Doctors to protest for tougher gun laws, prevention

Doctors at the Montreal General Hospital will hold a day of action against gun violence, on Wednesday, calling for tougher gun control laws and more programs for tackling gang violence and suicide prevention.

“We are approaching this from a public health perspective,” said Dr. Andrew Beckett, a trauma surgeon and spokesperson for Canadian Doctors for the Prevention of Gun Violence.

“The number of gun incidents that we have seen in Canada over the past couple of years has increased by 42 per cent, since 2013,” he said in an interview with CJAD 800’s Elias Makos.

But, it’s the day-to-day interaction with patients, specifically with a young woman who was accidentally shot in the neck and paralyzed, that sprung Beckett into action.

“She’s going to be reliant on the health care system to provide her care for the rest of her life,” said Beckett, who believes people can’t fully appreciate the devastating consequences of gun violence, without seeing them firsthand the was he does.

“You’re just taking away so many things from people and from families," he said.

Tougher restrictions on gun ownership are part of the equation, for Beckett, but they aren’t the entire package.

“To be clear, we don’t have anything against lawful gun owners,” he said. “It’s not that we are anti-gun; we’re anti-bullet hole.”