By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
In a blunt report on the constant intrusion of medical professionals into the gun rights v. gun control debate, a pair of physicians from Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (DRGO) provided a “prognosis” of the troubles facing gun owners and the Second Amendment, and recovery is going to take some time.
DRGO has become a project of the Second Amendment Foundation, and has been under the SAF umbrella for about five years. They have members across the country, all interested in keeping gun politics out of the physicians’ offices and treatment rooms.
Dr. Sean Brodale
Dr. Sean Brodale, a board-certified family practice physician and emergency room doctor told the Gun Rights Policy Conference audience that mass shootings, despite the sensational news coverage they receive, account for only one percent of all gun-related deaths in the United States.
However, many professionals in the medical field are determined to get into gun-related research, focusing on the firearm and not the individual who may need medical or psychiatric help. They contend such research is “severely constrained” by current law, but then Brodale quickly read through a partial list of all the gun-related research articles written in the past year to belie that argument.
He acknowledged that not all the articles and research are biased toward gun control, noting that there is “a lot of medical research” being done about firearms and violence, not all of it in the United States.
However, Brodale warned that physicians are “getting in the wrong lane” by focusing on guns, and that they fail to see that the gun isn’t the problem.
One thing he did reveal is that there has been some research showing that public interest in gun buying increases because the news media focuses so much on gun control discussion following a high profile incident.
Dr. John Edeen
He was followed by Dr. John Edeen of San Antonio, a pediatric surgeon and DRGO membership director.
Looking hard at so-called “red flag” laws, Edeen launched into an analysis of all the things wrong with such laws. They violate nearly all aspects of the Bill of Rights, beginning with the Second Amendment and moving quickly with the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and then onto the 14th Amendment.
“These laws turn innocent-until-proven-guilty on its head,” Dr. Edeen said.
In particular, he said they violate the due process rights of individual citizens because hearings on red flag petitions are held ex parte, meaning that the person named in the order is not present at a court hearing to rebut the arguments used to order seizure of firearms.
“The judicial system should put the burden of proof on the state, not on the accused,” he observed.
In the case of an Extreme Risk Protection Order being served, “punishment happens before any criminal conviction,” Edeen noted.
The ERPO victim can only get a hearing after all of his or her firearms have been seized. Edeen warned that such orders can be used as leverage in divorce cases, for example, and in other cases.
“It is obvious to me,” he concluded, “that those who create red flag laws are not interested in public safety. They only want another mechanism of firearms confiscation and to create more prohibited persons.”
Edeen encouraged the audience to support Dr. John Lott and his Crime Prevention Research Center to allow that effort to continue its research and pro-rights work.
