KILLED BY OUR MANIA OVER GUNS By DR. ROBERT KURTZ
Dr. Robert Kurtz, co-director of trauma and critical care at Kings County Hospital, headed the team of doctors that yesterday fought to save the life of hero cop Dillon Stewart.
At KCH, he's known as the "cop doc" because of all the wounded cops he's treated.
He and his trauma center staff are so familiar with gunshot injuries that KCH has been training Army Reservists in battlefield medicine.
Yesterday, at a press conference held following the death of Officer Stewart, Dr. Kurtz said the time has come to get the guns off the city's streets. Here, the Bronx-born MD explains why he's such a fierce proponent of gun control. THE country and the city are awash in guns and we have to do something about it.
I see all-too-graphic evidence of the problem daily in the emergency room at Kings County Hospital.
About half our admissions are victims of penetrating trauma from guns, knives, and other weapons and violence.
New York, as we all know, has very restrictive gun laws and a very active police force that works very hard to get guns off the streets.
But when the whole country is deluged with guns, and when people can buy guns very easily in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia and bring them up here, they're much too easily available.
Consider what would have happened yesterday with stricter federal gun controls in effect.
If this man suspect Allan Cameron were angry at Officer Dillon Stewart, he might have punched him instead of shooting him.
But when he could turn to a gun to settle a dispute, the results were tragic.
What an utter waste of a decent young man.
What a waste of so many lives.
Why have we allowed our city streets to become war zones war zones that have made us so experienced at treating gunshot wounds at KCH that we were chosen to train Army nurses and doctors in battlefield medicine?
There have been a slew of bills out there in Congress to curb the gun lobby.
But the armaments industry controls the National Rifle Association, and the NRA has intimidated politicians, both Republican and Democratic, making it impossible to pass suitably restrictive gun laws.
The restrictions made five or six years ago have been stripped away.
Locally, I think people are doing what they can.
The city police are not patsies on this. They're very effective and focused.
But there's just so much you can do when these guns creep in from other places and people can get guns with virtually no screening. Some days at KCH we're deluged with victims of guns and other violence.
With other doctors in the city, I've done outreach to let the public know the horrors that we see all too often in the emergency room.
We've lectured against violence and we've let people know how important gun control is.
We've visited local schools and churches showing pictures of the unspeakable bodies ripped apart by gunfire.
But so far it's been a losing battle.
Hopefully, the death of Officer Stewart will reignite the people's passion to bring the gun lobby to heel.
http://www.nypost.com/commentary/58577.htm*FW Note:So if people can buy guns so very easily in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia and then tote them up north to cause problems for you, why don't they have the same problems in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia?
The "problem" with access to guns lies in criminals having immediate unrestricted access when honest people don't.
The body count attributed to "gun violence" in any city goes up in a direct relationship according to how restrictive the laws pertaining to gun ownership might be. If it's easy for law abiding people to get the tools to defend themselves, the count goes waaay down. In those cities where honest folk must beg for permission, be evaluated for eligibility, and pay huge licensing and registration fees, the bodies of the innocent are stacked like so much cord-wood.
Given this doctor's job responsibilities, I can sympathize with his point of view, but I still consider him a social retard.
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