Just about everyone who reads this column will also at some point make a visit to their internist for their annual check-up or to follow up some medical issue of concern. I visit my internist several times each year because I happen to like him very much and I kid myself into believing that getting on his office scale will somehow translate itself into me losing weight. Yea, right.

              But the next time I visit him, I’m going to ask him if he happens to be a member of the American College of Physicians, which is the national organization which represents internists, and I suspect the answer will be ‘yes.’ At which point I’m going to bring to his attention the fact that the organization to which he belongs and pays dues is guilty of a degree of professional malfeasance which needs to be stopped. And it needs to stop now.

I am referring to the practice followed by the ACP, along with many other professional medical organizations, to pretend that they are very, very concerned about gun violence while, at the same time, utilizing the dues paid by their members to promote the pro-gun narrative and messaging developed by the NRA.

Specifically, this takes the form of donating to the campaigns of Senate and House members who not only vote against all legislative proposals to reduce gun violence, but also speak out in favor of gun ‘rights.’  In this respect, the ACP’s behavior isn’t quite as nefarious as the behavior of the American College of Emergency Physicians; that bunch is the second-highest funder of pro-gun politicians of all the medical societies. In fact, the ACP actually gives more dough to Democrats than to Republicans, so far this year the split is 60-40 in favor of the blue team. Nevertheless, when it comes to supporting a pro-gun politician, some of the candidates who benefit from ACP largesse represent the worst of the worst.

• Andy Barr (R-K) has received $3,000 from ACP to date. In response to Obama’s mild attempt to promote more gun regulations after Sandy Hook, this is what Barr had to say: “I’m not convinced that President Obama’s proposals would either protect the American people from crime or safeguard the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.” That statement was right out of the NRA press kit, literally word for word.
• Kevin Brady (R-TX) is so far spending $5,000 on his campaign courtesy of ACP. He not only voted in favor of the PLCCA law that immunizes the gun industry from torts, he also is a co-sponsor of the bill that would allow concealed-carry licensees to take their gun into all 50 states.

I could list a few more of the dumbest of the dumb Members of Congress whose fervent belief in gun ‘rights’ finds favor with the internists but I think you get the point. In case you don’t, however, read what the chief mouthpieces for the ACP have to say.  Here’s the most recent pronouncement from Ana Maria Lopez, MD, who happens to be the President of ACP: “It’s more important than ever that our nation’s leaders implement common-sense policies that ban the sale of automatic and semi-automatic military-style ‘assault’ weapons that are designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Let’s leave aside the fact that neither Dr. Lopez nor anyone in the ACP press office knows the difference between a full-auto and semi-automatic gun. The bottom line is that this same bunch of cynical fools are giving campaign contributions to office-holders like Barr and Brady whose presence and activity in Congress virtually guarantees that no assault weapons ban will ever see the light of day. And if Dr. Lopez doesn’t know who receives campaign contributions from her organization’s PAC, there has to be a complete breakdown between what she does and what she says.

Here’s the bottom line. When it comes to physicians giving a single dime to any political candidate who will vote in favor of guns, this sh*t has got to stop. It has to stop now. Now.