How had I not heard about this? From a Florida law, of course: "A health care practitioner ... may not discriminate against a patient based solely upon the patient’s _??????_" Take a few seconds to think about the marvelous panoply of words or phrases that could go there. All of the social good that could be achieved by even a half-way compassionate completion of that sentence. Just a few seconds more. Done?
Now remember it's Florida. This should make it easier. If you guessed "excercise of the constitutional right to own or possess firearms or ammunition" you are a winner!
In fact, "A health care practitioner ... shall RESPECT A PATIENT'S RIGHT TO PRIVACY and should refrain from making a written inquiry concerning ______."
You should get it pretty quickly this time.
That's right! "the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient." Great job everyone!
That's right. Us Republicans are such champions of the right to privacy that it is worth breaching that sacrosanct bond between doctor and patient (which, by the way Obamacare trampled all over) to MAKE SURE that doctors don't ask the questions we know citizens don't want to hear unless it is absolutely necessary for the health of the child.
Forget the fact that guns are responsible for more child (5-9) deaths are than heart disease, influenza, and pnemonia. Ignore that liberal "CDC" rag that claims guns are the second leading cause of preteen deaths (10-14) besides car accidents. If parents bring their kids into a pediatrician's office, it is OFFENSIVE for them to be given gun safety pamphlets or to be asked if their guns have the newest child proof locks. I mean, unless my child is sitting there dying in your office from a gun wound, I have a RIGHT as an AMERICAN to not be asked preventative health questions about FREEDOM by my doctor.
Face it, when the wise founders were drafting the CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, they sat down and debated the question of whether or not gun owners should be given a SAFE SPACE where they don't have to talk about the dangers or repercussions of their actions with medical professionals. As we all know the British would force gun-owning colonists to look at pictures of mortally wounded gun victims, and to listen to the confessions of remorseful people who had shot others in anger or by accident- JUST to dissuade them from buying a gun. All those poor patriots could do was to close their ears and chant "My body, my arms. MY body, MY arms. MY BODY MY ARMS," until the ordeal was over and they were allowed to vindicate their God-given right.
The founders knew this, and wrote the second amendment into the constitution to prevent these horrors from ever, EVER, happening to any US citizen ever again.
