A Healthcare Bill To Treat Gun Ownership As A Disease??

Some legislative aides during the 2014 law changes in MA were pushing this through Public Health officials.

Mental illness, bedbugs, addiction, communicable diseases formerly eradicated coming back, etc. ignored because Public Health is being politicized into a weapon rather than focusing on operation as a legitimate civil service. It will get worse if people don't start paying attention and forcing these officials and agencies to do their job, focus on their core mission, and stop chasing windmills because NPR or the Party told them too.
 
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I can see it now. Sorry hun I didn't want to purchase anymore guns but I have a disease and can't control it. Do you think we'll have safe spaces that the state allows us to go and shoot for free?
 
As an addict, is ammo my new methadone? What, I am serious. Getting a free supply every day at a safe range to use the pills makes my jeans tighter.
 
Pretty poorly written bill.
I am against it.
But as happens with Guns & Gadgets when he is striving to be the first to get word out, he has missed some details. And if you're going to be calling your rep and senator, you just might want to get the details straight.

Section 237 deals with "Analysis of population health trends; opiate overdoses"
So when it refers to patients, it is referring to those who have already been identified as having overdosed on an opiate. It's not some global screening of everyone by every doctor to identify gun owners. If you start going off about it being this to your rep/senator they will write you off as yet another uniformed gun nut, and not take you concerns seriously.

The section also says " Information or data provided or accessed under this section shall be confidential, shall not be used to identify any individual and shall be used solely for the conduct of analysis pursuant to this section. Such information or data shall not be considered a public record, shall be exempt from disclosure under section 10 of chapter 66 and shall not be subject to subpoena or discovery or admissible as evidence in any action of any kind in any court or before any other tribunal, board, agency or person. All resulting reports shall provide data in an aggregate and de-identified format."

And the medical community takes this seriously. Having run the IT department for a company that did metal health and drug addiction research for the Gov., I can assure you the doctors involved wouldn't release PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to the Gov even when it's the Gov paying the bills.

If you want to make headway against this, craft your argument carefully based in what the bill says in context of the law, because you can bet the supporters are saying it's only about opiate users and all the data is kept private. Know thy enemy.
 
Pretty poorly written bill.
I am against it.
But as happens with Guns & Gadgets when he is striving to be the first to get word out, he has missed some details. And if you're going to be calling your rep and senator, you just might want to get the details straight.

Section 237 deals with "Analysis of population health trends; opiate overdoses"
So when it refers to patients, it is referring to those who have already been identified as having overdosed on an opiate. It's not some global screening of everyone by every doctor to identify gun owners. If you start going off about it being this to your rep/senator they will write you off as yet another uniformed gun nut, and not take you concerns seriously.

The section also says " Information or data provided or accessed under this section shall be confidential, shall not be used to identify any individual and shall be used solely for the conduct of analysis pursuant to this section. Such information or data shall not be considered a public record, shall be exempt from disclosure under section 10 of chapter 66 and shall not be subject to subpoena or discovery or admissible as evidence in any action of any kind in any court or before any other tribunal, board, agency or person. All resulting reports shall provide data in an aggregate and de-identified format."

And the medical community takes this seriously. Having run the IT department for a company that did metal health and drug addiction research for the Gov., I can assure you the doctors involved wouldn't release PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to the Gov even when it's the Gov paying the bills.

If you want to make headway against this, craft your argument carefully based in what the bill says in context of the law, because you can bet the supporters are saying it's only about opiate users and all the data is kept private. Know thy enemy.

Great info, @42! Thanks!


Frank
 
And the medical community takes this seriously. Having run the IT department for a company that did metal health and drug addiction research for the Gov., I can assure you the doctors involved wouldn't release PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to the Gov even when it's the Gov paying the bills.
HIPPA contains an override root password "national security" that makes disclosure mandatory.
 
