In their new paper, “Physicians Should Play a Role in Ensuring Safe Firearm Ownership,” Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Department of Internal Medicine’s Section of General Internal Medicine experts Stephen R. Holt, MD, MS; Julie Rosenbaum, MD; Matthew Ellman, MD; Benjamin Doolittle, MD; and Daniel G. Tobin, MD; urge that physicians should be involved in the “assessment of medical impairment” of potential gun owners.
Despite disagreements on both sides of the gun debate, most people will agree that firearms should be kept out of the hands of those who might endanger themselves or others due to malintent or medical impairment. Physicians currently evaluate people who wish to obtain licenses to drive commercial vehicles, fly a plane or adopt a child so there is a precedent for this type of process. Holt et al proposes that physicians play a comparable role in “evaluating an individual’s capacity to purchase, possess, and use a firearm safely.”
Physicians would need certification to perform the evaluation based on standard, objective criteria. Potential gun owners would be evaluated on their ‘functional capacity and mental fitness’ without bias prior to being approved to purchase a firearm.
Currently, countries such as Japan and Germany require a physician evaluation prior to firearm purchase, and the U.S. should join them with a similar process to "address this alarming public health issue meaningfully, while still guided by the rule of law." The authors propose using a tool similar to the SaFETy Score (Serious fighting, Friend weapon carrying, community Environment, firearm Threats), which relates to mental fitness and predisposition to violent behavior.
To learn more about this proposal from experts at YSM, read the complete paper in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.