Healthcare providers are people. They’re entitled to exercise their rights to things like free speech as much as they want, regardless of whether we agree with them or not.

But they’re not free to do so without criticism. We’re not free to do it without criticism either, so it’s only fair.

Yet for some reason, people often think that healthcare providers who speak out about guns and gun control are sacrosanct, that we shouldn’t criticize them because they understand the issue so much better than we do or something.

And, unsurprisingly, the media is touting a group of doctors who are demanding gun control in Maine following Lewiston.

According to the Kennebec Journal, hundreds of healthcare providers from across the State of Maine gathered yesterday in the city where the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history took place last month.

As part of a new coalition that was recently created on the heels of the tragedy, the Maine Providers for Gun Safety gathered in the parking lot at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston to rally for tougher gun laws in Maine.

There were more than 200 providers in attendance with more than a dozen coming up to speak on the issue. One of those speakers, Pediatrician, Joe Anderson, said in part during his speech,

“My mind was flooded with questions I’d never faced at work before: If multiple patients need my attention at once, how would I decide where to shift my focus? Do we have the equipment ready to manage multiple critically ill pediatric patients at the same time in our community hospital? Will I be able to keep myself composed if one of my friends’ children is rolled in on a stretcher?” 

So we’ve got more than 200 out of the reported 4,500 active physicians in Maine speaking out about gun control. While I have no doubt there are others who support this effort to some degree or another that weren’t formally part of this effort, it’s worth remembering that this isn’t even a majority of healthcare providers in the state.

The doctors on other side of the debate just haven’t opted to get organized is all.

Moreover, let’s understand that these healthcare providers are thinking about the supposed impact of these laws only from a single perspective. They’re worried about what will end up on the stretcher in front of them. I get that, too.

What they generally don’t deal with are the tens of thousand of people who don’t get shot, stabbed, or beaten, all because they exercised their gun rights. That doesn’t impact them and it won’t impact them.

So excuse me if I’m not tripping over myself to appease these healthcare providers simply because their perspective is what it is. For some of us, we can get that, but we also see the bigger picture and recognize that guns save lives.

Frankly, I hope these folks learn to deal with disappointment, because a couple hundred doctors shouldn’t sway anyone to do anything. It just shouldn’t.