I’ve had some interesting conversations with doctors and nurses about guns (and even gun control) over the years, but the vast majority of those conversations were either initiated by myself or came up organically in the course of discussion. Thankfully, I’ve never really run into a healthcare worker who started a heavy-handed lecture about the guns I own, how they’re stored, or why they think it’s a bad idea for me to exercise my Second Amendment rights.
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Those encounters do happen, however, and a Tennessee lawmaker is hoping to make them a thing of the past, at least in the Volunteer State.
In an effort to protect the constitutional rights of gun owners in Tennessee, lawmakers have filed a bill that would prohibit healthcare providers from asking patients if they own firearms.
The bill, filed by Rep. Ed Butler (R-Rickman), is intended to protect the rights of Tennesseans who seek medical care from being “discriminated against,” according to the lawmaker.
“My objective was to prevent doctors from discriminating based on whether you own a firearm or not,” Butler told News 2.
According to Butler, he filed the legislation after receiving some phone calls from constituents on the subject.
“I’ve had constituents call because they’ve been asked,” he told News 2. “I don’t know that they necessarily were discriminated against, but the question was asked, which obviously raises concerns for them. That was the genesis for why we drafted this bill.”
Under the terms laid out in HB 387, psychiatrists and psychologists would be the only medical professionals who could ask patients about any “ownership, possession of, or access to firearm ammunition or firearm accessories.” In addition, the legislation prohibits providers from mandating that information be shared by patients before they’re treated, and also forbids them from sharing any information about gun ownership with the patient’s insurance company. Finally, HB 387 mandates that no patient can be denied because of their status as a gun owner.
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If a doctor or nurse decides to disregard the law they can face a $1,000 fine for every violation, but would also be subject to discipline by their respective licensing boards.
While Butler’s bill is aimed at depoliticizing a trip to the doctors, it’s drawing opposition from some healthcare workers.
The restrictive nature of the legislation raised alarms for Elizabeth Harrison, a master’s level intern at Pathfinder Counseling Group in Clarksville.
“In reading it, the biggest concern that we have surrounds our duty to warn,” she told News 2.
As someone training to be a licensed professional counselor (LPC), the bill as currently written would inhibit her ability to do her job, she said.
“If we have a client come in and they’re married and they say that they’re going to harm their spouse, if this bill were to pass, we’re not allowed to ask, ‘Do you have firearms in the home?’” she told News 2. “If they are suicidal, we’re not allowed to ask questions about firearms. If we’re working with a teenager and they begin to talk about feelings of wanting to take things out on other people in the school and making threats, we can’t ask about firearms. It severely limits our ability to conduct our fiduciary duties of duty to warn.”
Butler says the bill as written is likely to change, and every healthcare professional with a “duty to warn” would be exempt from the bill’s provisions. Butler adds that “if there is some type of suicide risk, or they need to do a suicide risk assessment,” even family physicians would be allowed to ask about gun ownership.
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““It’s not that we’re trying to prevent somebody from doing their job,” Butler told WKRN. “I just don’t want somebody not to provide medical services to somebody who has a constitutional right to own a firearm.”
I’ll reserve judgment until I see what Butler’s amended legislation looks like, but I hope that it doesn’t end up so watered down that it’s been stripped of the patient protections the lawmaker says he wants to put in place. It’s one thing to ensure that those with a professional obligation to warn about a patient’s threats to themselves or others can make an informed decision about the need to inform law enforcement. It’s something else entirely to empower doctors, nurses, and even mental health care workers to go fishing for information about whether or not a patient owns a gun just so they can deliver a lecture on storage habits or gun ownership itself.
