Massachusetts Bill Would Force Doctors to Ask About Guns and Counsel Patients Who Own Them

[Michael Ejercito]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/massachusetts-bill-would-force-doctors-to-ask-about-guns-and-counsel-patients-who-own-them/


Massachusetts Bill Would Force Doctors to Ask About Guns and Counsel
Patients Who Own Them
BY CARL BUSSJAEGER |DEC 16, 2019 |13 COMMENTS
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Massachusetts state Representative Jon Santiago has filed a bill to require
doctors to screen all patients for firearms in their homes and to counsel
them on safety. It’s Bill H.2005: An Act to prevent gun violence:

Section 237. The director shall establish a program for firearm screening
and counseling. Such program shall systematically screen all patients for
the presence of firearms in the home. The director shall, after consultation
with recognized professional medical groups and such other sources as the
director deems appropriate, promulgate regulations establishing (1) the
means by which and the intervals at which patients shall be screened for the
presence of firearms in the home and (2) guidelines for safety counseling
for individuals that screen positive for the presence of firearms in the
home.

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I can’t imagine that is going to pass constitutional muster. Florida
attempted the opposite a few years ago, forbidding doctors to ask their
patients about firearms. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck that law
down as infringing on the doctors’ First Amendment free speech rights.

I see compelling doctors (or anyone else) to engage in a particular kind of
speech to be even more of a violation. In Florida, doctors were just barred,
until the law was overturned, from supporting a personal view in their
professional dealings. Massachusetts would force doctors to support gun
control regardless of their opinions.

It’s true that the Supreme Court has allowed “compelled speech” in some
cases. An excellent example would be Johanns v. Livestock Marketing
Association, a dispute over forcing a beef company to financially support an
advertising campaign for the beef industry. Stripped to its basics, the
Court ruled that Johanns had to support speech promoting its own industry.

On the other hand, in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v.
Becerra, the Court overturned part of a California law that was intended to
force pro-life “pregnancy centers” to provide pro-abortion information to
all their clients. The Court found that compelled speech was
unconstitutional.

So we have assorted precedents that:

You can’t restrict doctors from promoting their own views.
You can require businesses to support their own industry.
You can’t require businesses to promote a viewing decidedly not their own.
I don’t think Massachusetts can compel doctors to support gun control no
matter their personal views, and likely on a subject far outside of their
area of expertise. I think that should left to individual doctors to decide.

And then it should be left to their individual patients to decide if their
doctor has committed a major boundary violation and they need to file a
complaint with the Board of Registration in Medicine.

[Klaus Schadenfreude]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2019 09:29:42 -0800, "Michael Ejercito"
<meje...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/massachusetts-bill-would-force-doctors-to-ask-about-guns-and-counsel-patients-who-own-them/
>
>
>Massachusetts Bill Would Force Doctors to Ask About Guns and Counsel
>Patients Who Own Them
>BY CARL BUSSJAEGER |DEC 16, 2019 |13 COMMENTS
>FACEBOOK
>TWITTER
>LINKEDIN
>EMAIL
>doctor gun Massachusetts gun doctor billpolicies that don't work control
>Bigstock
>
>Massachusetts state Representative Jon Santiago has filed a bill to require
>doctors to screen all patients for firearms in their homes and to counsel
>them on safety. It’s Bill H.2005: An Act to prevent gun violence:
>
>Section 237. The director shall establish a program for firearm screening
>and counseling. Such program shall systematically screen all patients for
>the presence of firearms in the home. The director shall, after consultation
>with recognized professional medical groups and such other sources as the
>director deems appropriate, promulgate regulations establishing (1) the
>means by which and the intervals at which patients shall be screened for the
>presence of firearms in the home and (2) guidelines for safety counseling
>for individuals that screen positive for the presence of firearms in the
>home.

SOLUTION: Tell doctor to fuck off.

Problem solved.