Quote of the Day: Doctors Without Qualms Edition

“The world will be a safer place, if we forbid minor, non-white males with previous felony convictions from purchasing firearms.” – Every Gun-Grabber.

Shouldn’t he be wearing a pointy white had and white robes? Like kapo bloomberg.

“Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble-makers and neutralize them…”

https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/mlk-document-friday-through-counter-intelligence-it-should-be-possible-to-pinpoint-potential-trouble-makers-and-neutralize-them/

“Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, asked Barsotti to respond to the argument put forward by gun rights advocates that prohibited persons would not obey a background check law and would still obtain a firearm illegally.

“I’d like to see the data that would suggest that they would do that, because I don’t think that exists…it’s conjecture,” he said.”

Really? A.L. Right off the top of my head.

The anti’s hatred of the 2nd is so strong they’re willing and eager to mark everyone they can with a yellow star just to limit the number who can partake.

Of course the same people who say you’re too sad, too happy, too poor, too rich, too black, too female to own a gun are all too happy to round you up onto a bus to hit the polls and pull D every two years.

Politicians: taking your liberty everyday and you love them for it.

we need to stratify doctors too and take away the licenses of those most likely to commit malpractice.

Again with the God Complex, huh, Doc?

We cannot predict who will have a wreck, harming themselves and multiple innocent others. So if we just take all the cars off the road the world will be a safer place. See I personally don’t drive anywhere. I have a private professional driver take me everywhere if I can’t fly my helicopter or jet there. I believe every citizen needs to do the same to be safer. – Liberal Logic

” disqualifying certain populations from having them.” If you are going to be racist, man up and say what you mean, don’t be a coward. At least have the courage of conviction for your stance.

Because, pre-crime… and guns!

Let me guess, he is proposing that we bring back Phrenology or some other equally effective way to judge a man for something he might do in the future. Gattaca? Minority Report? Soviet Union used to lock people up in insane asylums because they said criticizing the government was a mental illness. Geez, this world has gone nuts…again.

Why wouldn’t this guy be an expert in firearms? After all, he must see dozens of people shot everyday in Bennington, Vermont. /sarc

Sounds like another medical movement started in the US called eugenics. As I recall it became very popular in Germany in the second half of the 1930s.

Besides, I thought we already had a systematic method of removing rights from minorities, it’s called the justice system.

Or maybe we could “stratify” who gets to exercise their First Amendment Rights while were at it.

Or perhaps we could “stratify” who gets to drive automobiles, based on their perceived potential to cause an accident in the future, as FAR more people die from automobile accidents than firearms.

At what point along the line do we realize that we have only traded our freedoms for an illusion?

These guys are a broken record when it comes to taking away your rights. I’ll make this analogy again because it is relevant and appropriate as it shows the MO that is being used in an attempt to weaken and reduce our rights. Pushing for mandatory vaccines this same industry admits that while it is impossible to predict which individuals will experience adverse reactions to vaccines and suffer brain damage and even death, it is for the better of the collective because vaccines can reduce (herd immunity theory) infectious disease rates. Same argument.

I’m fairly certain if we put everyone in little white padded rooms with the instructions to throw the key out the window once you are in and locked, no one will get hurt, but what’s the point.

Right, is this stratification based on the same science that told us to avoid saccharin, cholesterol, and now is changing the recommendation for peanut allergies (now: giving kids a small amount of peanuts before 12 months reduces the risk of allergies later on). Or is this stratification the same one we have been doing for over 150 years: forbid poor minorities from exercising their self defense rights?

I am sure there are double blind randomized controlled clinical trials to back this advice up, right? Not those ecological studies that have been so wrong before?

So if they can’t predict who will engage in violence using a gun, on what basis will they arrive at such a stratification of the population? That doesn’t even make sense.

…but it is possible to reduce the firearms deaths by ‘stratifying’ people based on risk factors and disqualifying certain populations from having them.

This tactic is known as prior restraint, which (IANAL) I’m fairly certain has been, as a matter of settled constitutional case law, determined to be utterly unconstitutional.

Oh, the author of that story?

