Roy Exum
I’m a big advocate of common sense. Yes, it is true that I have only a limited supply of walking-around powers but even I know we have a huge problem with illegal guns in the United States. Already we’ve had 85 incidents at our schools in 2018. In Chicago, there have been 125 shot and 36 dead in the month of November alone, and, in what has become a holiday tradition, the shooting gallery on Thanksgiving weekend in the Windy City is heart-breaking.
Earlier this month, the American College of Physicians came out with a position paper that included recommendations for reducing deaths.
The next day our CDC reported gun violence continues to rise unabated in the United States but you didn’t see either report. Why? Mass shootings have lost their luster, their sex appeal in the mainstream media. I am being totally honest. We have had 317 mass shootings in the United States since Jan.1, 2018.
That’s according to Gun Violence Archives, which also reveals that in all 50 of our United States through Nov. 22 we’ve had 50,870 shootings that have killed 13,046 this year. That includes 596 children under the age of 10 and 2,528 teenagers up to the age on 17. And people don’t think this is a vicious epidemic?
Earlier this month you paid hardly any attention to “another shooting” in California, where, on Nov. 7, a 28-year-old Marine veteran walked into a country-western bar in Thousand Oaks, Ca., and proceeded to murder 13 innocent people while wounding 12 others. The gunman was killed in the insensible melee but now mass shootings are so boring and mundane we’ve gotten actually numbed and calloused. We’d rather watch the weatherman.
What you did see on the day after the Thousand Oaks massacre was that some hotshot at the National Rifle Association got on the NRA’s twitter account and posted, “Someone should tell the self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves.” (As laughable as it may be, can you possibly imagine calling the NRA in search of any answer whatsoever?”)
The totally unwarranted NRA insult was so wrong it infuriated many more people than those in the medical profession. “Stay in their lane?” Are you kidding me? The NRA ain’t even been on the highway. As a haughty collection of gun enthusiasts, there has never been a larger collection of cowards in a one-on-one test of will.
If the NRA was real, you’d see them on the front times of every mass shooting in America. But now, they want the doctors to stay on duty in the OR lest some goombah accidentally shots himself in the hip.
I can go it one better. Anytime some wacko low on common sense cares to peek in my email box, a couple of doctors just sent me some gruesome photos I’ll be delighted to share. Not one picture was of a gunshot victim but each showed the scrubs of trauma surgeons still wearing them (their faces hidden) and the scrubs were heavily soaked through with a target’s operating-room blood.
Gun violence belongs to all of us. The NRA, of course, is so intent on our Second Amendment rights and lobbying politicians with its twisted leadership and misguided agenda that today the organization is a punch line. At one time almost every high school boy in our circle had a NRA sticker on our back bumpers but all of that has been well swept away – I can’t name one of my pals who would dare salute the NRA, even on a muddy bumper sticker.
Just for fun: Let’s see how much common sense we have left today – you want to know about real gun control? Here’s where the doctors are wrong.
Doctors are used to rules, laws, peer reviews, and certificates. These regulations are wonderful, but the guys who are killing each other, who bleed profusely in the operating room, don’t play by the rules and rely on indigent fun for every service rendered. The only license these guys ever had is stamped, “Suspended.”
You see, both the MDs and the thugs have big circles but never can I imagine they would ever touch. All of a gang’s hardware is bought on the street. Serial numbers mean nothing … think Glass Street in East Chattanooga, or about a block off Rossville Boulevard from the old Krystal, or down in St. Elmo, almost to the Georgia line near what is politely called ‘The River.’ No receipt, only cash, and – no – we don’t make change. “Come in a different car next time.”
Now, back to the NRA. “Can you see that empty bottle of wine under the the park bench, just line away from the restroom path. See that bench near the park bench? Yeah, it’s in a brown sack. About 30 minutes after we leave, wander down there and fetch it.”
The switch was textbook – an empty bottle the same as a totally-wrapped substitute so my man can scram with his catch in less than a minute. My point is this: Can you imagine one “self-important” doctor pulling such a change? Lacking the svelte or the courage to attack the gangs and druggies who fire our bullets, I’m telling you “the soft hands” would have to self-medicate.
Finally whoever it was who tweeted for the nation’s doctors to stay in “their own lane,” is that to imply the Nation Rifle Association wants to take full credit for what has occurred in Chicago? I don’t suspect that is true, based on the following preliminary figures:
CURRENT COSTS ESTIMATES INVOLVED WITH CHICAGO SHOOTING VICTIMS
Costs assume the following:
$55,000: Average gunshot victim ER and hospital expenses.
$1,000: Average CFD ambulance ride, only applicable to 80 percent of victims, the rest are self-transport.
$800: Homicide-related autopsies.
Doesn’t include hospice care or ongoing rehabilitation.
Cost estimates provided by Chicago: Killings have now cost $2.5 billion
The cost for treating a gunshot wound: $21,000 for the first 35 minutes.
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So I’m just saying, if the NRA wants a lane by itself, kindly inform the city of Chicago how big a chunk of the shooting you want.