Quote of the Day
When a patient comes into an emergency room, the doctors may or may not know what happened. They just know the patient was shot. Maybe they get some story from the paramedics about what happened, but that’s still only a small sliver of what’s really going on in the world of guns.
The doctors don’t see the 97-year-old woman who is only able to sleep at night because of the revolver in her nightstand. They don’t see the stalking victim who no longer fears for her safety after buying a Glock 19. They don’t see the guy who got shot dead by a father after the dude broke into the daughter’s bedroom in order to sexually assault her. They don’t see the mugger who ran away when his 30-year-old female target produced a firearm.
They don’t see any of that.
What they see is an unfortunate sliver of what all happens on a daily basis with guns.
More than that, how the shooter got a gun is never part of what they see in the ERs and ORs of this country. That comes later, and they’re often pontificating on the dangers of gun rights, all while being clueless about the fact that the shooting victim they treated was shot by an 18-year-old convicted felon with an illegally obtained handgun.
They don’t know nearly as much as many of them believe, but they’re so blinded by their own self-important arrogance that they can’t accept there’s more to the story.
Tom Knighton
August 21, 2025
Please Spare Us the Doctors Pushing Gun Control. Nobody Cares. – Bearing Arms
Good points.
Of course, some people have a far less nuanced view of things. There are people who see a violent criminal with a gunshot wound no different than an innocent criminal victim. It has been a while but as I have explained before sometimes these people view the general population as livestock. As a cattle owner, you don’t really care which cow started the fight. You don’t want any of them to be injured. They are, generally, of equal value to you whether they have a very pleasant personality or they are bullies to the other cattle in the herd.
I suspect the doctor Knighton was writing about is one of those people. As a doctor he is relatively smart and knows how to read and research. Yet the gunshot victims he sees are a gun problem and not a people problem.
Some fair number of people who turn up in the ER are there because they needed a gun and didn’t have one.
Sucks to live in your world full of fear
“It’s been really fascinating to observe, over the course of two decades, how Europeans have gone from self-righteously preening about “America’s gun problem” to belatedly realizing that America never had a gun problem, America has an African problem that the Europeans have now brought upon themselves.”
“The suspect in the Minneapolis shooting died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation… Police believe the suspect was a lone shooter in his 20s who died of a self-inflicted gunshot in the parking lot.
Right.
I suspect it won’t be long before we’re going to be informed that he was seeing a psychiatrist or was in some kind of therapy and was prescribed SSRIs.
How can these tragedies possibly be prevented? It’s just such a mystery.”
Vox Day.
Not a world of fear.
A hard look at the reality of the world one finds themself.
The reasons why humans have always carried arms except when some tyrant forces them not to. Is because we live in evil.
It’s not a choice. Only ignoring it is.
And from the platitudes of MTHead we find this gem.
“Everything is always just fine. Till it ain’t.”
Plan accordingly.
When a patient comes into the ER, the doctors don’t know what happened. They don’t know who the patient is. They don’t know if he’s an innocent shot by a criminal, or a criminal shot by an innocent in self-defense, or a criminal shot by police (though that one is usually easier to tell, as he’s typically handcuffed to the gurney, but not always).
They just know he’s been shot, and they have to deal with that wound.
But Tom Knighton makes a good point: gunshot wounds treated in the ER/OR are a tiny sliver of all that happens in the world of guns. By some estimates, ~98-99% of defensive gun uses (DGUs) end with zero shots fired, but the innocent victim is nevertheless safer due to the presence and availability of his/her gun.
For every GSW the ER docs see, there are 50-100 appropriate, righteous, life-preserving DGUs that they won’t see.
And that doesn’t count when a shots-fired DGU prevents larger loss of life. Consider, for example, a planned mass shooting that ends when an armed responder stops the shooter in his tracks with a couple well-placed rounds. The ER docs will see that one person and might gripe about having to treat “yet another GSW patient,” not realizing until later (if ever) that that one prevented them from having to treat a dozen more.
Context matters, but what doctors see in the ER is stripped of most of its context. They see the What, the Who, and the When, but they miss the Where, the Why, and the How, all of which are critically important to understanding the issue.
“Please Spare Us the Doctors Pushing Gun Control. Nobody Cares. – Bearing Arms”.
And that’s the real point. That all this is being pushed on us.
Some communist trying to lend their argument validity by pointing to some professionals opinion.
I would mention to Heir doctors that if they don’t like treating gunshot wounds, and wants it all to stop?
Shoving gun control on the most armed nation on earth probably isn’t going to get them there.
And in all honesty is going to have the exact opposite effect. (At least in my neighborhood anyway.)
One would think doctors would be re-examining their position on drugs as a logical starting point?
Mass-shootings are mostly from doctor proscribed drugs.
And gang-banging is generally over drug territory.
To say nothing of vaccines injuries and OD’s as a constant in the ER world.
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One statistic we never see is how much crime was PREVENTED because a potential victim had a gun. Self defense is a legal right. By banning and restricting guns and ammo our government prevents us from exercising that right. It would be useful in these gun-control arguments if we could show hard numbers on how guns are used in self defense.
“There are people who see a violent criminal with a gunshot wound no different than an innocent criminal victim.”
There are descriptions for such people; none of them complimentary. “Brain-dead” is one of the mildest.
The vast majority of doctors have a MASSIVELY overinflated opinion of themselves and their value to society. I’ve worked directly with doctors for almost half a century. Almost all of them had a first year med school class called EGO 101. And most passed it with flying colors.