings” if you haven’t already, but it might just make you shake your head in disgust.

  17. President Obama’s nomination of this man for Surgeon General is absurd. Leaving aside his stance on guns, Dr. Murthy, not yet 40 years old and only ten years or so (give or take) out of medical school, wouldn’t qualify to be chief of medicine at a small town hospital for lack of experience…yet Mr. President thinks this ass clown should be Surgeon General? Dr. Murthy could be Yosemite Effing Sam and I’d still be against this nomination based on his lack of experience.

    But, according to the media, the only reason anyone would be against this nomination is, well, because we’re all a bunch of Yosemite Effing Sams… Point being, maybe the lack of experience should be called out louder than his very British stance on guns.

    Now if you’ll excuse me it’s time to send another $20 to the SAF…

  18. I realize this argument has been made before, but here it goes. if guns are a national epidemic and health concern, what does that make cars?

    I’m held to the utmost standards of responsible firearm ownership and operation, yet while walking to work I am almost hit daily by oblivious, spaced out, texting drivers while crossing the street, and I see a collision at least once a month just from where I sit at work.

    • Cars have a utility that cannot be ignored, we all need to get around. Guns, those are only for paranoid, overly-religious, old-fat-white-guys that preach conspiracy theories and anarchism so they can harass people that pass by while they sit on their porch all day long in their flannel and overalls. See? It makes perfect sense according to the social utility theory, the damage cars create is offset by the economic gain we get from going places. Guns on the other hand, there is no upside to death-dealing machines that can go off for no reason at all. /s

      In reality, even the low estimate given by the DOJ of 108,000 DGUs (including real peril of death, rape, or great bodily harm) outweighs the total deaths related to firearms at 32,000. The high estimate of crime-stopping incidents (including real peril of death, rape, great bodily harm, robbery, grand theft auto, breaking-and-entering, and all manner of crimes) with firearms sits around 2.5 million. By their beloved social utility theory gun ownership should increase, not decrease.

      • the, car/utility argument is nullified on me I could care less what utility those death machines have. guns don’t pollute (in any significant way, brass maybe?) and they kill fewer of the “precious children”. cars produce at least 20% of the air pollution that causes global warming. everyone’s convenient “utility” is a death dealing machine, and Just like LSD, though it may take you on a trip, it can also fuck up your world for good.

        this isnt the forum for environmentalism, but utility aside, human beings are far to reliant upon comfort.

    • Heh. If you spent any time living in ultra-liberal places like I do – Seattle, Portland, San Francisco – you would know that cars are definitely a progressive idealist’s line item to be eliminated as well, just one that we haven’t fully got to yet.

      • Start looking at some cities 20 year plan, now most called 20/30 rather than 20/20 plan. Cars are being excluded from the main downtown vital areas as they will be turned into walking/biking/train access only.

    • You know, I hadn’t thought it until I read your comment and looked at the pic again but does the good doctor put a spritz of grey in his hair to look older? My grey started in my mid thirties, so I suppose it could be natural, but his seems to scream “highlights” to me…

      • I’m 90% sure Obuma is bottle graying. Trying to look mature.

        How tense can you get playing golf, going on vacation, filling out BBall choices, cut Security briefings.

      • Search Google Images and you can see his hair is uniformly black in the majority of pictures. IMO, he’s trying to come across as being more mature than his actual age and experience. It’s a game.

  20. What about pool regulations? How many times a year do you hear about kids drowning in pools? Something has to be done for the kids.

    • “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
      ~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

  21. Healthcare providers can certainly help reduce firearms injuries: point out the various firearms safety programs the NRA has available, i.e. education. Education is a huge portion of preventative medicine, anyway. But just as in all aspects of preventative medicine, you can’t fix stupid.

  22. So healthcare providers should be asking patients if they belong to a Gang? Which Gang? Have they considered getting out of that Gang? What are the things preventing them from leaving the Gang? Do they talk to the parents about their boy being in a Gang?

  23. It seems to me that the auto industry in American needs to take a more vital role in healthcare too. The UAW should be held accountable for all the drunk drivers out there. If the UAW does not comply and conform to the agenda of M.A.D.D. then they will be labeled a terrorist orginization. Also, a Chevy Monte Carlo should only be driven by NASCAR professionals and civilian should not be allowed to drive or own Monte Carlos. Your right to drive a vehicle does not mean you have the right to own a NASCAR Chevy Monte Carlo. Those are severly regulated.

    Can you hear my sarcasm?

  25. This is the left, at their finest, controlling the narrative.

    To them it is a FACT that guns are a health concern: don’t even argue it, this is plain as day and EVERYONE can see that. The inevitable conclusion is that right-wingers are against the ACA and thus against healthcare for all Americans, for the 2nd Amendment and thus wanting more guns in American’s hands (that will undeniably cause them harm). Ergo they just want to harm America as a result and aren’t even so much as misguided but deliberately harmful in their intent.

    Unfortunately the right is terrible at controlling narrative at all. They usually play ball in a game whereupon the rules have already been designed to work against them.

  27. This is also an example of things seen and unseen. An emergency room physician will see the harm guns do, but unless he takes the effort to think rigorously, he will fall to consider the cases he isn’t seeing because people defended themselves with guns. The crippling beating that didn’t happen, the vicious rape that was stopped before it began, the person who’s going about their business instead of coming into the ER with a stab wound.

    Because he doesn’t see or refuses to see this side of the equation, he’s sees only the costs and none of the benefits. That’s not how rights should be able treated in the first place, but it’s still faulty thinking that needs to be exposed.

    • That would require actually having practiced medicine rather than just play acting at politics.

