This trauma surgeon patches up gunshot wounds. Here’s what he says about gun safety

Doctors by the thousands took to social media this past week to rebut a National Rifle Association tweet scolding them to “stay in their lane” and get out of the gun-safety debate, but missing from the national tweetstorm was Dr. James Davis, Fresno’s leading trauma surgeon.

Davis has the credentials to talk about gun safety. He’s chief of trauma surgery at Community Regional Medical Center, one of the busiest trauma centers in California. He’s operated on gunshot patients for nearly three decades at the hospital in downtown Fresno.

When he came to Fresno in 1991, there were gang-fueled shooting sprees. Davis recalls a 100-day siege where every day he operated on a child to repair tissue and organs torn apart by bullets. And he’s as angered as other doctors by the NRA tweet admonishment. “I don’t remember anybody from the National Rifle Association being at my elbow when I had to tell someone their loved one was dead,” he says. “And I’ve had to do that way too many times.”

Davis says he sees it as a duty to be vocal about the need for a robust gun-safety strategy. “I think doctors should be involved in trying to improve the health of their community. I think we ought to have a civilized discussion about what we can do to have fewer deaths from firearms.”

But social media is not his platform. For the past nine months, Davis has worked with 21 other surgeons to pen recommendations for reducing and preventing firearm injury. The American College of Surgeons released the recommendations Wednesday. They include universal background checks, an electronic database for all registered firearms, formal gun-safety training for new gun owners and mandatory reporting for people considered a threat to themselves or others.

No response from NRA

The NRA did not respond to a telephone call and an email message for comment about the surgeons’ gun-safety recommendations.

Davis says he hopes the the national conversation on firearm safety can be pushed forward. He makes it clear that he is not talking about gun control. “I want to talk about firearm injury prevention.”

He has an interesting relationship with guns: He owns several. Growing up in the Midwest, he hunted with his father – and these days he enjoys target, trap and skeet shooting.

The American College of Surgeons reached out to the NRA during the months the Firearm Strategy Team worked on its gun-safety recommendations, Davis says. “We made a great effort to do this in a polite, respectful way.”

A towering man who has stared down gang members in the trauma center, Davis expects some gun owners and gun-rights advocates will disagree with the surgeons’ gun-safety recommendations. And he’s ready for a backlash. “I will not be surprised if I get a death threat.”

Not backing down

It wouldn’t be the first time that the doctor’s life has been threatened over his gun-safety advocacy, he says. He recalls a threat in 1995 that happened after he took a stand against a proposed Fresno city ordinance that would have made it easier for city residents to obtain a concealed-weapon permit. Davis was then quoted as calling the proposal “flatly nuts.”

Davis, 62, has been talking about gun safety for 20 years, and he’s grown impatient and angry about the problem becoming so politicized as to stifle any meaningful discussion while senseless tragedies continue.

The new gun-safety recommendations by the American College of Surgeons were released on Nov. 14, just weeks after the Oct. 27 killing of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue; and it was one week after 12 people were killed at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 7.

Before the surgeons’ recommendations, the American College of Physicians released a position paper on gun safety on Oct. 30. The group says gun violence is a public health crisis and makes recommendations for reducing firearm violence. The NRA responded to the paper with an editorial and then on Nov. 7 it sent its “stay in your lane” tweet, basically chastising the doctors for joining the gun-safety debate.

Doctors responded nationwide on Twitter with #ThisIsMyLane and #ThisIsOurLane rebuttals. There have been Facebook posts, including some showing doctors’ bloody surgical scrubs. While Davis is not participating in the subsequent twitter word-war, he says the NRA’s comment is irresponsible and divisive. “Why shouldn’t it be everybody’s lane to try and decrease injury and death?”

Davis says until the United States has a significant decrease in firearm injuries, he will be talking about gun safety.

“Can we please try to save some lives? I don’t think this is too much to ask.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 6:00 AM.