Except that the Association's (and the Obama administration's) narrative is false. To quote: "Physician counseling of parents about firearm safety appears to be effective, but firearm safety education programs directed at children are ineffective." Firearm safety education directed at children is ineffective? Seriously? What are they basing that statement on? NRA's Eddy Eagle has been amazingly effective. My personal experience of educating my two children, starting from age 6 (when they began shooting) has been excellent - they understand the tools, respect them, know how to use them and know when not to use them. Claiming that education is "ineffective" is pure propaganda.

No, it does not. Speech is subject to conditions of appropriate time and place. There is no unlimited right of Expression. Both parties have to agree on that. As a patient, I want my doctor to focus on my health - not my politics.

Short answer: I completely disagree with the rationale used by these judges - including their dismissal of the captive audience assessment. That was why I posted this article in the first place. Just because a judge comes to a decision does not mean we can not question this decision - as I do.

Yes, I support this bill because a doctor has no right to ask these questions to their patients in the first place. The First Amendment is not an unlimited right and does not give everyone the right to say anything to anyone at any time. There is an appropriate venue for every conversation. A doctor's office is not the place to play politics.

The above argument is entirely false because in practice the doctors ask the children about firearms in the house, sometimes without the parent being present. So, yes, this is captive audience.

You guys will like this story. My pediatrician was railing on Obamacare a while back (he owns his own practice). He said that in order to treat a baby on medicare (as an example) he is supposed to ask the baby a list of questions - a list provided by the feds. One of the questions is how often the baby is having "relations" (I'm putting it nicely here). He found himself asking a 9-month old baby how often they were copulating and, in disgust, wadded up the paper and threw it in the garbage. At first, I misunderstood his story and asked why he was supposed to ask the parent. "No!", he said. "I'm supposed to ask the baby!" Unbelievable...

The Tenth Amendment does not override the First Amendment. It is not upholding the Constitution to nullify one unconstitutional measure with another unconstitutional measure.

You haven’t answered the question I posed in my previous post: “Do you back a state law that makes doctors even more ‘beholden to the government for their livelihoods’?”

In your Scenario B, the patient also has the option of lying to the doctor or refusing to answer the question. And for an adult, the absence of physical or legal restraint means he is not “captive” in any meaningful sense of the term. The inconvenience of leaving does not equate to captivity.

The court that overturned the Florida law is right on point in dismissing the “captive audience” argument (see pages 35-36):

“First, ‘the Constitution does not permit government to decide which types of otherwise protected speech are sufficiently offensive to require protection for the unwilling listener or viewer’ . . . and where adults are concerned the Supreme Court has never used a vulnerable listener /captive audience rationale to uphold speaker-focused and content-based restrictions on speech . . . Second, doctors and patients undoubtedly engage in some conversations that are difficult and uncomfortable, and the first sentence of § 790.338(4) already gives patients the right to refuse to answer questions about firearm ownership. There is nothing in the record suggesting that patients who are bothered or offended by such questions are psychologically unable to choose another medical provider, just as they are permitted to do if their doctor asks too many questions about private matters like sexual activity, alcohol consumption, or drug use.”

http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinio...

It is not about reporting to the government. I am a pediatrician and it is about screening for risk factors and talk about safety not ownership. I agree

My guiding principle is the 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government to enumerated powers. Obamacare and other federal encroachments and outright illegal acts outside of the 10th need to be stopped and rolled back. Some of the encroachments are through the legal system directly, some through other, 5th column, means. The pressure on pediatricians to act as spokespeople against guns is a Regresssive, anti-Constitutional agenda, which has nothing to do with the pediatrician's job or the health care of the children. I support any action to limit the government and the anti-Constitutional agenda. Keep in mind that the Regressive side is not playing by any moral rules; I feel no obligation to handicap ourselves with one-sided rules. It's like the Geneva Convention- it is only applicable when both sides sign up and follow it.

You disagree, but I think that the captive audience doctrine very much applies, and that consideration changes the entire dynamic of the conversation and its analysis. Take the following scenarios:

Scenario A: two friends get together at a bar for drinks. One happens to be a doctor and his friend brings up his bad back. The doctor gives his friend some free advice and then the conversation turns to politics, wherein the friend tells his doctor friend about a new Mossberg pump shotgun he just purchased. The doctor says that he can't ethically own firearms because of his commitment to the Hippocratic Oath. The conversation ends there.

Scenario B: a patient goes to see a doctor about a bad back. After being taken back to a private examination room, the doctor comes in with a clipboard and starts asking the patient what the problem is. The patient mentions the back problems and the doctor then says "So, do you own any firearms?" The patient looks at the doctor, confused, trying to figure out what owning firearms has to do with his/her bad back. The patient needs some medication or treatment, however, because their bad back is interfering with their ability to hold down a job. They had to wait two weeks just to get this appointment, and now they are uncomfortable about this new line of questioning.