    • “An emergency room physician will see the harm guns do,”

      And of course, they outnumber car crash victims by what, 10 to 1? 100 to 1?
      </sarc>

  28. Ok, so I might listen to my doctor if: he is an NRA certified firearms instructor, obtained his concealed carry permit, believes in the right to self-defense, and isn’t afraid to tell Bloomberg that he (Bloomberg) is an idiot. But what I will only listen to is his experience with safe gun handling without instruction. I will not answer questions about guns in my home or if they are locked and if the ammunition is kept seperate from the gun. I think I am pretty safe about having to not listen to my doctor.

  29. “Hey, you know you really shouldn’t shoot people.”

    “Gee, thanks doc, I never thought of that before.”

  30. Can’t smoke, can’t drink over-sized sodas, gotta wear our seat belts and motorcycle helmets, mustn’t let our children play confrontational games … We all grew up, went off on our own and now the government wants to be our mommy, controlling all aspects of our lives. They’re a couple short steps from wiping our noses and asking about the condition of our underwear. I can’t decide if the founding fathers would be taking up arms or laughing at us. The sissification of our nation is rolling on. It’s a real word. You could look it up. But don’t.

  31. One thousand people a day die from medical mistakes. Murthy should be focused on that instead of trying to destroy the Second Amendment.

  32. PS: if there is a solid un-biased investigative journalist left in the StateRunMedia- well, that maybe an oxymoronic combination- but if-

    maybe someone could look into where University of Pennsylvania’s FICAP funding comes from:

    Maybe- Federal Grant money, like this:http://www.cdc.gov/injury/about/budget.html scroll down to see the 2015 budget item for $22 Million more of Taxpayer money to the CDC to support this: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence

    A little history here: anyone suprised that Bloomie has a hand in it?
    https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx

    He had no compunction about using NY State taxpayer money to fund his activities…

    Remember- the Gun-Grabber In Chief said he has a pen and a phone. Now that Russia, Syria, and Iran have laughed in his face, he needs to turn his attention to doing more at home.

  33. There’s really no reason for the Surgeon General position to exist at all. I don’t know why we put up with this silly kabuki political theatre in administration after administration. We could save a bunch of money and time by simply eliminating the position entirely.

    I don’t need some grifter with his snout and two front feet in the public sector feed bunk to tell me to use a condom, masturbate, not smoke, not eat eggs,eat eggs, drink, not drink, maybe drink some red wine, don’t eat red meat, eat fish, go vegan or graze in the First Lady’s idiotic backyard garden, exercise or any of the other thing that these professional whinges peddle as “health” nostrums.

    Here’s the thing that fans of big government never seem to understand. Some of us out here are grown-ass adults and need no supervision. I don’t need cops, nags, bureaucrats, and pretty much the rest of government. I’ll shovel or plow my own roads, if necessary, repair them too (I’ve filled a dozen potholes on my road on my dime in the last three years) and in the name of all that is Holy and Does Not Suck, I need nothing less than some of some Ivy League pinhead lecturing me about how I should take care of my health.

    Get rid of the entire office and save the public a bunch of time and money.

    • +1. Greens and Academics combined forces to politicize science for global warming and look at how the public has lost trust in scientists in general.

      We can hardly expect Doctors in general to be respected when nitwits like this pretend to speak for all of them. Between that and Obamacare driving them out of private practice we’ll be all waiting in line at the emergency room sooner than later.

      • “..Between that and Obamacare driving them out of private practice we’ll be all waiting in line at the emergency room sooner than later.”

        It’s all traceable back to the income tax. Companies couldn’t compensate excellence with more money, because that only meant more taxes, so they gave benefits, one of the most popular being a group health plan. Then, rather than do what they should have done, i.e., bill the customer/patient, and let the customer/patient just pay the damn bill or go and get the insurance company to pay for it, the provider billed the insurance company. People got used to just showing the medical clerks their card and never hearing about it again, so there were no cost controls, and the third-party payer system has given us what we see now. Sane people have been trying to warn the sheeple for decades, but I guess there’s going to need to be some significant wake-up call, like a national bankruptcy and people literally starving in the streets.

  34. One last absurdity- the U Penn Firearms and Injury Center stopped issuing reports back in 2007 or so, presumeably because the data was self-admittedly inconclusive, and gems like theses were buried in the footnotes:

    “FBI crime data 16% of firearm homicides occurr
    ed in connection with a known or suspected
    felony, such as robbery or drugs, while 46% oc
    curred under non-felony circumstances, primarily
    arguments and gang shootings.”

    Adding gang shootings to homicides gives 62% of all homicides.
    Now, if you were wondering who did what where:

    “Black males and black females are more likely to
    be the victims of firearm homicide than
    their white counterparts. The
    age-adjusted rate of firearm homicide among black males in
    2007 (30.3
    per 100,000) was more than eight times that of white males 3.7
    per 100,000).
    Black males ages 20-24 years had the
    highest rate at 98.6 per 100,000 ”

    So, just to cherry pick and come up with a couple of ideas…

    Wait- theres more:

    “Being abused, exposed to do
    mestic violence, and having a
    mother using substances are asso
    ciated with a higher number of health problems in children; in
    fact, the strongest predic
    tors of poor child health
    are the mother’s physical
    health and the child’s
    level of traumatic stress.
    AND
    Frequent exposure to violence is
    significantly associated with both
    internalizing symptoms and externalizing proble
    m behaviors, including posttraumatic stress
    symptoms, depression, anxiety,
    dissociation and aggression.”

    In other words- the dependency culture that the Progtards have created to keep the urban poor in chains. Someday, the first post-racial president and the Democratic Party will be held accountable for their role in all this…

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