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Ryan McCormick, M.D.'s avatar

As a primary care doc I have to push back a bit... although much of what you say dovetails with the American Academy of Family Physicians 2018 statement on gun screening:

https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2018/1101/p560.html

Our visits encompass a crushing number of biological, social, and psychological problems, with just the # of diagnoses addressed in a supposedly 20 minute visit routinely topping 15.

Have you ever tried to get patient in with a psychiatrist? To stay with that psychiatrist? The hurdles and barriers are often formidable.

We are a sick country, physically and mentally, and healthcare workers are increasingly the verbal and physical targets of violent individuals. Asking about gun ownership (after tending to someone’s diabetes, prostate cancer, coronary artery disease etc) sounds less like a preventative goal and more like a political wedge than ever. Who knew you could follow a calling to be a doctor and then get trashed with online reviews like a Subway, or maybe murdered because... it doesn’t matter.

I know we are a part of the solution, and I’m happy to step up to the degree I can. But simply stated, this country has outpaced the world by an order of magnitude in gun ownership. There are too many guns. That’s where the evidence based solutions come from.

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Alison Lynch-Miller, MD's avatar

As usual, I love your column, and I have an addition to your list I will mention again: we have a national suicide prevention hotline, we need a national homicide prevention hotline. We need to bring out of the closet the reality that humans are a species with thoughts that move toward both suicide (suicidal ideation, SI) and homicide (homicidal ideation, HI). In their milder forms, people self harm or do drugs (for SI) or get in fights or have road rage incidents (HI). Once we stop denying this shadow side of human nature and build out a care network, we can be of greater assistance to these folks, and help stop the carnage. Of course, means reduction with common sense gun laws, is a must. But first, like with suicide, we must, as a culture, bring this issue out of the closet to be effective.

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