And the medical community takes this seriously. Having run the IT department for a company that did metal health and drug addiction research for the Gov., I can assure you the doctors involved wouldn't release PII (Personally Identifiable Information) to the Gov even when it's the Gov paying the bills.

Of course they would NEVER do that!!!


"I'm Reptile, and I am an Ammosexual."

You have to realize you have a problem before you can get treatment.

I think I need to see a Glock Doctor for my addiction.
 
Of course they would NEVER do that!!!


"I'm Reptile, and I am an Ammosexual."

You have to realize you have a problem before you can get treatment.

I think I need to see a Glock Doctor for my addiction.
All I can tell you is I was there and you weren't.
 
I wrote the below comment on a paper about guns as a public health issue and also sent my comment to the author at BU - the comment was posted but the author did not respond to my email. I usually send a few emails every month to such academic authors and very rarely get any reply - twice I can remember...

"A Public Health Approach to Gun Violence, Legally Speaking" Professor Presents Gun Violence Research at Health Law Workshop | SPH | Boston University

"The epidemic/contagion model for gun violence confuses host and vector. A viral vector seeks to maximize reproductive efficiency through a senseless host, whose normal habits and behaviors potentiate dissemination of the vector and infection of the host species. Guns, a tool created by humans, have no evolutionary mechanism. Humans evolved to make tools, including guns, and employ them by free choice rather than as senseless hosts of these metal, wood and plastic vectors. Trying to define guns by a health care model with the purpose of bringing them under regulation overlooks the disagreement under the professions studying criminal violence. While health care professionals largely support gun controls as the most effective measure to address criminal violence, other professionals, including economists, criminologists and sociologists, disagree with the health care/disease model. In fact, economists and criminologists find many of the gun laws and policies that health care professionals support as solutions to be ineffective or deleterious. This contrary position seems incredible when viewed from the current health care perspective - guns are made to kill, so how can regulating them *not* be the answer, let alone be counterproductive? Even the lower estimates of defensive guns uses exceeds the combined homicide and suicide rate, with most accepting rates several times higher. Creating laws that target criminal violence without reducing the beneficial use of guns in defense, wherein shots are rarely fired, poses a challenge, as criminals and non-criminals display differential compliance with laws. To extend the health care analogy, enacting misdirected gun laws and policies can be like trying to combat a viral infection with antibiotics. Incorrect diagnosis and treatment of disease has a medical disorder name, iatrogenic disease, and accounts for hundred of thousands of deaths yearly in the US. Incorrect diagnosis and treatment of criminal violence by implementing poorly conceived gun laws and policies risks increasing that toll."
 
I wrote the below comment on a paper about guns as a public health issue and also sent my comment to the author at BU - the comment was posted but the author did not respond to my email. I usually send a few emails every month to such academic authors and very rarely get any reply - twice I can remember...

"A Public Health Approach to Gun Violence, Legally Speaking" Professor Presents Gun Violence Research at Health Law Workshop | SPH | Boston University

"The epidemic/contagion model for gun violence confuses host and vector. A viral vector seeks to maximize reproductive efficiency through a senseless host, whose normal habits and behaviors potentiate dissemination of the vector and infection of the host species. Guns, a tool created by humans, have no evolutionary mechanism. Humans evolved to make tools, including guns, and employ them by free choice rather than as senseless hosts of these metal, wood and plastic vectors. Trying to define guns by a health care model with the purpose of bringing them under regulation overlooks the disagreement under the professions studying criminal violence. While health care professionals largely support gun controls as the most effective measure to address criminal violence, other professionals, including economists, criminologists and sociologists, disagree with the health care/disease model. In fact, economists and criminologists find many of the gun laws and policies that health care professionals support as solutions to be ineffective or deleterious. This contrary position seems incredible when viewed from the current health care perspective - guns are made to kill, so how can regulating them *not* be the answer, let alone be counterproductive? Even the lower estimates of defensive guns uses exceeds the combined homicide and suicide rate, with most accepting rates several times higher. Creating laws that target criminal violence without reducing the beneficial use of guns in defense, wherein shots are rarely fired, poses a challenge, as criminals and non-criminals display differential compliance with laws. To extend the health care analogy, enacting misdirected gun laws and policies can be like trying to combat a viral infection with antibiotics. Incorrect diagnosis and treatment of disease has a medical disorder name, iatrogenic disease, and accounts for hundred of thousands of deaths yearly in the US. Incorrect diagnosis and treatment of criminal violence by implementing poorly conceived gun laws and policies risks increasing that toll."
What a big, nonsensical wall of word salad. What in the god damn hell is the author of that blathering about?

