Pro-gun advocates spent a lot of money to help Republicans gain control of the Iowa Senate in last year’s elections. The GOP majority will likely move several of the gun lobby’s legislative priorities soon, including so-called “Stand Your Ground,” an amendment to Iowa’s constitution establishing the right to keep and bear arms, and relaxed rules on concealed carry permits and youth firing of handguns.

If they are smart, Republicans who venerate the Second Amendment will steer clear of State Senator Jake Chapman’s new bill, which would trample on the First Amendment and prevent potentially life-saving conversations.

Chapman introduced Senate File 254 on February 15, when almost everyone who follows Iowa legislative happenings was wrapped up in the marathon debates over the collective bargaining bill.

Senate File 254 is only one sentence long: “A person licensed to practice a profession under this chapter shall not inquire about or otherwise request information about a patient’s or client’s ownership or possession of firearms.”

The bill refers to Chater 147 of Iowa Code, which regulates the following “health-related professions”:

physician and surgeon, podiatric physician, osteopathic physician and surgeon, physician assistant, psychologist, chiropractor, nurse, dentist, dental hygienist, dental assistant, optometrist, speech pathologist, audiologist, pharmacist, physical therapist, physical therapist assistant, occupational therapist, occupational therapy assistant, orthotist, prosthetist, pedorthist, respiratory care practitioner, practitioner of cosmetology arts and sciences, practitioner of barbering, funeral director, dietitian, marital and family therapist, mental health counselor, respiratory care and polysomnography practitioner, polysomnographic technologist, social worker, massage therapist, athletic trainer, acupuncturist, nursing home administrator, hearing aid specialist, or sign language interpreter or transliterator.

Anyone in those occupations who asks a client about gun ownership would be guilty of a serious misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine ranging from $315 to $1,875.

You don’t have to be an attorney to see that this attempt to regulate the free speech of thousands of Iowans would never stand up in court. Just this week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld by ten judges to one a ruling that struck down a Florida law, which barred doctors from talking about gun safety with patients or parents.

In a statement enclosed below, the Iowa chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics argued that Senate File 254 would violate the First Amendment and “disregards research showing the important role pediatricians and other physicians can play in protecting children from firearm injury or death.” A comprehensive review by journalists for the Associated Press and USA Today found that unintentional shootings kill a child approximately every other day in this country. Official government statistics “significantly understate the scope” of the problem. Fatal gun accidents are especially common during the holiday season.

Pediatricians concerned with keeping children safe aren’t the only health practitioners who have valid reason to seek information about gun ownership.

When someone commits a horrific mass shooting, Republican politicians often say public policy should focus on addressing mental health issues, not regulating gun purchases.

Now an Iowa GOP lawmaker wants to forbid doctors, psychologists, therapists, mental health counselors, or social workers from asking clients whether they own a gun.

Scott Greene, accused of murdering two central Iowa police officers in November, had a long history of mental health problems and was behaving erratically during the weeks before the killings. Chapman apparently believes that fielding questions from a doctor is so burdensome for law-abiding gun owners that the state of Iowa should prohibit health professionals from finding out whether a potentially dangerous person like Greene–or Gang Lu, who perpetrated the 1991 mass shooting at the University of Iowa–possesses a firearm.

Firearms are involved in a majority of homicides among young people, and a gun in the home nearly triples the risk that a woman will become a homicide victim.

More Iowans die by suicide than by homicide, and a growing number of our state’s residents have taken their own lives in recent years. Extensive peer-reviewed research has shown that “having a gun in your home makes you more likely to successfully attempt suicide.” The link between gun ownership and suicide is strong.

Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S.; in 2010, 38,364 people killed themselves. In more than half of these cases, they used firearms. Indeed, more people in this country kill themselves with guns than with all other intentional means combined, including hanging, poisoning or overdose, jumping, or cutting. Though guns are not the most common method by which people attempt suicide, they are the most lethal. About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death. (Drug overdose, the most widely used method in suicide attempts, is fatal in less than 3 percent of cases.) […]

What makes guns the most common mode of suicide in this country? The answer: They are both lethal and accessible. About one in three American households contains a gun. The price of this easy access is high. Gun owners and their families are much more likely to kill themselves than are non-gun-owners. A 2008 study by Miller and David Hemenway, HICRC director and author of the book Private Guns, Public Health, found that rates of firearm suicides in states with the highest rates of gun ownership are 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women, compared with states with the lowest gun ownership—though the rates of non-firearm suicides are about the same. A gun in the home raises the suicide risk for everyone: gun owner, spouse and children alike.

