67 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
67 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, Rochester, NY: Saturday, October 24, 1992
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DOCTORS URGE BULLET TAX TO SOLVE GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC
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Gannet News Service
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WASHINGTON -- The American fascination with guns has created a
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public health crisis of epidemic proportions and a tax on bullets
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could pay for a national solution, doctors told a Senate panel
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yesterday.
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"It is time to bite the bullet back," said George Lundberg, editor
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in chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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The AMA's spectrum of publications devoted June issues to gun
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deaths and injuries as health matters.
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Lundberg and other doctors testifying to a Senate panel on Social
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Security and family policy urged government to study gun violence
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the same way it examined traffic deaths in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Public health data collected about traffic deaths have helped craft
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laws and educational efforts that Lundberg said cut the number of
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those deaths 13 percent from 1980 to 1990.
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But deaths and injuries from guns, especially handguns, are
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escalating. AMA trustee Robert McAfee, a Portland, Maine, surgeon,
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noted that while the American population increased 26 percent
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between 1960 and 1990, the homicide rate from guns rose 160
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percent.
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Violence is the No. 1 cause of injury among women, he said, and the
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leading cause of death for all teen-age boys is gunshot wounds.
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Noting that violent injuries add about $5.3 billion to the U.S.
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healthcare tab -- mainly to pay for high cost emergency care --
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McAfee said, "Frankly, I'm a little sick and tired of being sent
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the bill for violence and then being criticized for the high cost
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of health care."
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Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., the panel's chairman, has
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proposed a federal tax on bullets, which would pay for a special
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center that would study, as a public health issue, the causes and
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effects of gun violence.
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The doctors who testified yesterday favored the legislation.
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But the National Rifle Association objects to the bill, as it does
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to any measure concerning guns, as unconstitutional.
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The Second Amendment says the citizenry has the right to keep and
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bear arms.
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Another file downloaded from: The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven
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Burn This Flag Zardoz 408/363-9766
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The New Dork Sublime Biffnix 415/864-DORK
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The Shrine Rif Raf 206/794-6674
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Planet Mirth Simon Jester 510/786-6560
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"Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
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