Dr. Kaplan’s statement in response to the Orlando mass shooting and the related ACEP Task Force recommendations are inane and are an embarrassment to me as a longstanding member of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
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ACEP Now: Vol 35 – No 08 – August 2016Almost 50 years ago, after the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King in 1968, Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut issued the following statement:
“Pious condolences will no longer suffice … Quarter measures and half measures will no longer suffice … The time has now come that we must enact stringent gun control legislation comparable to the legislation in force in virtually every civilized country in the world.”
It is long past time that we should heed Senator Dodd’s words and enact gun control legislation similar to regulations already in place in every other high-income democratic country of the world—countries in which mass shootings are rare or nonexistent and in which overall rates of firearm-related deaths and injuries are far lower than in the U.S. Such legislation includes stringent regulation of, if not complete bans on, civilian ownership of handguns and rapid-fire semiautomatic rifles. In 1998, ACEP endorsed the Eastern Association of the Surgery of Trauma position paper on violence in America, which called for this very kind of gun control regulations.
It is regrettable that over the past two decades ACEP has retreated from its prior position of advocating stringent gun control regulations and that following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, the best that ACEP can offer is “pious condolences” and recommendations such as gathering more data on “wounding patterns and causes of death for victims of mass violence.”
It is regrettable that over the past two decades ACEP has retreated from its prior position of advocating stringent gun control regulations and that following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, the best that ACEP can offer is “pious condolences” and recommendations such as gathering more data on “wounding patterns and causes of death for victims of mass violence.”
Mass shootings are preventable, as are most of the more than 90 firearm-related deaths that occur every day in the U.S. and the many other non-fatal gunshot wounds. I would like to invite fellow ACEP members to join me in becoming charter members of a new organization, Americans Against Gun Violence (aagunv.org), that will work toward definitive measures to stop what a former ACEP president, Dr. Jack Allison, referred to in 1992 as the “shameful epidemic” of gun violence that afflicts our country.
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2 Responses to “Opinion: ACEP Now Reader Responds to Statement on Orlando Mass Shooting, and ACEP President Dr. Jay Kaplan Replies”
August 23, 2016
Gene GarberSo this guy walks in an ER……says he’s a consultant. We all assume a highly paid chaturbate with a lot of self-imposed thought-leading medical consultantry. The big advice he gave us. Stop chewing gum and get rid of your ugly green scrubs….or at least iron them. Needless to say, by following those two actions, our ER is now the crown jewel of our hospital. All the sub-specialists brown-nose our attendings. The CEO/President mentions us in every newsletter and hands out Kudos awards to all of us for our service and apparel. The consultant was none other than Jay Kaplan.
October 22, 2016
Timothy Wheeler, MDWell, since Dr. Kaplan has gone so far as to meet with House minority leaders whose gun control creds are well-known, and since Dr. Durston is using this space to recruit doctors to his gun prohibition group, perhaps I should inform readers that there is an alternative to joining the public health gun prohibition movement.
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership as a nationwide group of physicians, medical students, scientists, and other health professionals who support responsible gun ownership. We are champions, not enemies, of the civil right of gun ownership. We invite all physicians to join us in our effort to counter the public health assault on gun owners.
Timothy Wheeler, MD
Director
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership
A Project of the Second Amendment Foundation