Scenario A? First Amendment protection, absolutely. Either has the option to get up and leave at any time with no repercussions.

Scenario B? Freedom to leave the situation isn't absolute. The doctor controls the conversation and even failure to answer is an answer in and of itself - therefore captive audience doctrine applies. Coupled with the privacy concerns and the divulgence of this information to third parties, and we compound the dangers inherent in the situation for the arbitrary infringement of rights.

I sense a double standard here. You oppose a set of federal “guidelines” that will “jeopardize a doctor's career” if he defies them. Yet you don't apply the same standard to an actual state law that explicitly does the same thing. According the article linked by the O.P., “doctors who violated the law could face professional discipline, a fine or possibly loss of their medical licenses.”

So in the real world, you back a state law that makes doctors even more “beholden to the government for their livelihoods”? According to the article in the O.P., “doctors who violated the law could face professional discipline, a fine or possibly loss of their medical licenses.”

"Both of them are wrong."

In an ideal world, yes, they are. I agree. But until our doctors aren't beholden to the government for their livelihoods and patient records are truly confidential, we have to deal with the system we have. I'd like nothing more than to get the government out of healthcare entirely, but until that happens, I have to look at things with a jaundiced eye.

I did not downgrade you, but I can see why someone might. I don't think it is an issue of disagreeing with a particular viewpoint; it is more likely a case of seeing your response as defying common sense. Technically, you are correct - the references that I provided are not laws; they are not published by the government directly. But not to see the connection to the government agenda and not to realize that defying those guidelines will jeopardize a doctor's career is defying common sense. At least that's the way I see it.

I have to thank the government for this directive...it gave me a reason to have a discussion with my family about the evils of "volunteering" information to those who have no business with it.

Re: “this isn't a First Amendment issue (as the Justices in this case claim) but one of misuse of information to infringe on Second Amendment rights.” Trashing one amendment to “protect” another abuses the entire Constitutional process, and creates damaging “unintended consequences.” An example is cited in this excellent article that explores an earlier decision upholding the Florida law that a federal court has now overturned:

“And because the panel majority is applying the general First Amendment test, its reasoning would set a precedent for many other restrictions. Indeed, the opinion validates many arguments that are already urged to restrict “hate speech,” justify campus speech codes and the like. Free speech being trumped by the supposed need to protect other constitutional rights — that’s exactly the argument given for restrictions on supposedly bigoted speech, on the theory that bigoted speech undermines the 14th Amendment right to equal protection.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/v...

I read the legal definition of “captive audience”, and I don’t think it applies to this situation at all. And if the point of the law was, as you say, to “force the issue into the Federal Court system,” then the law perpetrates a double injustice on physicians: first, by restricting their freedom of speech, and second, by forcing them to become unwilling test cases in a turf war between federal and state bureaucracies. Both the federal and the state governments assume that they have the right to regulate what a doctor can, must or must not say. Both of them are wrong.

If the conversations between doctors and patients were completely and absolutely protected from investigation by the government, there would not be the need for any state legislation to address the issue. But since state legislation is needed, it is important that such legislation be consistent with the U.S. Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. The fact that the Florida legislation attempted to rectify a federal usurpation is irrelevant as to whether the Florida law itself infringed on free speech, which it did. And its overturning by a federal court occurred in the real world, not the ideal one you suppose I live in.

I would have no problem with doctors asking this question if two conditions were met.

(1) HIPAA, giving the Feds access to everyone's medical records, were repealed and a privacy right of the consumer in his records were accepted.

(2) The government stopped intentionally limiting the supply of doctors, so that they would have to compete enough to give consumers power.

Straightforward question: Does the state law that was overturned violate First Amendment protections of freedom of speech? I don't think that is the "minor concern" you make it out to be. And there are state-level remedies available that do not violate the First Amendment.

What has any of this to do with whether the state law in question violated the First Amendment, or what a proper state-level response should be?

They already want social security to provide records of disability to the national background check system.

So if you are on disability for bipolar disorder or depression you won't be buying a firearm and could easily land on the no-fly list.

How many acts of terror from either? Neglible or zero. How many from Islamic fanatics or schizophrenia? Quite a few, but those are political third rails, so we'll make ourselves feel better and go after someone on Lamictal or a CPAP machine or if they served in the military and have PTSD, declare the vet an enemy of the state.

It sounds ludicrous, but that is the legislation in place.

The medical association can stick to reviewing news facilities permits.

A doc budgets around 10 minutes, this only happens if they are directed to do so by regulations

My point exactly (on the records).

If we want to stop crime and terrorism, ask if they live in a crime prone neighborhood, are on public assistance, or affiliate with a radical Muslim mosque.