macawake

I'm not privy to the thoughts of California lawmakers but my guess is that they want to send a signal about what values they want to promote in their society and also strengthen the protections of a group of people who are often vulnerable and discriminated against. It's basically what all laws are. They are a signal regarding what society considers acceptable behavior, and what it does not. In my country we have one law that is a bit strange when you compare it to the equivalent law in other countries. It's the criminal code regarding prostitution. Here it's actually legal to sell your body, the rationale being that it's yours to sell. BUT.. it's illegal to use the services of a prostitute, because another person's body isn't yours to buy and use. So the customer/john commits a crime, the prostitute doesn't. It can be regarded as a rather convoluted solution but it is intended as a signal. It also has the advantage that a prositute who gets battered or sexually assaulted, can report the crime without fear of incriminating her or himself. Yes, some people lie. It's hardly a majority of people or patients who are in the habit of making false accusations regarding being the victims of crimes, but they do exist. However, I don't see how that fact can be used as a rationale to not make more laws if they are deemed necessary. People can lie about offenses that are already criminal, like rape, assault/battery or theft. Surely you don't think doing away with those laws is the proper response to the fact that some people lie? I suspect we've all used the wrong pronoun at some point in time. As you say, sometimes we're just tired or unfocused. It happens. I highly doubt that anyone will lose their license over it, and I don't think the respective BoNs will come gunning for nurses with English as a second language, when it's obvious that they mangle their pronouns regardless of the gender identity of the person they're talking about. It will likely be quite apparent to any semi-competent investigator when they're facing an example of maliciously motivated and intentional discrimination as opposed to poor language skills. I think you're warning about scenarios that are extremely unlikely to occur. Who are you having this argument with? Who in this thread has advocated banning this song? Aren't we all in agreement that we can turn it off or change stations? Do you care to clarify this comment? It's not super clear who you're addressing or what you're actually saying. The way I interpret it is that you think that you are a member of the kind and respectful camp, and that some other posters aren't. Is that correct?

I think that you're absolutely correct. If the complaints were legitimate, the people who make them shouldn't find it so darn difficult to come up with examples of things they'd like to be able to say, but feel that they are prohibited to say. I've asked for examples on multiple occasions in this thread, but no one appears to be able to verbalize them. That makes me suspect that what they wish they were able to say, in all likelihood isn't able to withstand the scrutiny of daylight. You guys are free to prove me wrong by providing examples of what you would like to be able to say, but that will have serious negative consequences on your employment status, personal safety or liberty if you do. If you're unable to do that, my previous conclusion will remain. Bottom line, I'm not giving anyone who's not willing to specify what they wish they'd be able to say but are prevented from saying, the benefit of doubt. The entire term PC in my opinion has a deliberate negative connotation. It's an attempt to minimize the validity of opinions that are different than your own. If you call someone's opinion PC, it implies that the person doesn't have the opinion due to personal beliefs and values, but rather that they are trying to adhere to some kind of external rules and norms. The implication is that if someone is PC their convictions aren't internal in origin, but externally dictated. Who're you calling stupid I agree with you regarding the golden rule and if everyone could just follow it, things would be so much better. ~~~~~~~~~ One of the few concrete examples I've seen in this thread of what a person would like to say, was a poster who thought it important to him to be able to talk about (and to I guess) a transgender person, using the "correct biological" pronoun. How is it to live by the golden rule to deliberately disrespect another person's wishes? Why does someone feel they should have the right to be able to say to a person, that they reject the other person's entire identity and that the other person's feelings are less important than their own? How is that not simply cruelty masquerading as freedom of speech? Why not respect the other person even if you yourself don't understand how it is to feel like they do and be like they are? Why is it so important to be able to shove your own convictions down the other person's throat? What kind of satisfaction does that offer? Think and believe what you will in private, but treat other people with respect. As you're "good griefing", how many people in this thread have actually supported banning this song? It's a non-issue. It's has got to be a teeny-tiny insignificant percentage of the population who would actually go as far as a ban. You have rap music with some blatantly misogynistic lyrics so I don't see a countrywide ban being imposed on this song. In my opinion you and others are inflating this way out of proportion. In my opinion there's a whole lot wrong with that annoying song, but as far as I'm concerned you are free to listen to that ode to repressed sexuality to your heart's content. Of course it's religious extremism at the root of this. I know several religious persons who are tolerant of others and who genuinely embrace the golden rule and they are just as appalled as I am, by people who think they have the right to impose their world view on others. Not so the extremists. They are watching in dismay when their once dominating worldview is now challenged and no longer allowed to reign supreme. They feel the control and dominance they once had, slipping through their fingers. They miss the 1950s and they don't feel at home in this new world. They feel threatened, so now they try to fabricate one ludicrous threat after another and use misinformation as a strategy to sway people's minds to their own authoritarian and liberty-hating way of thinking. I say liberty-hating because the only liberty they want, is their own. And it's always at the expense of other people's rights, autonomy and happiness. A couple of years ago they were trying to disguise their bigotted views by faking concern that women would be raped in public restrooms just because transgendered people would be allowed to use the women's restroom. Now they're trying to make it sound like LTC staff will serve hard prison time for a simple slip of the tongue. I don't even have to read the proposed law to know that it isn't about sending someone to jail for mistakenly addressing someone as she when they wish to be addressed as he, or vice versa. It's about protecting residents from discrimination based on for example sexual orientation, gender identity or hiv status. In order to be sentenced to actual jail time, I'm pretty sure that the discriminatory action by an employee would have to be systematic and involve more components than merely using the wrong pronoun, and there would likely have be an aspect of actual harm to the resident as a consequence of the discrimination present as well. That said, I think that insisting on being able to call a patient or resident something else than what they wish to be called, is selfishness of the first order. Any intelligent person ought to question their own motivation for making that particular "freedom" a priority.

