On Wednesday, the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety will hold testimony on two firearm bills, one on background checks and the other on waiting periods.

There have been two major articles in major medical journals recently about gun safety written by those on the frontline caring for firearm injuries. As a retired surgeon who cared for all types of trauma patients for more than 40 years, these two articles made me realize that the hearing at the State House is very important.

The first article from the New England Journal of Medicine called “#This
IsOurLane – Firearm Safety as Health Care’s Highway” outlines the pushback reaction from seven major physician associations and the American Bar Association to the NRA’s Nov. 6 tweet asking for “self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” The NRA said this soon after the American College of Surgeons, of which I am a member, came out on Nov. 3 with recommendations for legislation particularly on background checks, limiting use of high caliber/velocity weapons, and allowing government-funded research to happen.

The college’s recommendations came from a consensus working group of 22 active trauma surgeons from 16 states, with an average of 28 years of experience. Eighteen of them are firearm owners and nine are current or past NRA members. The article was published recently in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Surgeons strongly feel more should be done now to stop the waste of lives that has become an epidemic. The recommendations do not threaten our Second Amendment rights, but offer a common-sense approach.

For surgeons, “our lane” gets more traffic with each additional shooting. As one surgeon put it, “This isn’t just my lane. It’s my (expletive) highway.”

The NRA thinks we are “self-serving anti-gun doctors.” Most of us are not anti-gun, but we are anti-gun-violence. When we run to the ER to see you after you are shot at 2 a.m., we are not self-serving. We are serving you. The NRA has woken-up a non-sleeping giant – and not just surgeons but all in the medical profession who care for firearm trauma victims.

As previously stated, the hearing on Wednesday is very important.

(Nick Perencevich lives in Concord.)