Prescription Handguns For the Elderly and Disabled

Repton writes "Thanks to the Second Amendment, even the elderly have the right to keep and bear arms. The problem is that many of the guns out there are a bit unwieldy for an older person to handle. However, the inventors of the Palm Pistol are planning to change all that with a weapon that is ideal for both the elderly and the physically disabled. In a statement submitted to Medgadget, the manufacturer, Constitution Arms, has revealed the following: 'We thought you might be interested to learn that the FDA has completed its "Device/Not a Device" determination and concluded the handgun will be listed as a Class I Medical Device.' Physicians will be able to prescribe the Palm Pistol for qualified patients who may seek reimbursement through Medicare or private health insurance companies."

Comments

God, please let this be true.

[Lord Kano]

I want to see liberals' heads explode when they realize that Socialized medicine is being used to buy people guns.

LK

Re:God, please let this be true.

[NIckGorton]

Er... personally I am always amazed that conservatives heads don't explode from the massive cognitive dissonance.

A kid raped by her father who gets an abortion is a despicable murderer. But... we should arm more people with guns whose only real purpose is to kill another human being.

Life is sacred 'till you're born. Then you're fair game?

Re:God, please let this be true.

[WTF Chuck]

But... we should arm more people with guns whose only real purpose is to kill another human being.

This Pandora's box has been open for a very long time. I'm afraid that even hope will escape it should we try to close it.

The mere existence of these weapons in the population makes them a deterrent for some crimes against the elderly and disabled. Even if it isn't a deterrent for some criminals, I would rather see the scumbag criminal breaking into an old person's home die than the old person getting killed, robbed, or otherwise abused. Dead criminals don't commit additional crimes.

If guns were banned today, and all citizens were required to turn in their weapons, do you think that the criminals with guns would trot off to the police station to hand in those weapons? Sorry dude, they aren't going to turn in those weapons. Calling the police when one of them is breaking into your home in the middle of the night won't do you much good after they shoot and kill you. But you would at least die knowing that you did your part to make the world a safer place by taking guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, so what if a few criminals kept their weapons.

Go ahead, mod me a troll for this one but I feel I just have to. What's to stop some nut job, (who has no regard for life, his or others), with a gun from wandering onto a school campus and shooting a bunch of people? It's definitely not some law abiding citizen carrying a gun because it is illegal to carry a weapon on most campuses. Do you think such a thing could happen? You are an idiot if you answered "no" because recent history has already proven that answer to be false.

-- The sig should not be applied to any of the preceding paragraphs

I am of the belief that no material possession is worth a life. I really don't understand why some people believe that their life is worth less than anything they would be able to steal from a place they break into, but I will do what I can to honor their belief if they test it here.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Arivia]

It took awhile, but I eventually figured out why I am not generally in favour of programs against gun ownership. Simply, if I support the rights of individuals to own property for their own reasons and to conduct themselves as they see fit according to their personal morals and philosophies (classical liberalism), then I cannot say that someone cannot own a gun, because my reasoning for that would be "Because you're only going to use it to shoot someone some day." That's inflicting my viewpoint on their life and lifestyle, and I don't have the right to do that. And before you go jumping down my throat, I work for a magazine too leftist for the campus it's on (which in and of itself, is the most left of all Canadian campuses.) Communism? sure. Socialism? Hell yes. Anarchism? Go for it. Anti-gun ownership? No thanks.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Confused]

If guns were banned today, and all citizens were required to turn in their weapons, do you think that the criminals with guns would trot off to the police station to hand in those weapons? Sorry dude, they aren't going to turn in those weapons.

Speaking from experience living in a country where people don't go armed, it works in a little different way. Naturally, the evil criminals don't turn in their weapons.

Today, anyone can just claim he's just exercising his right to be armed right up to the point when he does something criminal with it. With a weapon ban in place, whenever a police officers finds someone with a weapon, they can take him off the streets on that charge. They don't have to wait for him to do his evil deed.

The second part is that burglars and petty thievery becomes much more serious, when they're caught with a weapon, as it then becomes armed delicts, which increases the jail time a lot. So many criminals decide not to risk that, plus the hassles of being caught with a weapon.

In addition to all of that, if weapons are banned, organising one becomes more difficult. So no more just whipping out the gun from grannies drawer when you want to teach someone a lesson, you need first to find a dealer you can trust, the stuff is more expensive, you risk legal trouble while buying the weapon and so on. Until one's done with all that, a lot of momentum is gone and most but the very dedicated won't bother with it.

But all of this is moot anyway, because handguns are a sacred cow in the USA and no amount of reasoning and real life experience in other parts of the world will change the mind of the public.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Hal_Porter]

Uh, you consider this a conservative victory?

I don't really consider myself a conservative any more these days. Mind you I support this policy because it's so batshit insane it's got a certain charm. From an economic point it's quite rational too, patients with gunshot injuries are much cheaper to treat than patients who stayed unshot long enough to get a serious (and hard to treat) illness. Come to think of it from an economic point of view there's an argument for handing military grade assault weapons or sawn off shotguns - that way the injuries would be untreatable. Untreatable injuries are cost effective from a medical economics point of view. Hell you could just stop sending ambulances.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[nicobigsby]

Last time I checked, the cold war never went hot, so you're argument is kind of self defeating. The bottom line is that there will always be people out there willing to murder, it's been around for the entire history of the world and it will always be around. It's not ignorant, it's realistic. As long as the bad people have guns, the good people should be allowed to have guns. The bad people will always have guns, thus the good people should always have guns, so they can kill the bad people and protect themselves and their families. Check the stats man, states with less gun control have less violent crime and home invasions. It works. Who's being ignorant now?

