There is good evidence to suggest that guns shouldn’t float around the emergency room, according to an opinion piece on the Scientific American website.
Data show that increasing the carriage of weapons doesn’t correlate with a decrease in hospital violence. In fact, 23 percent of emergency department shootings involve someone attempting to take a weapon from a security officer.
Still, hospitals continue to arm their guards. A 2014 survey reported that security officers carry handguns in 52 percent of hospital institutions, while 47 percent use Tasers.
That’s almost four times estimates found in similar studies from 2011—just three years before. This presence of armed police—who rarely receive training to work in medical settings or instruction on de-escalation tactics—changes the tenor of conflict in the emergency room, the article said.
Read the article.
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