Hello everyone, I thought I would add this as part of our conversation as I seek out to understand if our personal ethics should translate to our business ethics. Like it or not, healthcare is part of the conversation on gun violence and gun use. Our systems treat gun shots, accidents, suicides, victims etc. We are part of this conversation that is happening around us.

Many school districts have either been tolerating, encouraging or discouraging children walking out of school as a protest message on the one month anniversary of the killing of 17 people in a Florida high school last month (Saul & Anemona, 2018). While we and most likely our family and friends have opinions on guns, whom should own and carry them, it is hard to deny the facts of so many gun deaths in our nation.

I wanted to take a different spin on this and look at from an academic point of view rather than espouse rhetoric. You maybe surprised, but my standing on the issue is more conservative than you may think, however I cannot deny the facts, so many are dying, none of the rhetoric is changing the amount of deaths, and I feel the inaction is part of the problem. Take a look at the attached picture and journal.

The study published in the Journal of American Medical Association, Internal Medicine stated “ A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually” (Fleegler, Lee & Monuteaux, 2013, p 732). Now this is not a cause and effect relationship, but how can we ignore the correlative findings?

Question for you and the class, Take a second to step back from your own opinion and consider gun violence in terms in public health and healthcare risk. Could insurance companies charge gun owners more, because just like other risk factors, there is a higher likelihood of being injured or killed by a gun if you are in proximity of a gun, even if you own that gun? Should our children protest today by walking out of school?

I wanted to pose these questions because it is easy think critically about some of the items we have talked about, but harder when dealing with such a topic that brings out deep emotional responses. Know this is a safe place to express opinions so do not feel like you need to not have a controversial conversation. However my challenge to you is to try to not use any logical fallacies in your response. That means thinking errors like either/or thinking, slippery slope, ad hominem and others (Google Search to find more). I look forward to the conversations.

References:

Fleegler, E. W., Lee, L. K., Monuteaux, M. C., Hemenway, D., & Mannix, R. (2013). Firearm legislation and firearm-related fatalities in the United States. JAMA Internal Medicine, 173(9), 732-740. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.1286