“If it saves only one doctor”
by Dr Paul Gallant and Dr Joanne Eisen
Listen up, American gun-owners. It's finally time to give up those "assault weapons"!
What could possibly prompt the need for such drastic action, you ask? The answer is simple. Even the mere thought of "assault weapons" appears to trigger a derangement of thought processes in certain medical minds.
It's hard to come to any other conclusion, in light of the contents of the AMA Scientific Council's report, "Assault Weapons as a Public Health Hazard in the United States." Published in the June 10, 1992 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), that report turned out to be anything but scientific or scholarly.
What we found, instead, was a discussion of "assault weapons" using pseudo-scientific language, and lacking any of the substance of science. It was a report punctuated by fear-provoking exaggerations, and irrational thinking. And it seemed evidence enough that just the thought of "assault weapons" has the power to turn the brains of some of America's healers into addle-brained masses of Jello!
It is therefore our considered opinion that we must erase, totally and finally from the American scene, that nemesis of reasoned, scientific thought - the "assault weapon". Because in the end, your doctor's sanity - and your health care - may be at risk!
Here are some of the claims made in the AMA Scientific Council's report on "assault weapons" (or, simply, "AWs"):
* AWs are the weapons of choice among drug dealers and criminals.
* "Gun trace" requests can be used to quantify AW use in crime, and to estimate medical costs from the injuries caused by the violent criminals who use them.
* Injuries from AWs are taxing hospital trauma centers, and are extremely costly in dollars and cents.
* AWs are designed only for killing people, and shoot bullets at high velocity, possibly resulting in bodily damage at sites far removed from the actual path of the bullet.
And finally, the AMA's cure for the ills of America: AWs should be banned!
The fruits of the 1992 AMA report are already evident - they are manifested in the firearm-restrictive provisions of the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill, and in legislative efforts at the state level. While most gun-owners are keenly aware of a variety of bills proposed, since its passage, which would repeal those firearm provisions, we urge caution here, in light of our findings.
Now for the facts of the matter, point by point.
ELASTIC DEFINITION
The AMA Scientific Council
begins its indictment of "assault weapons" by acknowledging that these firearms
are difficult to define, in both practical and legal terms. Underscoring this
point, Dr. Edgar Suter, who is National Chairman of Doctors for Integrity
in Policy Research, noted in the May 1994 issue of the Journal of the Medical
Association of Georgia (JMAG), that:
"While cosmetic features such as these may have an ominous military appearance to some, these features have little public health relevance; after all, America is not suffering from an epidemic of night bayonettings."
The Scientific Council nevertheless proceeds to define them on the basis of an assortment of combat-style hardware, frightening in appearance - at least to them. It settles, for a brief moment, on a specific political definition - those firearms cited in 1989 Federal bills S-747 and HR-1190 - but soon switches to another political definition, namely those firearms cited in a different bill, S-386. It is finally suggested that all types of semi-automatic firearms may be fair game for this definition.
The reason for this scientific bait-and-switch is not hard to fathom. In 1988 - a year before enacting the first statewide AW ban - the California Attorney General's office had already concluded that a consistent definition of "assault weapon" was impossible. All things considered, the most accurate definition of AW may well be that an "assault weapon" is ANY ugly-looking semi-automatic firearm a politician or bureaucrat wants to ban!
And, above all else, the people who wrote the AMA Scientific Council report ARE medical-politicians!
The AMA report continues, without citing any data, that AWs may be "differentiated by their use in organized crime and narcotics cases."
However, no evidence exists to substantiate this claim. In fact, it is simple common sense which dictates that those features rendering a firearm less concealable - like increased barrel-length, and/or combat-style appurtenances - would also make them far less likely to be used in criminal activities.
The Scientific Council attempts to bolster its contention of such an unfounded claim by using BATF "gun-trace" data. However, the ONLY reference to gun trace data as an indication of the "widespread use" of AWs in crime comes from scientifically unsupported newspaper articles written in 1989 by two reporters at the Cox Newspaper Bureau. In these articles, reporters Stewart and Alexander used gun trace requests as the basis of their conclusion that 11% of guns used in crime were AWs.