Looks like he means this: "I have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm a clueless, out of touch academic, but i have a political agenda to impose on the plebs, so let me just string together a bunch of seemingly intelligent big words into a page of text that makes no sense to anyone with a brain, but the average leftist voter who reads it will be too stupid to realize I'm full of shit and just assume that I'm actually saying something."
 
What a big, nonsensical wall of word salad. What in the god damn hell is the author of that blathering about?

Looks like he means this: "I have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm a clueless, out of touch academic, but i have a political agenda to impose on the plebs, so let me just string together a bunch of seemingly intelligent big words into a page of text that makes no sense to anyone with a brain, but the average leftist voter who reads it will be too stupid to realize I'm full of shit and just assume that I'm actually saying something."

The public health community is *so* invested in gun control as THE solution to violent crime that anyone suggesting otherwise is viewed as a Holocaust Denier, Climate Change Denier and Birther rolled into one. There’s no data, argument or convincing to be done - they just have to be beaten to the ground.

That said, I *Do* harass them with data, arguments and such as it turns them from stolid, reserved, holier-than-thou academics into lunatics, frothing at the mouth, and they lose credibility in public and government venues. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel - kind of fun in a malicious way 😇
 
A great read, still topical today. Don Kates did some fine work - including the study estimating Defensive Gun Use that set the stage for the More Gun, Less Crime idea that guns have a societal cost and a societal benefit. Aside from being a Natural Right recognized in the COTUS, the benefits just outweigh the costs no matter how you slice the pie.

In 1979 the American public health community adopted the "objective to reduce the number of handguns in private ownership," the initial target being a 25% reduction by the year 2000.

Yeah - how’s that going for ya, Gun-grabbers? 😅
 
As long as I get all the associated freebies like ammo and at least 1 free gun a year .....

I do not understand why these people think GUNS are the cause of violence. Its just a easy choice vs getting up close and personal , I might be wrong but I thought i read that beatings with fist and boot kill more people than guns?
 
As an addict, is ammo my new methadone? What, I am serious. Getting a free supply every day at a safe range to use the pills makes my jeans tighter.

the real questions are: "what are you willing to do for it?" ... IF you are >18, female and hot.
 
Forks, knifes, plates, stoves etc.. should all be in there. Not guns, even better, how about these a**h***s STFU. They are mentally ill
 
The public health community is *so* invested in gun control as THE solution to violent crime that anyone suggesting otherwise is viewed as a Holocaust Denier, Climate Change Denier and Birther rolled into one. There’s no data, argument or convincing to be done - they just have to be beaten to the ground.

That said, I *Do* harass them with data, arguments and such as it turns them from stolid, reserved, holier-than-thou academics into lunatics, frothing at the mouth, and they lose credibility in public and government venues. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel - kind of fun in a malicious way 😇

IMHO the investment is because most "Public health doctors" etc, are basically irrelevant oxygen thieves, and they basically have to invent things to justify their existence, glomming onto "gun violence" as a public health problem (even though it really isn't one, per se) is them desperately clawing away at relevancy. Grossly exaggerate, and mischaracterize a problem to justify expending resources on it and create jobs, etc. Not much different than the "war on drugs' etc, so on. Or "the war on terror". Make people afraid of everything, then get someone else to pay you to "fix" it, or, what happens in reality, to pretend to fix it.....

-Mike
 
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