"I'm Handgun Control International"

Royalty-free leaflet: you may make hard (non-electronic) copies and distribute them. Handgun Control International symbolizes domestic and international efforts (e.g. United Nations) to restrict firearm ownership by law-abiding American citizens. It is not affiliated with Handgun Control Inc., although their agendas are very similar. Image credits: www.stentorian.com/credits.html

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)

Witch, I mean which, doctors think their expertise in medicine extends to social issues like gun control and national defense issues like national missile defense? It's the Physicians for Social (Ir)responsibility who, when it comes to these issues, are eminent proctologists; they have their heads so far up their own kazoos they don't need sigmoidoscopes.
PSR opposes national missile defense (NMD)
Their online petition argues that NMD has failed 14 out of 18 tests during the past 17 years. So improve the technology; with that attitude, PSR's profession would still be using leeches and letting barbers practice surgery. PSR also argues that the U.S. faces no military threat that warrants NMD deployment-- but Bill Clinton's Mainland Chinese friends recently boasted that their missiles could hit our West coast. PSR complains that NMD has cost $120 billion and that the new system will cost another $60 billion. How much would a nuclear attack on even one U.S. city cost, in lives as well as money?

PSR supports gun control
Doctors who treat gunshot injuries might dislike guns, but PSR's cure is worse than the disease. If we pass the gun laws that PSR supports, those emergency rooms had better stock up on rape kits because they are going to need them. And don't throw away the equipment for treating blunt, lacerating, and penetrating trauma either, because those gun laws won't do a thing to stop them. (The same logic that calls for banning guns would ban flu shots, because allergic reactions to them make some people sick and even kill a few every year. Of course, not giving flu shots would kill a lot more people. Similarly, gun control kills far more people than it protects, because it empowers criminals to prey on unarmed victims.)

"Social Responsibility" starts at home-- in the medical profession

Medical errors claim tens of thousands of lives every year; I've seen estimates of 90,000 or so, or more than the toll from automobile accidents plus firearm misuse combined. Medical costs are skyrocketing, but doctors are actually making less money because of inefficiencies in the health care system. Instead of pontificating about gun control and banning the Bomb, PSR should use its medical expertise to improve the health care system. Application of industrial quality methods (e.g. ISO 9000 principles, error-proofing) can reduce medical errors, while productivity improvement methods that were introduced at Henry Ford's hospital could drive costs down-- while improving quality of care.