A ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ Needn’t Shoot It by Dr. Christopher Barsotti

A ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ Needn’t Shoot It by Dr. Christopher Barsotti

Firearm owners can alert authorities when they spot danger.

The pairing of mental instability with firearm access is a high-risk emergency—as many in the medical profession know. In emergency rooms, we typically see more patients at risk of doing harm with a gun than we see patients injured by guns. Physicians, nurses and paramedics, many of whom are gun owners, are all aware of the need to prevent tragedy by caring for people who might become violent.

As an emergency physician whose daily routine includes both conducting psychiatric threat assessments and treating gunshot wounds, I see clearly that gun violence originates in a person’s mental, physical and social health. As a gun owner and firearms trainer for young people, I see how responsibility and safety, foundational to gun ownership, are ignored each time gun violence occurs. From this vantage point, I also see that there is a powerful consensus among healthcare providers and gun experts that those who are unsafe should not have access to firearms.

Firearm safety requires that we do more than train people to use guns. We also need to teach what makes us healthy. This requires a sustained, trusting collaboration that integrates the traditions and knowledge of responsible firearm ownership with the expertise and risk-reduction of the healthcare profession.