Frustrated AMA adopts sweeping policies to cut gun violence

Yahoo News

CHICAGO (AP) — With frustration mounting over lawmakers’ inaction on gun control, the American Medical Association on Tuesday pressed for a ban on assault weapons and came out against arming teachers as a way to fight what it calls a public health crisis.

At its annual policymaking meeting, the nation’s largest physicians group bowed to unprecedented demands from doctor-members to take a stronger stand on gun violence — a problem the organizations says is as menacing as a lethal infectious disease. 

The action comes against a backdrop of recurrent school shootings, everyday street violence in the nation’s inner cities, and rising U.S. suicide rates.

“We as physicians are the witnesses to the human toll of this disease,” Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency-medicine specialist at Brown University, said at the meeting.

AMA delegates voted to adopt several of nearly a dozen gun-related proposals presented by doctor groups that are part of the AMA’s membership. They agreed to:

— Support any bans on the purchase or possession of guns and ammunition by people under 21.

— Back laws that would require licensing and safety courses for gun owners and registration of all firearms.

— Press for legislation that would allow relatives of suicidal people or those who have threatened imminent violence to seek court-ordered removal of guns from the home.

— Encourage better training for physicians in how to recognize patients at risk for suicide.

— Push to eliminate loopholes in laws preventing the purchase or possession of guns by people found guilty of domestic violence, including expanding such measures to cover convicted stalkers.

Many AMA members are gun owners or supporters, including a doctor from Montana who told delegates of learning to shoot at a firing range in the basement of her middle school as part of gym class. But support for banning assault weapons was overwhelming, with the measure adopted in a 446-99 vote.

“There’s a place to start and this should be it,” Dr. Jim Hinsdale, a San Jose, California, trauma surgeon, said before the vote.

Gun violence is not a new issue for the AMA; it has supported past efforts to ban assault weapons; declared gun violence a public health crisis; backed background checks, waiting periods and better funding for mental health services; and pressed for more research on gun violence prevention.

But Dr. David Barbe, whose one-year term as AMA president ended Tuesday, called the number of related measures on this year’s agenda extraordinary and said recent violence, including the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and the Las Vegas massacre, “spurred a new sense of urgency … while Congress fails to act.”

“It has been frustrating that we have seen so little action from either state or federal legislators,” he said. “The most important audience for our message right now is our legislators, and second most important is the public, because sometimes it requires public pressure on the legislators.”

While it is no longer viewed as the unified voice of American medicine, the AMA has more clout with politicians and the public than other doctor groups. It counted more than 243,000 members in 2017, up slightly for the seventh straight year. But it represents less than one-quarter of the nation’s million-plus physicians.

The National Rifle Association didn’t immediately respond to email and phone requests for comment on the doctors’ votes.

AMA members cited U.S. government data showing almost 40,000 deaths by gun in 2016, including suicides, and nearly 111,000 gun injuries. Both have been rising in recent years.

By comparison, U.S. deaths from diabetes in 2016 totaled almost 80,000; Alzheimer’s, 111,000; and lung disease, 155,000. The leaders are heart disease, with 634,000 deaths in 2016, and cancer, about 600,000.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/frustrated-ama-adopts-sweeping-policies-190645441.html

11 thoughts on “Frustrated AMA adopts sweeping policies to cut gun violence

  1. “There’s a place to start and this should be it,” Dr. Jim Hinsdale, a San Jose, California, trauma surgeon, said before the vote.’

    oh come on now where are you trauma surgeons going to get your training?

  2. If anyone is going to kill people the doctors want to be the ones and make big profits at the same time!!!!!

  3. Maybe the AMA should stop supporting the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year by poisonous “medicine” before they stick their dirty necks into the gun control debate.

    Doctors kill a lot more people than guns ever did, but of course, the AMA was founded by the Rockefellers for the purpose of pushing their poison on the population, so like any other Zionist-controlled organization, they’re obligated to jump on the gun control bandwagon.

    Is there someone pushing for gun control who isn’t a Jew, or isn’t brainwashed or otherwise controlled by them? NO…… there isn’t

  4. “…as menacing as a lethal infectious disease.”

    We’re well aware of what THAT’S like. The kosher dominated “medical” field(drug pushers) who are led by the kosher and freemasonic “legal” field is a cancer upon US. Have no fear though, because we’re scheduled for an emergency kikendectomy.

  5. I knew something like this would happen. I cant remember where exactly, but even before sandy hoax I specifically remember reading about their commie plans to make guns a “public health issue”

  6. As noted by my fellow trenchers, doctors and the medical / pharmaceutical industry are a far greater public health danger than guns will ever be.

  7. Greetings.
    Have you heard of patients marking a leg
    “NO, OTHER ONE” with a marker before surgery?
    Stupid medical “practitioners”.
    Let them practice on themselves.
    Until 1920s, medical field actualy CURED people.
    When “big drugs” came along, patients (victims)
    became a recuring (mis)treatment income stream.
    Cancer (mis)treatment is largest profit sub-specialty.
    $100,000,000,000 a year industry will not go away quietly.
    Medical daftulators only know cut, burn, poison,
    cut, burn, poison………., and here are some more drugs.
    Chronic sickness is mineral deficiency.
    High nutrients to low toxins equals health.
    High toxins to low nutrients equals sickness.
    Not at all that complicated.
    For the Amateur Medical Assoc. to get involved in
    gun infringement, calling for banning defense weapons,
    and defense magazines, are stupid or have an agenda.
    “””……….public health crisis………..
    Support any bans on the purchase [or possession] of
    guns and ammunition by people under 21………
    …………and registration of all firearms.”””
    What, young families prohibited from protecting themselves?
    One of the greatest “public health crisis” of the 20th century
    was governmemt-gone-wild. Hundreds of millions murdered.
    Guns save lives. Gun-free zones kill.
    God save the Republic.

  8. An example.doctors used to give mint leaves for congestion. Now, it’s a myriad of cancer causing chemicals..

Join the Conversation

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*