“Morgan True is VTDigger’s health care reporter. A Seattle native, he graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism before working for several publications in Massachusetts.”

A Seattle native, then Massachusetts.

This is my surprised face…

How does the good doctor propose we “stratify” society…

Race? Sexual origination? Gender? Religion? Social class?

I wonder what category well-to-do, proper, white folk like himself fall into.

Translation: I am a wealthy, arrogant motherf$&%er who has knowledge that transcends my (possibly) legitimate expertise. In this, I judge gun owners as fundamentally ignorant because I have treated gunshot wounds. Further, my ignorance regarding gun ownership is irrelevant because I’m a big deal. People know me….

“Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all
others the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of
friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into
slavery…. Wherefore, if we must here-after protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves?
Why do it for another?” ( Paine Common Sense pg. 47)

Has this “Dr.” taken a penny of foreign money to overthrow our Constitution???

Barsotti is a functional idiot and suffers from allusions of grandeur. He seemed to miss the fact that May went into FSU library with a stolen gun and shot the place up. He was mentally ill. That is also the last campus Ted Bundy went on a rampage on. This guy is on Pluto and funded by Bloomer.

Well- since a surprising number of the active shooters have been progressive liberal types, than it would make sense to prohibit them from owning firearms- and doctors, all doctors who advocate for the banning of firearm ownership should be banned from owning firearms.

“Predicting who will commit a violent act with a gun is impossible, but it is possible to reduce the firearms deaths by ‘stratifying’ people based on risk factors and disqualifying certain populations from having them.” – Dr. Christopher Barsotti

And gun grabbers say that we are paranoid. Of course there is almost always a tiny kernel of truth in every statement. I freely admit to being paranoid that gun grabbers want to exercise their will over me (which is fundamentally repugnant) because of statements from the likes of Mr. Barsotti. And yet am I actually “paranoid” if my “paranoia” is based on reality?

So lets give the guy the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Dr, how would you identify the people who are prohibited from having weapons? Perhaps they could wear something on their clothes to identify them. A gold star, maybe?

“Predicting which doctor will commit a malpractice death incident is impossible, but it is possible to reduce malpractice risks by ‘stratifying’ doctors people based on risk factors and disqualifying certain doctors from practice.”

Pretty typical of the modern ‘progressive’. Use any excuse you can to get a point across. And rights? Who cares! We can decide what rights are….

By “disqualifying certain populations from having them.” – As demonstrated by the Nazis, Communists in the USSR and China, N Korea and Cambodia, to name a few. Works perfectly, if you’re not in the “certain population”.

Doctors without sense…my doctor is an Iraq War vet(who has treated lots of gunshot wounds). He likes guns…

Never forget! Every sweeping gun law from the Black Codes to the Sullivan Law to the Marxist decrees has had the intent of disarming “those people” and keeping the favored and “reliable” well-armed.

Ray

He’s correct – we’d all be safer if fewer government stooges were allowed to carry guns.

Great idea, doc! Could we do something similar with that pesky right to vote while we’re at it?!?

I’m OK mandating reporting to NICS those who’ve been adjudicated a mental defective or addict. I know, I know, abuses are possible. Fix the system and make it work. Ignoring the problem is not a viable option. Beyond that, the rest of this bill is pure gun grab and my only compromise would be to offer them the option of which cheek they prefer to kiss.

Doctors could save as many as 50,000 people a year from death and serious illness simply by not spreading infections and disease from patient to patient. Until they do, they should STFU about something they know nothing about. Come to think of it, that would include washing their damn hands.

Did you guys actually link over there and read that article?? amazing nonsense – your civil rights granted to you by – “doctors”

http://vtdigger.org/2015/02/20/physicians-support-proposed-gun-legislation/

And the good Dr. Barsotti reveals himself to be the kind of bloody minded totalitarian that is cheered on my fascists and Stalinists everywhere. It always fascinates me how people, even those who are supposedly well educated and should know better, become so fixated on single issues like gun-control that they so quickly abandon fundamental elements of freedom and liberty. What’s so amazing about this guy is that he and his buddies sat around and discussed this stuff for quite some time, carefully developing and honing these completely dumb ideas—until they were ready to have a press conference!

