Toomey-Manchin Proposal
The subject of gun violence has reached into the medical profession.
Most Americans have not heard of the Toomey-Manchin proposal. The proposal would allow doctors to add any of their patients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) without their permission, or ever telling them – period.
This should raise major concerns from those faced with this legislation.
Why?
No one disputes that people with mental problems need professional assistance. That’s indisputable. Unfortunately, the Toomey-Manchin proposal may create an environment between patient and doctor that has the exact opposite effect desired.
Lawmakers need to think about the repercussions in many cases.
Judgment By The Individual Doctor
Starting with no due process for the patient, it comes down to a judgment by the individual doctor. That would mean some doctors have a quick fuse while others are more lenient and continue to keep the condition private among the two of them.
The main problem would be, if a prospective patient knows his or her name could be placed in a federal database listed as mentally ill without their knowledge, would that be enough to dissuade some individuals from seeking out the help they may desperately need?
In the present environment of legislative knee jerking over the tragic events last year in Connecticut, is the government getting too involved in the medical profession?
Obamacare Aside, Is It A Serious Question To Address?
What if the doctor provides a bad diagnosis? The targeted patient would have to actively work through the system to get removed. Ever had to deal with the federal bureaucracy?
It is a certainty that some mental health providers will sound the alarm at the slightest hint of a problem. Is there anyone out there, if they’ve lived a few years, that hasn’t seen a doctor that blows a common cold into instructions for day long heart tests or something else quite extraordinary?
Toomey-Manchin legislation could very well present a reverse/negative outcome.
Like more extensive gun registration background checks will not stop one criminal from obtaining a gun, can’t the same be said about Toomey-Manchin legislation?
Will it really ever stop some nut from acting out a Columbine, a Newtown or the daily massacres in Chicago and Detroit?
