Doctors blocked from asking about guns

[Feuer Frei!]

Four years ago, an experienced gun owner in Pembroke Pines named Reynaldo Gonzalez made an exception he will forever regret.

His 15-year-old daughter, Yamel Trigo, begged to show off his guns, usually locked away except when Gonzalez went to the range, to a visiting teenage cousin. Out came the guns and a camera, Yamel recalls. The cousin posed with a .22-caliber rifle, which Yamel's dad thought was unloaded.
The cousin put her finger on the trigger — something safety-minded gun owners know never to do unless you mean to fire. The rifle went off. The bullet hit Yamel in the neck and left her a quadriplegic.


Cases like Yamel's in which kids are shot accidentally are hardly new, but now they're at the core of an unusual legal battle pitting a portion of the medical profession against some powerful gun-rights advocates and the state of Florida.

At issue is a new state law, the first of its kind in the nation, that forbids licensed healthcare workers from asking patients about gun ownership and gun safety absent compelling reasons. Supporters, including the National Rifle Association, say the law was needed to protect gun owners' privacy and stop doctors from "harassing'' patients on the subject.

The law, which went into effect June 2 when Gov. Rick Scott signed it, has prompted a lawsuit in federal court from three professional groups representing thousands of Florida physicians. They say it unconstitutionally curtails their freedom of speech and interferes with their ability to look after patients' well-being.
The law says healthcare workers "should refrain'' from asking about guns, recording information about gun ownership on medical records or "unnecessarily harassing'' patients unless the question is "relevant,'' or risk loss of their license and a $10,000 fine. Physicians say the steep sanctions effectively chill many practitioners' willingness to raise the subject. The consequence, they argue, will be more tragedies like Yamel's.

Asking about gun ownership, and whether firearms are safely stored, has been standard medical procedure across the country for years — not just for clinicians treating depression or mental illness, but also for pediatricians and family doctors. Their practices are increasingly focused on injury prevention.
It's also been standard among therapists dealing with a sharp increase in the incidence of dementia, whose sufferers, they say, should be kept away from guns.

Critics of the law say its vague wording raises a serious legal conundrum for physicians: If they're not supposed to ask whether patients or their family members keep guns, and under what circumstances, how can they determine if the information is relevant? And how would the state medical licensing board judge a complaint?
Lawyers for the state argue that nothing in the law stops healthcare providers from asking about guns if they believe "in good faith'' that the question is relevant "to medical health or safety.''

"The act instructs physicians only to respect the rights of patients who decline to disclose their ownership or possession of firearms,'' Assistant Attorney General Jason Vail wrote in a court brief. "A controversy exists only because the plaintiffs misconstrue the act.''

The NRA's chief lobbyist in Tallahassee, Marion Hammer, a key backer of the bill, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. The NRA is not a party to the case because the judge turned down its request to intervene.

The state medical board sent out a letter advising healthcare workers to ask about guns only when it's relevant but provided little guidance. The University of Miami told its physicians at Jackson Memorial Hospital to strip questions about guns from written questionnaires.

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