But the BATF tracing system was NOT designed to collect statistics of this nature. It was, instead, intended as an operational system, designed to help law enforcement agencies identify the sequence of ownership of individual firearms. In Point Blank: Guns & Violence in America, Dr. Gary Kleck sheds more light on "gun traces":
"A trace request is submitted when police have seized a gun and decide they want to track down its previous history, from manufacture or importation to wholesale purchase to first retail purchase."
Commenting in the March 1994 issue of JMAG on the unreliable nature of gun traces, Dr. Suter noted: "In 1989 in Los Angeles, a hotbed of drug gangs and violence crime, assault weapons represented approximately 3% of guns seized, but 19% of gun traces....[The] preponderance of data currently available indicates that assault weapons, even in the hotbeds of violent crime, account for generally 0-3% of crime guns, which approximately equals their estimated representation amongst all guns in the USA."
Interestingly enough, the AMA Scientific Council, in a fleeting moment of scientific sanity, back-pedaled on its exaggerated position, admitting that "the sample of firearms for which traces are requested is not likely to be representative of all firearms used in crime."
Turning its attention next to the health-care "costs" attendant to AW injuries and deaths, the AMA Scientific Council makes the following statement: "Data sources for firearm injuries in general are fragmented and incompatible with each other, so it is not surprising that reliable data are not available for [determining]...the numbers of deaths and injuries resulting from the use of assault weapons, and the costs associated with them."
Apparently, that admitted paucity of reliable data is nevertheless sufficient for these learned scholars to arrive at one very definite conclusion: "Clearly, the injuries from assault weapons are taxing hospital emergency departments in large urban areas."
In their efforts to maximize the costs from AW injuries, the Council authors conflate (the technical term for adding apples and oranges and peaches) their figures. They lump together "penetrating" injuries from all sources - e.g., bullets, knives, ice picks - intentionally exaggerating the contribution from firearms in general, and AWs in particular.
Immediately shifting its attention to the particularly devastating effects alleged of AWs, the Scientific Council only demonstrates a profound ignorance of modern wound ballistics. According to criminologist David Kopel, in Guns - Who Should Have Them?: "The great irony of the claim that the rifles labeled semi-automatic 'assault weapons' are uniquely destructive is they are the only rifles that have ever been designed not to kill."
The fact of the matter is that modern military rifles are NOT designed to kill. This principle is widely accepted by knowledgeable people, and is readily understandable. The strategic importance of this preferential goal - i.e., to wound vs. to kill - becomes immediately apparent to anyone endowed with simple grade-school math skills: 1 dead soldier = 1 soldier out of action; 1 wounded soldier = 1 wounded soldier out of action, + 2 soldiers, immediately out of action to transport said wounded soldier, + 1 medical team to treat and care for said wounded soldier.
The drain on combat manpower resources is therefore far greater for wounded soldiers than for an equal number of dead soldiers.
The tone of the Scientific Council borders on hysteria when the subject turns to the "devastating" effects of the AW ballistic shock wave. In his scathing critique of the AMA report, Dr. Suter, America's foremost authority on fraud in the medical literature, pointed out some medical facts of life in the 1994 issue of JMAG, putting the lie to its outrageous claims about bullet wounding: "The Council expressed its horror of the SINGLE shock wave of a high velocity bullet, failing to note that the average Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy [used for disintegrating kidney stones without surgery] utilizes about 2,000 shock wave pulses, each of which is three times that of the 'high-velocity' bullet, WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER OF SOFT TISSUE DAMAGE." (emphasis in original)
In fact, a cursory review of the current medical literature reveals many studies demonstrating the efficacy and safety of lithotripsy. One of those studies suggested that the safety and success of this method made it the treatment of choice for preschool children!
In the end, all the fear-mongering claims in the AMA report about the dangers of AWs become irrelevant - even to the Council itself, as can be seen from their own words: "The danger of the semiautomatic assault weapon is not yet the frequency with which it is used in crime or the volume which exist compared to other types of guns. Rather THE DANGER IS THE POTENTIAL EACH SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPON CONFERS UPON AN INDIVIDUAL TO KILL AND WOUND A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE." (emphasis ours)
On the sole basis of the contents of this report by the AMA Scientific Council - a report lacking any shred of logic or reason - one could almost make a convincing case for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. But that wouldn't be quite accurate, because these people are neither ignorant, nor stupid, nor crazy. There is, very clearly, a "method to their madness."
