The American Medical Association (AMA) filed an amicus curiae brief (linked here) in the Wollschlaeger case this week supporting a challenge to Florida’s Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act (Docs vs. Glocks law). We’ve been following this case. DRGO’s position is laid out in the CCJ-DRGO amicus brief filed in late September.
The AMA brief continues the same flawed and misleading reasoning the opponents of the Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act have put forth from the beginning. It studiously omits any reference to the obvious—pediatricians ask patients about guns as a not-so-subtle method of anti-gun politicking. The AMA condescendingly dismisses patients’ objections to this practice as “having their [patients’] political sensitivities upset.” But doctors abusing the doctor-patient relationship to prejudice patients against gun ownership are committing a blatant ethical boundary violation. The people of Florida have every right to regulate doctors’ speech when it crosses the line into unethical conduct.
Here are the other medical organizations that signed on to the brief. Are you a member of any of these organizations? Do they speak for you? If not, they need to hear from you.
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology
American College of Preventive Medicine
American College of Surgeons
American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology
American Psychiatric Association.
—Timothy Wheeler, MD is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.