Well, the most important thing is that the NRA shouldn’t be making legislation. Legislators should be doing that.
When publicly elected officials make legislation they should attempt to consult widely to ensure that they understand the impacts of the legislation and that they make legislation that represents the people who they were elected to represent.
So, yes, people making legislation should definitely ask consult doctors, criminologists and many other groups (including the NRA) when making legislation. The NRA doesn’t have to consult doctors in advocating their position, nor do doctors have to consult the NRA in stating theirs.
Of course, in practice, I think the NRA has written legislation. But that’s not an argument about gun control, that’s just corruption.
It depends what you mean by “has substance”. Like, her words have actual content and intended meaning. It is an argument. I’d say the same about “All rabbits are animals therefore all animals are rabbits”. It’s false, but it is an argument.
If you mean “has substance” as in “is worthy of more than a moment of consideration” then I don’t agree at all.
First, the idea that doctors shouldn’t voice their opinion, even if it is ill-informed, on an issue of public policy is anti-democratic.
Second, if doctors were pulling cue balls out of orifices every day; if they were watching people die from cue ball insertion regularly; if there had been public message after public message saying, “Stop putting cue balls into your orifices!” but people just kept doing it; if nearly 1.5% of deaths in America in 2016 were related to cue balls (38,658 out of 2,712,630); then yes doctors would be publishing articles about how something had to be done about cue balls. Their interest is in fewer people dying.