LAB COAT LIARS
There's only one possible
explanation for the enormous gulf between the claims of the AMA Scientific
Council, and the facts of the matter. And it's not a pretty picture to contemplate:
some of America's doctors are deliberately lying.
Without batting an eye, these liars in labcoats are willing to sacrifice their integrity to advance a clear-cut political agenda: civilian disarmament. Starting with the banning of specific military look-alike semi-automatic firearms, it's full steam ahead to the banning of all the rest of our semi-automatics - aided and abetted by a gutless, unprincipled crop of politicians, and, of course, a gullible American public.
Despite all the obfuscation, the AMA's "cure" for the ills of America was right out there in plain view, all along, articulated in the "purpose" of its report on AWs: "..to review what is known about assault weapons and their impact on public health AND TO DISCUSS LEGISLATION TO RESTRICT THE SALE AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF ASSAULT WEAPONS." (emphasis ours)
The simple fact of the matter is that there will always be men who wish others harm, both within government and without. And there's nothing in the world we know of, right now, which will alter that aspect of human nature - not even the American Medical Association!
We near the close of the bloodiest century of mankind - when governments have killed off their innocent citizens to the tune of many, many millions of men, women, and children. It is sheer, utter madness to think that the need for personal protection, or the need for protection against a potentially tyrannical government, no longer exist.
And so, all things considered, we hastily withdraw our tongue-in-cheek plea to get rid of your guns. Because, on second thought, THAT idea just might be the most schizophrenic of all!
WHAT THE AMA REALLY WANTS!
According to a November
25, 1996 Associated Press report, doctors in McAllen, Texas, were stocking
up on guns - not for target practice or hunting, but for self-protection!
This rush to deplete local gun store supplies came on the heels of the murder
of a fellow physician. Dr. Francisco Jusino was gunned down in what appeared
to be retaliation by the Mexican family of a woman patient who died after
childbirth. Her husband was rumored to be a drug trafficker.
Despite police assurances to the contrary, these doctors were afraid that their efforts to save lives may cost them their own. One group of physicians even sprung for private lessons for its members to satisfy one of the requirements of the Texas concealed-carry law.
Think YOU can get a gun anytime you want or need one? Better think twice, if you're a law-abiding citizen, and if the AMA has anything to do with it! Just open the pages of the April 27, 1994 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and you'll think otherwise, afterwards. For starters, from that JAMA editorial: "Handguns and assault weapons in the hands of the civilian population serve little purpose."
Flying directly in the face of JAMA's claim, however, is the University of Chicago Lott-Mustard study - "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns" - released in the summer of 1996. According to this landmark study, described in the 8/2/96 issue of USA Today as "a comprehensive study that may reshape the gun control debate", authors Dr. John Lott and David Mustard found that: "If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly....The policy implications are undeniable: if you're interested in reducing murder and rape, then letting law-abiding, mentally competent citizens carry concealed weapons has a positive impact.....The net effect of allowing concealed handguns is clearly to save lives."
Even after the findings of Lott and Mustard were made public, the AMA continues to publish bogus research designed to frighten us and our neighbors into legislating the 2nd Amendment into oblivion.
As the 1994 JAMA editorial clearly shows, the AMA has some very definite ideas of its own about the fate of the nation's estimated 70 million handguns: "The Brady Law...is a useful provision but is only a first step....Far more stringent steps must be taken. Ideally, handguns...should be banned completely, but we recognize that this strategy is not currently politically feasible."
Not too surprisingly, the American Medical Association's plans for the firearms of Americans don't stop at handguns: "A federal ban currently exists on the importation of certain military-style assault weapons, but this ban should be expanded to domestic manufacture and sales....There is no reason for anyone to own a weapon the only purpose of which is to kill humans. The sheer destructive power of such weapons justifies federal legislation to ban civilian access to them."
Let's take a look at some firearm bans in this country which are already history, like the one in California. In 1989, the state of California enacted a law which went into effect on January 1, 1990. It banned a wide variety of mostly semi-automatic "assault weapons" and required the registration of those firearms already possessed.