I’m going to take a break from working on clinical validation of ECG systems and toss in my perspective here. Since I’m wearing my clinical hat today, I’ll take it from that perspective. Forgive me for speaking to him in his language…

First, you’re making a common clinical mistake. Treating the presentation rather than the underlying etiology. We learned the danger of that back when I was doing cardiac drug trials. Give the patient anti-arrhythmics to make the arrhythmia go away and the V-tach and V-fib goes away. Sounds good until the CAST study (in which I was also involved) proved that not only were we ineffective by only treating the symptom, but we were exacerbating the problem by causing proarrhythmic deaths. This is repeated over and over in medicine. For long term efficacy, you need to treat the cause. Guns are merely a mechanism of violence, not a cause of violence. In your demographic guns are a major mechanism – a presentation, but only at about a 50% level. Considering the high number of other presentations, there is no reason to presume that removing the guns will reduce mortality and every reason to believe that mortality will change presentation.

Now, you talk about preventative intervention in removing guns from those with high risk factors. Prophylaxis is a valid means of intervention, however correct use is typically a mitigation of the risk factors. Based upon your criteria, a case could be made for prophylactic appendectomy for the general population. Should we also do preventative CABG based simply on risk factors and not as a treatment of documented CAD?

Again, if you want to treat gun violence, it is necessary to focus on the underlying etiology – violence rather than the presentation. That is simply a matter of good clinical practice. What studies have been conducted to review the cause of the underlying violence? What would be the appropriate intervention to address those causes? Rather what ethical methods are available for intervention? There are many unethical methods. Those are no more acceptable gun prohibitions with regard to violating patient rights.

Second, with regard to self inflicted injury and suicide, there is certainly precedent of restricting an individual’s rights or freedom due to a clear and present danger of self injury. However, this is always within a framework of due process. More important, such intervention is always made in the context of treatment with the objective being the restoration of the restricted freedom or rights. Follow-up must be mandatory in that regard. If the clinical presentation no longer indicates the risk, then the gun right should be immediately restored with their other liberties. There is no ethical clinical indication for a multi-year waiting period, as is often imposed for mental health issues.

With regard to the recommendation of extended background checks, the research presented notes that there is no indication of the extent of effect of the intervention. Particularly important, as in all medical treatment, is compliance. Interventional policy without sufficient evidence of efficacy is not sound medicine. Since several states have implemented the checks proposed the appropriate studies should be possible. Indeed, in Illinois where background checks for all sales is a recent implementation, this check is recent enough that a prospective study should be able to be developed to test the effectiveness of the checks against recent historical data. Epidemiological data should also be sufficiently available to assess compliance as a subcomponent of such a study. Data should also be collected to determine the scope of such checks that would be most appropriate. I.e. gun type, age, race and income of purchaser, residence, social history, etc. It is entirely possible that the data would indicate intervention needed in only specific demographics. In such case, there is no need to create an undue burden for the populace at large and restrict the checks to those high risk cohorts.

To close, one must serious consider the degree of burden the proposed intervention presents. Excluding the suicide where the patient is under active care with the endpoint of restoration of rights as suggested above, homicide by gun accounts for only 0.43% of death in the United States according to 2013 CDC data. For such a small demographic it is necessary to question the justification for a large social engineering program that will negatively impact between 37-44% of of households according to recent studies by Pew and Gallup, respectively.

Note: one limitation of this analysis to be considered is that it focuses on mortality and does not take into account non-fatal injury. Another limiting factor is that the data discussed includes all gun fatality. It does not, for example, distinguish between legal homicide (self-defense) and illegal murder. This may skew the interpretation of the data.

(Ok… I’ve vented my frustration. These types of medical opinions – misrepresenting under color of authority – really honk me off. I’m not an M.D., but I am a part of the field and involved in research and this crap makes all of us look bad. I’ll have to see if this will be allowed on the original newspaper site…)

“Predicting who will incite a violent act with speech is impossible, but it is possible to reduce the freedom to do so by ‘stratifying’ people based on risk factors and disqualifying certain populations from speaking.”