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In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> I'm interested by the position GPs seem to be in over gun licenses. The plod are pressing for GPs as the only people who should sign gun licenses, and yet the very people who apply for them (i.e. mostly fit males) rarely come to the surgery and are unlikely to be known to the doctor. I've had the same attitude to gun licenses for years - and haven't changed it in the wake of the Dunblane hysteria. If I know the patient well, and feel able to make a judgment, I sign the license. If I don't know the patient, I don't. Once or twice the police have rung me up and asked why, on the basis that most GPs used to just sign on the dotted line. I am of the opinion that anyone applying for a gun license - of any shape or form - ought to have to pass some type of test, and go through some type of psychological profiling - and pay for it. They do this in Germany (where I believe mail-ordering from gun-u-like magazine is possible), and the system seems to work well. It cuts the doctor out of the loop. Taking personal responsibility for signing licenses when I know the applicant well has never bothered me, but there aren't that many people I know well enough to sign licenses for. We need a system that takes care of the rest properly, and which is difficult enough that it will deter the casual user, while detecting the psychopath. The same situation applies to signing licenses for elderly drivers, something which isn't much in the news since they rarely kill large numbers of children in one place, but which is perhaps more dangerous overall given the numbers of elderly drivers on the road - why do GPs end up signing the licenses here? In my opinion, a retest would be the better option in a lot of cases, because I have little idea how my patients drive. Andrew -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Andrew N. Herd MRCGP General Practitioner & Journalist Medical Adviser to County Durham Health Commission [log in to unmask] -------------------------------------------------- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%