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Neoprofin]

I think you're the one in a misguided cycle of fear. The only reason people are afraid of law abiding, safe, gun owners is their own prejudice against guns. Which is more rational, the fear of a population that seeks to harm and deprive by force, operation outside the laws of society; or a population who values their lives and property, crosses the Ts and dots the Is on all the relevant paperwork isn't taking anything from anyone?

Here's a little note for you. Law abiding gun owners don't fear other law abiding gun owners, unless you think sportsman clubs, social clubs and the dreaded NRA are all figments of my imagination. What they do fear is people who would break the laws they follow.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[slap20]

"Today, anyone can just claim he's just exercising his right to be armed right up to the point when he does something criminal with it. With a weapon ban in place, whenever a police officers finds someone with a weapon, they can take him off the streets on that charge. They don't have to wait for him to do his evil deed."

I agree with you, except the part noted above. Are you saying they shouldn't be able to exercise their right to own a gun because they might use it illegally at some point? So how is a gun any different than a screwdriver, brick, hammer, etc.? Should I not be allowed to own those because I might use them illegally at some point too? Should the government ban owning a penis to stop rapes? :-) England has banned private ownership of guns, and the response has been a large surge in knife attacks. Criminals will use whatever they can, and realistically I agree with you that criminals aren't going to be the ones turning in their firearms if they were banned.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Chrisq]

There might also be a few that want to see fewer elderly citizens forced to live in homeless shelters, and a few more who support it because most people who are thinking clearly do too.

But then they wouldn't be conservatives.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[Notquitecajun]

Something like 99.9% of gun owners in America never commit a crime, and conceal-carry owners typically have better records (and are better shots) than cops.

Also, take a look at the more crime-ridden cities - DC, Chicago, Detroit - which have high restrictions on gun ownership.

Gun owners, as a rule, don't commit crimes. Period.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[rohan972]

There is NO valid reason of carrying a gun on the streets. Really, there isn't.

My wife is physically small. Any man of average size and strength could kill her with his hands. To deny her the right to go armed is to deny her the right to self defence. To deny her right to self defence is in effect to deny her right to life. I assert my wife's right to life, with force if necessary, but I can't be there all the time.

I don't understand and will never agree with people like yourself who deny my wife's right to self defence. I think it is a form of mental illness you're suffering.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[goose-incarnated]

The Gun is Civilization, by Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret)


Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or make me do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.


In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.


When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.


The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.


There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.


People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.


Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.


People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.


The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.


When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.


So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.

Re:God, please let this be true.

[theaveng]

As long as you judge people by prejudiced notions like "conservative" or "liberal", you will never be able to truly understand them.

I am a conservative (technically a Jeffersonian), but I still believe in providing a "safety net" for those who fall off the highwire of life & need government assistance to survive. Not all but most of my colleagues believe the same.

So stop being prejudiced and judge individuals as individuals, not labels.

Class I medical device?

[Pathwalker]

So if that gun is a Class I medical device, does that mean that the TSA will have to allow them to be carried on aircraft?

Re:Class I medical device?

[Caraig]

That's... actually a really good question.

A quick bit of research, though, seems to indicate that Class I Medical Devices aren't critical to the life support needs of the patient, and so the TSA will probably confiscate them and/or require their transport in a firearms case.

The perfect weapon for the elderly .......

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a 6 gauge sawed back to 5". You don't have to aim it so eye sight isn't an issue and the sound shouldn't be a problem for the hard of hearing. Recoil is a bit of a problem but if they hold on tight the recoil should rocket them to safety.

Where's the cognitive gap, now?

[booyabazooka]

That's a ludicrous comment, and it's an insult to people who try to rationally argue anything about abortion and gun rights. You know very well that the justification for having guns, especially in this case, is defense. So a more accurate representation of the conservative viewpoint, "life is sacred until you try to attack someone. THEN you're fair game."

Argue against that perspective all you like (and I'll side with you), but please, don't build an absurd straw man just so you can end a post with a clever-sounding quip.

Re:Hypocritic Oath?

[Smivs]

I certainly wouldn't deny anyone the right to self defence, but self defence is not a medical issue. You could just as easily argue that poverty can cause depression, so doctors could prescribe Money, or that because the sick may need to visit their Doctor or a Hospital they should be prescribed cars. No, I'm sorry but this is the most patently stupid thing I've heard since, well ever!

Re:Hypocritic Oath?

[nicobigsby]

They are helping to preserve the life of their patient. Elderly people are often victimized due to their physical inferiority to their attackers, they are easy targets. This is an equalizer. Why would you want to prevent a little old lady from defending herself? Also, no weapon is inherently offensive or defensive, it is what the owner intends it to be. Correct me if I'm wrong but the rate of violent crime perpetrated by elderly people probably isn't very high.

Re:Absolutely correct

[WTF Chuck]

If I use a gun to kill a poisonous snake about to bite me when I'm changing a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, how does respect come into play?

If a farmer or rancher uses a gun to kill a coyote ravaging his livestock, how does respect come into play?

If a hiker/camper fires a gun to scare away a bear that is charging him, how does respect come into play?

If I hold at gunpoint, or shoot, a criminal, committing a criminal act against me, why should I have or show any respect for the person who has already shown a complete disrespect for me?