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AMA Pushes 'Unprecedented' Gun Control Agenda


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Bruce Japsen , CONTRIBUTORI write about healthcare business and policy Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Physician members of the American Medical Association are pushing the nation’s largest doctor group to back an “unprecedented” number of measures designed to curb gun violence and coax Congress into action.

Early next month, the AMA’s policy-making House of Delegates will consider nearly a dozen proposals on gun control and public safetymeasures in the wake of 28 school shootings this year alone including last week's at Noblesville West Middle School in Indiana. Action at the AMA meeting, which runs June 9-13 in Chicago, will put the group’s considerable lobbying clout behind legislation heading into November’s mid-term elections when gun control measures are expected to be key issues.

“Gun violence in America today is a public health crisis, one that requires a comprehensive and far-reaching solution,” AMA president Dr. David O. Barbe said. “This is an important issue, as demonstrated by an unprecedented number of gun violence prevention proposals that physicians have submitted for discussion during the upcoming AMA policy-making meeting.”

 

Already in 2018 there have been 28 school shootings at elementary and secondary schools, “resulting in 40 deaths and 66 injuries,” Vox reported last week. "With the year not even halfway over, 2018 already has more injuries and deaths than all of 2017 and appears to be on track to outpace 2017 in terms of overall incidents," Vox reported.

The AMA also will discuss myriad other issues including prescription drugs, health insurance, e-cigarettes and technology-related issues.

But gun violence appears to be generating the most buzz this year and AMA members say the time to act is long overdue. At its annual meeting last year, the AMA updated policy calling for "background checks and a waiting period for all firearms purchasers. The policy expanded on earlier policy advocating for background checks for only handgun purchasers.

This year, here are just some of the measures doctors want the AMA to back:

  • Ban the sale of bump stocks. AMA delegates will consider supporting “a ban on the sale of any device, including bump stocks, that converts a firearm into a weapon that mimics a fully automatic weapon.”
  • Strengthen the background check system for firearms. AMA delegates will consider supporting legislation that requires “all gun sales and transfers” to “fall under strengthened regulation.”
  • Ban on semi-automatic assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. AMA delegates will consider supporting “a ban on the sale, transfer, manufacturer and importation of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines to the public.”
  • Increasing the legal age of purchasing ammunition and firearms from 18 to 21. AMA delegates will consider supporting “increasing the legal age to purchase firearms and ammunition.”

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"Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's third leading cause of death—respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year." 2016 John Hopkins study

 

Doctors, with their mistakes, kill almost 15 times as many people as are murdered in the US, every year. Maybe the AMA is focusing on "gun violence" to keep people from realizing that their membership is killing so many people.

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The first thing to keep in mind is that not all physicians agree with the positions of the AMA leadership. The second, and much more important, thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of American physicians are not members of the AMA. There are lots of good doctors out there and there is absolutely no need to deal with one who does not respect our rights or even one who belongs to an organization which does not respect our rights.

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Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about abortion? And how does abortion not violate the Hippocratic oath?

Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about physician assisted suicide? And how does physician assisted not violate the Hippocratic oath?

 

Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about rape? And how does people being disarmed unable to prevent their own rape not violate the Hippocratic oath?

 

I see a pattern here.

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"Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's third leading cause of death—respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year." 2016 John Hopkins study

 

Doctors, with their mistakes, kill almost 15 times as many people as are murdered in the US, every year. Maybe the AMA is focusing on "gun violence" to keep people from realizing that their membership is killing so many people.

 

+1 this. Tend to your own house before trying to tell us how to run ours.

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Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about abortion? And how does abortion not violate the Hippocratic oath?

 

Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about physician assisted suicide? And how does physician assisted not violate the Hippocratic oath?

 

Tell me Comrade Doctor, how do you feel about rape? And how does people being disarmed unable to prevent their own rape not violate the Hippocratic oath?

 

I see a pattern here.

 

Excellent points, all of them. I'd bet there would be much babbling and no answers to those questions if they were asked.

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They become less and less relevant:

in 2011:

In the early 1950s, about 75% of US physicians were AMA members. That percentage has steadily decreased over the years. In June, at the annual meeting of its policy-making body, the House of Delegates, the AMA announced that it lost another 12 000 members last year.
That brings total membership below 216 000. Up to a third of those members don’t pay the full $420 annual dues, including medical students and residents. Not counting those members, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15% of practising US doctors now belong to the AMA.

in 2016:

 

It’s impossible to say how many practicing physicians belong to the AMA because the organization wouldn’t say how many of its 234,360 members were medical students. But it’s clear that just a fraction of 926,000 doctors practicing in the US pay AMA dues.

 

So, who CARES what that bunch pontificates about....

 

Quite frankly - outside of their specialties, they're no better than the rest of the thundering herd, feeding on the easily digested propaganda pap disgorged by the mass media.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you would like to determine whether any of your current physicians are members of this odious organization, or if you are looking for a physician and want to make sure you don't get an AMA member, the AMA provides a convenient app at

 

https://apps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/home.jsp

 

You can search by name, specialty, state/city/etc. The first search results shown are AMA members. To see non-members, you have to click a button or two. It's clearly intended as a tool for promoting AMA members but just like a gun it points both ways.

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The whole ban standard capacity magazines makes me think that we need to start building things that also use standard capacity magazines. Giant Pez dispensers. LoL. What if magazines were repurposed to be suspension components on RC cars? Bolt dispensers on a not yet invented cordless drill... make them so common that that can't be classified.
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Well, then, How bout us Members of the NRA push for new laws concerning the prescribing of drugs that potentially cause depression, anxiety, anger, and other similar feelings AND on criteria to be able to prescribe them.

 

Good for the Goose, well, then good for the Gander.

The Pharma industry would likely retaliate, and they have a LOT more money. Stupid Bloombucks would then see an opportunity to kick us when we're down and drop another $600 million into "grassroots" and "victimized teen" reaction forces.

 

I do agree that you are spot on with the thought.

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How many patients seek medical care for one ailment, but die in a germ-ridden hospital from Pneumonia? LOTS.

 

How many doctors come into your exam room after seeing other patients, and never wash their hands before touching you?

 

How much money does the Big Pharma lobby shower lawmakers with, compared to the "big, bad NRA"?

 

What percent of mass shootings and suicides involved anti-depressants, opioids, or psychotropic drugs prescribed by doctors?

 

"Physician, heal thyself".

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The AMA still has more clout and spends far more on lobbying than the scores of medical specialty societies and splinter groups that sort doctors by political leanings. But it counts fewer than 25 percent of practicing physicians as members, down from 75 percent in the 1950s.Dec 22, 2016 Stat.

 

The AMA is a lobby group comprised of a dwindling number of professionals. Their most important function is maintaining their members lifestyle and earning potential. National health system, Medicare cuts drive them to distraction. The only reason people of like minds ban together is to protect something. AARP, NRA, AMA are all agenda driven, nothing wrong with this, just dont pretend its something its not.

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