Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 02:45:42 -0400 From: [D R GOT W W] at [aol.com] To: Multiple recipients of list <[n--b--n] at [mainstream.net]> Subject: COMMENT (part 1 of 2): Antigun Orthopedists? From: Timothy Wheeler, MD ([d r got w w] at [aol.com]) Director, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (a Project of The Claremont Institute), Claremont, California The March 1996 issue of Orthopedics Today contained an article by John McGinty, MD. A medical doctor with no declared expertise in firearms other than his feelings, Dr. McGinty attacked gun owners in general and the NRA in particular. Among his assertions: 1) "Assault weapons, semiautomatic weapons and handguns have only one purpose: to shoot people." 2) "We can no longer afford to have the safety of our society...dictated by groups such as the National Rifle Association and the Doctors for Integrity in Research and Public Policy under the guise of civil rights and the Second Amendment." The text of Dr. McGinty's article is accessible at the journal's Web site at http://www.slackinc.com/ot.htm Go to Current Issue and then to letters to the editor, which contain links to the article. With the managing editor's permission I sent the following commentary (edited here for length) for publication as a documented rebuttal to Dr. McGinty's grievously biased accusations. The editors refused to publish it, even though they regularly print rebuttals to medical topics. I now submit it for your review. If you care to contact the editors about what appears to be willful exclusion of contrary scholarship, you can reach them by e-mail at [o--o--y] at [slackinc.com] or by writing: Editor, ORTHOPEDICS TODAY 6900 Grove Road Thorofare, NJ 08086 My response follows in two parts (full text available on request): Arms and The Doctor: Beyond Fear and Loathing Timothy Wheeler, MD The March Commentary in Orthopedics Today bared the strong emotions many of us feel about guns. Those health professionals who see a steady stream of gunshot wound victims often come to think poorly of guns and gun owners. But there is a downside to letting feelings drive our judgment as physicians. An example of that danger was seen in Orthopedics Today in March, with the statement that "it has been conclusively shown that [handguns] are responsible for increasing numbers of accidental injuries and deaths". This bold assertion agrees with what most doctors would conclude from reading the headlines. It is certainly what we have been told by the new public health gun experts. And it is wrong. In fact, accidental firearm injuries and fatalities have been steadily decreasing for the last 60 years. 1 There are numerous well-established truths about guns which contradict the conventional public health wisdom. Here are a few: 1. Fewer than 1% of the guns owned by Americans are ever used in crimes 2 2. States and regions with the strictest gun control laws have the highest rates of gun-related crime 3 3. Americans use firearms as many as 2.5 million times each year to defend against criminal attacks 4 How can it be that doctors have not been told the whole truth about guns? A huge body of research has been amassed by criminologists over the last 20 years, much of it confirming what typical gun owning citizens know intuitively: "gun violence" is the work of a small minority of criminal aberrants, most of whom have a lifelong history of violent and antisocial behavior. The public health gun prohibitionists, however, start with an avowed prejudice toward guns 5 which fatally biases their research. In no other area of medical research would such open prejudice be tolerated. But reformers have "reframed the debate" on firearms from the matrix of criminology to that of public health. When dissenting authors try to present their case, gun-loathing medical editors routinely reject it on the grounds that it is not peer reviewed by physicians, as if doctors were somehow the prevailing authorities on firearms! Because of this embargo on opinions dissenting from antigun public health orthodoxy, the debate is beginning to bypass medical forums. Now we see the real academic discussion about guns taking place in the law reviews and criminology journals. The contentious debate over firearms in our society will not be quelled soon. But if we consider firearms to be in the domain of medical research, then we must follow the science wherever it leads us. Let's work together to learn the truth, and not be afraid of it. Endnotes 1) Accident Facts 1993 Edition: National Safety Council 2) Kleck, G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Aldine de Gruyter, New York 1991, p. 47 3) Suter, E. "Guns in the Medical Literature: a Failure of Peer Review", J Med Assoc of Georgia, Vol. 83, No. 13, March 1994, p. 143 4) Kleck, G., Gertz, M. "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun", J Crim Law and Criminology, Vol. 86, No. 1, Fall 1995, p. 164. Northwestern University School of Law 5) Kassirer, J. Editor's Reply in "Correspondence", N Engl J Med. 1992; 326:1161