Should Hospital Staff Be Armed?

The controversy surrounding firearms being allowed in hospitals rages on.  Those who believe that guns shouldn't be allowed in a hospital, or anywhere else for that matter, continue to point to incidents in which the use of a weapon is controversial. As Elizabeth Rosenthal points out in her recent article When the Hospital Fires the Bullet most hospitals are arming their security teams in one way or another, and in a few cases harm has come to a patient. (more…)
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MD Magazine Poll of Doctors Shows Majority Own Guns

MD Magazine, a New Jersey-based website for medical doctors, recently conducted a poll of 1,700 physicians (of whom 901 responded) on their views about guns.  Results were mixed but tended to strip away the false veneer of hoplophobia that the medical establishment perpetually tries to stick on us. No one should rely on this poll as definitive.  The sample population was limited to readers of MD Magazine, a major selection bias.  The questions were poorly crafted and appear to demonstrate...
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The Ethics of Armed Self Defense

Discussions about the role of guns in society often founder under the weight of dueling statistics thrown out by both sides. I’d like to avoid the statistical food fight and base this article solely on the ethics of armed self-defense. How much do you value your life? Modern America has a strong pacifist streak that originated among some of our Christian denominations and spread to non-religious people, most notably during the 1960s. It is now associated with the liberal side of the ...
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The Unarmed Assailant—A Deadly Threat

A unifying principle of American law governing the defensive use of deadly force is that a victim may use such force when an attacker threatens violence capable of causing death or grave bodily harm.  There is little doubt that it is justified when the robber draws and points a handgun at the victim. But what if an unarmed assailant advances with fists clenched, clearly getting ready to beat his victim?  Should the victim take a few punches and hope he remains conscious long enough to dra...
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Watching “GunLobbyWatch” Watching Us

Not since Mike Weisser (Huffington Post’s “The Gun Guy”) last lit into us have we felt so warmed by the disdain of people who delight in irrational ad hominem attacks. Maybe more, since the less than a year old Gun Lobby Watch claims to be an organization of more than one person. GLW called itself to our attention with the article “Irresponsible Doctors for Gun Lobbying”. Apparently, we’re a “front group” for the Second Amendment Foundation, not that we aren’t honored by our association w...
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Potentially lethal force may require defensive deadly force

Violence is a global problem, which in the context of this article (interpersonal violence), is intentional force against another person or persons with the potential to cause injury or bodily harm, resulting in disability or death. Despite what one has been led to believe, America is not the most violent nation. When it comes to violence, objectively compared to developed nations, the U.S. is in the middle of the pack; when considering the rest of the world, the U.S is far behind Latin-Amer...
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Critiquing the “Research” Criticizing Guns

(from: testtube.com)
The New England Journal of Medicine doesn’t like “research parasites”. That’s the term used in its January 21 editorial "Data Sharing" to disparage people who, among other sins, may “ use the data to try to disprove what the original investigators had posited [my emphasis]. This is an amazing statement by what should be a preeminent reporter of  medical science, but for too long has allied itself with the antigun movement.  (more…)
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Lab Accident: How Congress Stopped the CDC Gun Grabbers and Saved Science

[Editor’s note: a version of this article appeared in America’s 1st Freedom.] We can all feel it.  With mass shootings dominating the headlines, and especially since the Sandy Hook school mass shooting three years ago, the pressure to blame gun owners is mounting.  Everywhere we look we see the familiar gun grabbers calling for more background checks, a ban on modern sporting rifles, and that old saw, restoring funding to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for fi...
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