This isn't news (or exactly on-topic), but it seems related....


Alert from JPFO
America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization

ALERT: Rx for "Gun Control"?

In view of the increasing effort to "prescribe" "gun control", we thought we would resend the Alerts we sent NEARLY A YEAR AGO (May 3 and June 9, 2000) about this situation. We have also brought together on a new page on our web site old and new articles dealing with statistics, doctors, and victim
disarmament: http://www.jpfo.org/doctors.htm

Share this with as many people as you can so we can fight this assault on our rights and privacy!

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FIRST ALERT: Date: May 3, 2000

Is Your Doctor A Spy?

Anti-self defense lobbyists have enlisted family-practice physicians and pediatricians into collecting firearms ownership data. Doctors have been receiving literature urging them to ask their patients a lot of detailed questions about firearms ownership.

We received a first-hand report from an ardent JPFO supporter who recently underwent this very type of probing by his doctor.
During a physical examination in April 2000, as part of obtaining a "medical history," the doctor asked the patient:

* Do you have any guns?
* If so, how many guns do you have?
* Where are they located?
* Where do you store the guns?
* How much ammunition do you keep?

This line of questioning presents three dangers. First, the "public health" argument for victim disarmament has successfully
filtered from the lobbyists down to actual practitioners. Some doctors actually believe that firearms are dangerous like an open jar of smallpox bacillus.

Second, patients generally trust their doctors and will submit to these intrusive questions. Not only that, many patients will think the questions are proper and justified ... because their doctor asked them.  Our JPFO supporter refused to answer most of these questions -- but many other patients will simply comply.

Third, although medical records are supposed to be confidential, that can all change in a heartbeat. There have been repeated moves in Congress to mandate a universal medical health system, or at least a universal medical identification chip. The chip would contain all of a person's medical records. In both plans the patient's medical data becomes part of a national data base.
When doctors collect firearms ownership data, they are helping to build a national gun owner identification system. Even now senior citizens and others using Medicare and Medicaid are subject to having their medical records reviewed by government agents.

Our JPFO supporter said "no" to this doctor's intrusive questioning, and asked why the doctor was asking all of these questions. The doctor said it was something the American Medical Association was now pushing. Our JPFO supporter complained to the hospital whose spokesperson said that the firearms questions were not hospital policy and that they would investigate the matter.

What you can do:

(1) Tell everyone you know to refuse to answer doctors' questions about personal firearms ownership -- even if they don't own a firearm. Doctors and other health care professionals have no business asking such questions, period.

(2) If your doctor asks questions about your firearms ownership, ask why the doctor is asking, and then report the matter as an invasion of privacy to the hospital.

(3) Encourage doctors to contact and receive information from:

(A) Dr. Edgar Suter, Doctors for Integr