It was reported that fewer than 10 percent of the estimated 300,000 to 600,000 affected guns, already in private possession before the ban went into effect, were registered by the December 31 deadline. By mid-1992, fewer than 70,000 guns had been registered.
That puts the figure of instant felons at somewhere between 230,000 and 530,000. Perhaps half a million otherwise law-abiding Californians were transformed into criminals overnight, by the mere possession of a firearm, NOT by the commission of a crime using them! People like you and me who could lose their homes, their jobs, their families, and their freedom. No free lawyers for that bunch, or for us!
Not a state to be outdone, New Jersey enacted its own version of an "assault weapons" ban a year later. This legislation outlawed possession of a far greater number of "prohibited" guns. Included in the New Jersey ban were .22 rifles, and BB guns!
Owners of "controlled" firearms in New Jersey had three options. They could (1) render the firearm inoperable, with "certification" of inoperability to be filed with the state police, (2) take the firearm out of state, or (3) turn it in to the authorities, without compensation.
Few New Jerseyans complied with that law. New Jersey State Police records showed that six months after the ban took effect, about 2,000 firearms - out of an estimated 300,000 - had been turned in, had been rendered inoperable, or were registered. Said Trenton Chief of Police Joseph Constance: "[The law] created a wall of suspicion between the police and the citizens."
But don't stop there - the AMA's "cure" for the ills of America calls for millions more Americans thrown into that same sinking boat! Here's what we can expect from more gun bans, since it is estimated that half of all American households contain firearms:
* Most Americans will NOT comply * Contempt for the law will replace respect for the law * Americans who formerly considered themselves law-abiding will become extremely suspicious of law enforcement, now "the enemy"
* The black market in firearms will flourish
* It will get worse, quickly - LOTS worse!
This is the AMA's picture of America in the 21st Century. Truth has no place in it. Is this the picture of America YOU have in mind, too??
REFERENCES
1. Adelson, A; "The Gun
and the sanctity of Human Life; or The Bullet as Pathogen"; Arch. Surg., June
1992; 659-664
2. Adler, K., et al; "Firearm
Violence and Public Health - Limiting the Availability of Guns";JAMA 1994;
1281-1283
3. "Assault Weapons as
a Public Health Hazard in the U.S."; AMA Council on Scientific Affairs Report;
JAMA 1992; 267:3067-70
4. Guns - Who Should Have
Them?; edited by David B. Kopel; Prometheus Books, New York 1995
5. Hasanoglu, E., et al;
"Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy in Children"; Acta Paediatr, March
1996; 377-379
6. Kleck, G.; Point Blank:
Guns & Violence in America; Aldine de Gruyter; NY 1991
7. Lott, Jr., J.R. and
Mustard, D.B.; "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns";
Journal of Legal Studies, University
of Chicago, January 1997
8. Martinez, R.; "Injury
Prevention: a New Perspective"; JAMA 1994; 1541-1542
9. Suter, Edgar A.; "Guns
in the Medical Literature - A Failure of Peer Review"; J. Med Assoc of Georgia;
March 1994; 133-148
10. Suter, Edgar A., et
al; "Violence in America: Effective Solutions"; J. Med Assoc of Georgia; June
1995; 253-263
11. Suter, Edgar A.; "Assault-Weapons"
Revisited - An Analysis of the AMA Report"; J. Med Assoc of Georgia; May 1994;
281-289
12. The New Gun Week;
"New Jerseyites Ignore Ban, Await Legislative Action"; January 17, 1992
13. The New Gun Week;
"California Semi-Auto Cover-Up Revealed"; July 17, 1992
About the Authors:
Dr. Joanne D. Eisen is
engaged in the private practice of Family Dentistry. She is President, Association
of Dentists for Accuracy in Scientific Media (ADASM), a national organization
of dentists concerned with preserving the integrity of the professional dental
literature, against the politicization which has corrupted America's medical
literature.
Dr. Paul Gallant is engaged
in the private practice of Family Optometry, Wesley Hills, NY. He is Chairman,
Committee for Law-Abiding Gun-Owners, Rockland (LAGR), a 2nd Amendment grassroots
group, based in Rockland County, NY.
The authors may be reached at:
LAGR, P.O. Box 354, Thiells, NY 10984-0354
[Reprinted, with permission, from American Survival Guide Magazine, September 1997. Copyrighted]
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