Quit shooting your mouth off

Judge Marcia Cooke drew the lawsuit sponsored by the Brady Center challenging a Florida law that purports to circumscribe physicians’ conversations about guns. The law is part of a national push by the NRA for such laws in a bunch of states. We are, of course, the first to have one. Even West Virginia voted against it. (They’re trying again.) From the complaint, filed by D.C.’s Ropes & Gray and Miami’s Astigarraga Davis with the Brady Center:

Specifically, the Physician Gag Law expressly restricts health care practitioners, in certain vaguely-defined circumstances, from asking patients questions related to gun safety or recording information from those conversations in patients’ medical records, on penalty of harsh disciplinary sanctions, including fines and permanent revocation of their licenses to practice medicine.

Dr. Michael Hirsh, head surgeon at UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, sponsored a resolution by the Massachusetts Medical Society opposing such legislation up there. He seems to think “Florida” is short for floridly insane:

On the Florida law, he said, “I just don’t want to see this wave of stupidity come anywhere where sane people might understand this is going to affect kids.”