Have you ever been to the doctor and had him or her ask if there was a gun in the home?

I’m not talking about a psychiatrist asking this when someone has expressed a desire to hurt themselves or other, but when you’re just in there for a routine physical or you’ve brought your child in for a check-up. Has that ever happened?

Being from the Deep South, I haven’t experienced that, but I’ve had numerous people tell me they have, and that’s a problem. Frankly, it’s not my doctor’s business whether I have a gun or not unless he’s inviting me to go hunting or to the range. That’s about it.

Yet the medical community seems pitted against guns as a whole, and it can be confusing what your options are when you find out that your doctor has an anti-gun bias.

Luckily, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership has launched a new app that seeks to connect gun owners with pro-Second Amendment medical providers.

Frankly, medicine has an institutional bias against guns. To counter this, DRGO has launched 2Adoc.com, a referral service that will connect patients with healthcare providers who respect their second amendment rights and who won’t engage in anti-gun activism in the patient exam room.

In February of 2017, the 11th circuit court struck down key provisions of Florida’s Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act in the Wollschlaeger vs. Governor of Florida case (commonly termed “Docs vs. Glocks”). That ruling gives uninformed and anti-gun doctors legal cover to abuse the doctor-patient relationship to further a political agenda.

This was an unfortunate conclusion to a nearly decade-long saga. In 2010, Amber Ullman and her daughter were terminated from their pediatrician’s practice for refusing to tell the pediatrician whether she had a gun in her home on the grounds of privacy. Many other such instances had occurred, leading to the creation of Florida’s Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act.

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DRGO believes that a patient’s gun ownership is none of their healthcare provider’s business. Only in exceptional cases, where specific clinical circumstances warrant, should a healthcare provider inquire about gun ownership or discuss any aspects of ownership.

In response to a growing number of inquiries to DRGO for recommendations of healthcare professionals who respect patient privacy and the right to keep and bear arms, DRGO conceived 2Adoc.com as a way to help patients find healthcare providers who respect their constitutional rights.

I’ll be honest, I don’t mind a doctor who wants to make sure my 5-year-old daughter can’t get her hands on my gun any more than if he wants to make sure she doesn’t have ready access to the bleach. So long as it’s framed as essentially the same thing, that is.

When a doctor decides he needs to push an anti-gun message on me, then it’s time to find a new doctor. Yet, as was noted above, that’s a lot easier said than done. Thanks to the wonders of technology, finding a replacement seems to be easier than ever before.

Currently, DRGO is encouraging all medical providers who respect our Second Amendment rights to sign up so potential patients can find them through the app. After that, the free market will do what the free market does. If pushy anti-gun doctors lose enough patients, maybe they’ll come to understand the meaning of the phrase, “Stay in your lane.”