This stark connection holds true even when other factors are taken into account. “It was a reasonable hypothesis to think that the type of person who chooses to own a gun is different from the type of person who chooses not to. Maybe there’s a ‘go-it-alone’ attitude that leads to less help seeking. Or maybe gun owners are more likely to live in rural areas, and rural locales are associated with greater suicidality,” explains Catherine Barber, director of HICRC’s Means Matter campaign, a suicide prevention effort that focuses on the ways people attempt to take their own lives. “But when we compared people in gun-owning households to people not in gun-owning households, there was no difference in terms of rates of mental illness or in terms of the proportion saying that they had seriously considered suicide,” Barber says. “Actually, among gun owners, a smaller proportion say that they had attempted suicide. So it’s not that gun owners are more suicidal. It’s that they’re more likely to die in the event that they become suicidal, because they are using a gun.”

Under U.S. Supreme Court case law, content-based restrictions of speech “other than fighting words or true threats” are allowed only if the government can prove the regulation promotes “a compelling interest” and is “the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest.” There is no compelling interest in protecting Iowans from being asked if they own a gun. On the contrary, the government has a compelling interest in reducing the number of premature deaths due to suicide, homicide, or unintentional shootings.

Chapman’s bill should be left for dead in an Iowa Senate subcommittee.

UPDATE: A Facebook commenter pointed out an angle I hadn’t considered. “Can you imagine not being allowed to ask a patient if they have anything metal on them (aka a gun) as they head in for a test, like, say, an MRI? Or shooting yourself as you take a patient belonging bag to put it away?”

February 16 press release from the Iowa chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (that organization is already registered against Chapman’s bill, along with the Iowa Psychological Association and Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines):

Iowa-AAP Opposes Bill Restricting Communication About Firearms

The Iowa-AAP is opposing new legislation (SF 254) restricting a health professional’s communications with patients about firearms. The legislation provides that a licensed health professional “shall not inquire about or otherwise request information about a patient’s or client’s ownership or possession of firearms.” A health professional violating this proscription could be guilty of a serious misdemeanor – punishable by up to a one-year sentence and fine of $1,875.

If enacted, SF 254 would be only the second state law imposing such a constraint on health professional communications with patients. The law disregards research showing the important role pediatricians and other physicians can play in protecting children from firearm injury or death. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “asking a parent a question about gun ownership can open up an opportunity to educate parents about potential dangers to which their child is exposed.” Such “anticipatory guidance” is a “major component” of pediatric care helping patients and their families “know what to watch for in the future.”

Further, the Iowa bill likely violates the First Amendment Right to free speech – as Florida just learned after six costly years of unsuccessful litigation defending a similar law. A 2011 Florida law proscribed medical professionals from inquiring about a patient or family member’s ownership of a firearm or ammunition unless relevant to personal safety. It also directed that medical professionals refrain from “unnecessarily harassing” patients about firearms.

Soon after the law’s enactment, doctors and medical groups secured a federal court order enjoining its enforcement. Subsequent court and appellate actions led to a February 16 decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the Florida law violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. In a 10-1 decision and 90-page decision, the court also declared the “unnecessary harassment” provision unconstitutionally vague under the Fourteenth Amendment. The AAP has posted a statement on the court decision.

SF 254 has been referred to the Senate Human Resources Committee. A subcommittee has not been appointed.

UPDATE: Also on February 15, Chapman introduced two other gun-related bills. Senate File 255 would require “a licensee of a health-related profession who requests a patient or client to provide personal information unrelated to the treatment or provision of service to or billing of the patient or client to notify the patient or client that providing that information is not required for treatment or provision of service to or billing of the patient or client and shall state the purpose for collecting and the intended use of the information.”

Senate File 256 would prohibit Iowa state universities or community colleges from banning weapons on campus. Vanessa Miller reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette,

“We have a constitutional right to protect ourselves,” [Chapman] said. “When we have public institutions that are taxpayer owned and operated, the people of Iowa should have the right to carry, to defend themselves on those public facilities.” […]

Eight states now have provisions allowing permitted individuals to carry concealed weapons on public, postsecondary campuses — Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Tennessee lets licensed faculty members carry weapons but not students or the public.

“This isn’t a new concept,” Chapman said. “It takes a good guy with a firearm to stop a bad guy with a firearm, and unfortunately that’s the reality we live in today.”

Board of Regents spokesman Josh Lehman said the board opposes the proposed legislation “due to it infringing on the statutory control of the Board of Regents.”