(December 6, 1999) Now the truth comes out: A National Academy of Sciences report exposes physicians, pharmacists and other health care professionals as the agents behind as many as 98,000 American deaths each year, a rate far greater than one any anti-gunner attributes to deaths involving a firearm. There are immensely more guns than doctors in the US, so the bottom line is this: you are more likely to die at the hand of a physician than from a hand holding a gun.

Where are all the activists demanding accountability?

My father died at the hands of an emergency room physician due to malpractice. My family sued him but insurance companies paid so this man could kill again. Why no "three strikes and you're out" rule for doctors?

Hearings should be scheduled for victims of medical injustice to wave their bloody shirts before sympathetic pols. The press should coordinate reports of death by doctor with editorial pages, telling how opinion polls favor sensible legislation. Grassroots activists should lament how AMA lobbyists keep legislators in their pockets to stonewall what the public demands. Federal protections from liability should be removed so folks could more easily shake down the health care industry. Trial lawyers should target doctors as the next cash cows to milk in preserving their revenue stream.

Cities and states should band together to sue the health care industry, in order to recover the cost of ... err ... health care. Since the black community suffers from substandard care, the NAACP should litigate too. Institutions like the Johns Hopkins Medical School should be sued for their role in having manufactured doctors who kill.

Well, that's how it would all go down if the public treated medical and firearm issues equally. Apparently medical errors pose a greater problem than misuse of firearms. But let's get real: none of the measures above are any more sensible for use against doctors than they are against gun owners.

Why unequal treatment between issues? Because the driving concern isn't safety, it's control. Government justifies its existence in part by regulating doctors, so expansion depends on market growth. Government won't intervene on that which lets it bloat. But guns in private hands threaten the "government racket;" it can only expand when we the people are not empowered. Government has a strong self-interest in removing our check on its ability to expand.

Like the bumper sticker says: Fear the government that fears your guns.