A San Francisco doctor is leading a counterattack to a National Riffle Association tweet telling doctors to "stay in their lane" in the gun control debate.
Forensic pathologist Judy Melinek knows what bullets do to bodies so when she saw the NRA tweeting, "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control," she fought back.
"It was like a gut punch because we’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences of America’s lax gun laws," Melinek said.
“Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane. It’s my highway,” said Melinek, who conducts autopsies and teaches forensics for a living.
Her hashtag #ThisIsMyLane went viral. Doctors posting pictures of blood soaked scrubs and operating rooms where gunshot victims died from homicides or suicides.
"Suicides are much larger in number of wounds and deaths and they actually are much more preventable," she said.
The NRA tweet was in response to an American College of Physicians Report calling gun violence a public health threat.
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Melinek said physicians and NRA members can and should find common ground.
"The majority of their [NRA] members are not necessarily behind the silencing of scientists that is going on right now," she said.
According to Melinek, physician activism has worked before -- most recently in the ongoing anti-smoking battle with big tobacco.
"This is the responsibility of doctors, to speak out on behalf of their patients," she said.
