Boundary Violations

I had a medical appointment this morning. Since I’m a new patient, I got the full new-patient intake questionnaire. Everything went swimmingly up to…

“Do you own guns?”

“I believe that’s a boundary violation, unless you have some firearm qualifications.”

“We’ll just skip that.”

I think the next question was “Do you wear a seat belt?” Note the difference between asking if I use a safety device versus merely possessing a tool.

Heh. Where I live, they could automatically pre-fill the gun question with “yes,” since the folks who don’t own any are few and far between.

To be fair, the woman gave me absolutely no shit about answering the offensive question. And everything else about my visit was quite properly professional and friendly. I don’t really blame them — not living in this area — for the question; I have no doubt it’s imposed on them by corporate.

Anyway, if you get hit with that question at a doctor’s office, just remember the phrase “boundary violation.” I’ve heard from assorted medical professionals that it is like garlic to a vampire. It certainly appeared to work in my case.

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Bear

2A advocate, writer, firearms policy & law analyst, general observer of pre-apocalyptic American life.

7 thoughts on “Boundary Violations”

  1. While it may be imposed on them by the C-suite or bureaucrats, it only works if they acquiesce. This is how they win. Wash, rinse, repeat. Great response btw.

  2. My doctor of 25 years asked that a couple of years ago. I told her that in second grade I knew where the guns and ammo were kept, and how they went together. Yet in 55 years I had managed to not shoot anyone.

    I told here I would guarentee that I wouldn’t shoot anyone this year. But I couldn’t guarentee next year.

    She kinda freaked when I mentioned making and trying out my own cannons in the back yard, at age seven.

  3. I have only been asked that question by my neurologist, who is a headache specialist. It’s legit for him, because those who suffer from the various headache syndromes suicide a 3-5x the normal rate.

    I’m not wired like that, so far as I know, and I lied. None of his business.

    I did answer my neuromusclar guy in the affirmative, because he was looking for heavy metal poisoning, among other fun things. No sense lying; that could only hurt me.

  4. They’ll just mark any non-“no” answer as “yes”, and the data will go into their system and propagate to any number of organizations that have no need or right to it.

    While some insurance carriers do want the doctors to ask, the big push for collecting gun ownership data is from the AMA, which solidly supports “gun control”, as they call violations of Constititional rights.

    1. Not necessarily. I knew a nurse that would begin that question why explaining why it was none of her business, and who else could potentially access the data. “I’ll put down whatever you say, but you don’t have any guns, right?”

  5. It may seem funny, but since the VA Medical System provides me with all my medical needs, being an Army Veteran, I have never been asked these questions. Hmmm?

    1. Congrats. You’ve encountered another tactic I’ve heard of: nurses simply checking ‘none’ without bothering with the privacy violation.

      Freedom Moles

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