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Photo by David Bloom / David Bloom/Edmonton Sun/QMI Age

Our concern is that, currently, emergency physicians have no legal ability to report individuals at risk of suicide, and therefore we may have to send people home from the ER not knowing if they have any guns with which to kill themselves. Similarly, the psychotic or those with paranoid thoughts who may potentially have an arsenal at home.

If we could notify the police and have these lethal tools removed until such time as the mental health crisis has passed, Canada would be a safer place.

The other clinical area of concern is intimate-partner violence.

Among all ER patients, 20 to 40 per cent report having been a victim of intimate partner violence, and almost 40 per cent of women who are seen in the ER for an assault were injured by their partner.

Every six days in Canada, a woman is murdered by her current/former partner, many of them by gun.

Firearms are not only used for homicide in intimate partner violence; they can also be sued to intimidate the victim. Partners may threaten to shoot the victim, or her pet; they may load, clean or hold a gun during an argument.

Again, this is an issue of keeping the guns out of the hands of individuals at risk.

Bill C-71, (“An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms“), now before the Senate, does not address these issues, but in our view it should.

In our considered opinion, the continued focus on homicide, gang crime and smuggled handguns, while necessary, serves to distract from the very real issues of firearm violence in Canada. Gun-control legislation should not necessarily be crime-control legislation.

Firearm injury and death is very much a public and mental health concern and there needs to be a much greater emphasis on suicide and intimate-partner violence in the latest national discussion.

Dr.Alan Drummond is the co-chair, public affairs, for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. It’s position paper can be foundhere.

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