Should doctors be allowed to talk to patients about guns?

It's a question pediatricians would sometimes ask parents: Are there any guns in the home, and, if so, are they kept in a safe, secure place?

Physicians can't make that kind of inquiry any more after the Florida Legislature earlier this year passed a bill banning doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership.

Now some physicians are fighting back in a battle featuring dueling elements of the Hippocratic Oath, freedom of speech and the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

On Tuesday, with a bevy of doctors at his side, state Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, held a press conference about a bill he's sponsoring that would repeal the gun gag order imposed on doctors.

He acknowledges, given the political reality in Tallahassee, that the likelihood of his legislation going anywhere is slim at best but said the issue needs discussion. Some physician organizations also have filed a lawsuit, saying the current law infringes on doctors' freedom of speech.

Mona Mangat is a pediatric allergist who is also the southeast regional director for Doctors for America, one of the physician groups that have come out against the prohibition. She said doctors should be allowed to give basic information about how their patients can make sure children don't have access to their parents' guns.

At Kriseman's press conference, she told a story about a Deerfield Beach father who told his two sons, ages 10 and 11, to go to his pickup to get his hat. The father had a gun in the truck and the 10-year-old shot the 11-year-old with it.

"Any one accidental death from a gun is one too many," she said.

Florida usually has from 16 to 20 accidental gun deaths a year in Florida in which the victim is 25 or younger, she said.

Mangat and Kriseman wondered aloud whether the Legislature would continue to enact measures to stop doctors from broaching particular subjects – smoking and alcohol use, for instance.

"Are the proponents of this law trying to practice medicine without a license? I think so," Mangat said.

Marion Hammer, past president of the National Rifle Association and now a lobbyist for the organization, defended the bill Gov. Rick Scott signed into law, saying doctors "should respect the privacy rights of their patients and shouldn't randomly question them about personal property they own unless there is a medical or safety reason for it.''

"Patients don't like being interrogated about whether or not they own guns when they take their child with a sore throat to a pediatrician, nor do they like being interrogated in an emergency room when their Little Leaguer broke his leg sliding into first base, to be interrogated about whether or not they own guns," she said.

Hammer said the law doesn't prevent doctors from talking to their patients about guns. "It says they should not ask whether or not they own guns unless there is a medical or safety reason for it," she said. "Just to be nosy is not a good reason."

They can still hand out brochures on gun safety, along with, for example, pool safety, she said.

Kriseman scoffed at the notion that his bill touches on a gun owner's right to bear arms.

"If I'm a gun owner, I don't know how someone asking me, 'Do you own a gun?' prevents me from owning a gun," Kriseman said. "They're simply asking the question. If I don't like the question, I don't have to answer."

He said he is not suggesting people give up their guns but that, if they have guns in the home, that they keep them locked up and secure.

Florida law requires a loaded firearm in the home to be stored in a locked box container or secured with a trigger lock if the owner reasonably knows that a child under the age of 16 can gain access to the weapon. Violating the law is a misdemeanor.