As some of you may know and some of you don't, I'm Swedish. I suggest Liv That means LIFE in Swedish and I can't think of a more suitable name for a CPR mannequin :) It's a Swedish/Norwegian name but I know that Steven Tyler's daughter (Aerosmith's lead singer) is actress and movie producer Liv Tyler, so perhaps the name works in the U.S. as well. (Edit, oops.. I only read the OP before responding and I now see that you already have a winner. Good name :))

Knock yourself out. I'm convinced that you're plenty smart enough to figure out that if you talk about or address a person in a different manner than they want to be addressed, you know that you've made the deliberate decision to disrespect their wishes and depending on the person, quite possibly also hurt them. My conclusion is that being allowed to do that matters more to you, than the possible pain you inflict. Right or wrong? If wrong, feel free to explain why you think so. Personally I don't get it. If something's no skin off my nose and the person isn't being a **** towards me, my default setting is to simply respect the person and their wishes. Different strokes I guess. Sweetcheeks, your terms of endearment are really tugging at my heartstrings, but I suspect Farawyn ain't your dear... It's kind of funny. This thread is over a hundred posts long, and no one has managed to provide a meaningful list of things that they want to be able to say, but feel is frowned upon or even condemned by a sizeable portion of the population. What have we got so far? * Being able to say Merry Christmas. * Being able to call Easter eggs; Easter eggs. (I've searched the internet for credible incidences of people being assaulted or jailed for using the phrase Merry Christmas or saying Easter eggs, but rather unsurprisingly, I drew a blank). * If I interpreted it correctly, being able to call a person who's transgender the pronoun you prefer, instead of the one they prefer? Isn't this a rather pathetic list? Have I missed anything major? There are so many posters in this thread who seem to share the common belief that you guys are way, way too PC, and that's the best the collective you can come up with? Come on! Careful, y'all are starting to sound like special snowflakes Are you telling me that you have a genuine fear that it will become illegal and punishable by a jail sentence, to simply call a person the wrong he or she? Without even bothering to research where you've picked up that strange idea, I can safely predict that it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming law. So stop fretting. I swear it's as if some of you guys are actively looking for things to get upset about. In my opinion there's a bit of a victim mentality lurking in there somewhere... I have to wonder why is it so hard for you to "keep up with the goalposts"? It ain't rocket science. I find that kindness and respect, and a sincere apology if if I've shoved my foot in my mouth (and that's certainly been known to happen), usually does the trick. TraumaRUs, I was planning on asking you about this in my first post in this thread, but I forgot. As I've already said, I appreciate your posts and I find that you are always respectful and kind (a lot more so than I often am). I must admit, to me it came a bit out of left field, that this PC stuff bothers you. The thing I was going to ask about, is why would anyone want to bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki while in Japan? I mean, the bombs "you" dropped on them are horrific. With a nuclear bomb, if you're "lucky" you are instantly "vaporized". If you're less lucky, you suffer an agonizing, protracted death, with thermal burns, radiation burns, vomiting, severe bloody diarrheas, extensive internal bleeding, bone marrow and central nervous system death. Or if the amount of radiation you were exposed to was lower, you might just get milder nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, painful mucous membranes and develop leukemia two years or so down the road. Who could blame the Japanese for not wanting to be reminded of this, especially by citizens from the country that bombed them?

The song doesn't make me think of date rape but rather that I'm glad that I wasn't young in that era. Since I've never been shy about stating what I want, I probably wouldn't have been very content to live in such a repressed state where game playing and fake coyness was the norm and the expectation. I guess I welcome the "decadence " with open arms

I agree. I'm quite convinced that I could fly to Sea-Tac International and run around all the terminals yelling Easter egg at the top of my lungs and not have to worry about being scolded and flogged by a huge angry PC mob :) Airport police/security might be a different matter... They might disapprove of my behavior, but hardly based on my being PC-illiterate One can always find a small amount of people who object to basically any silly thing, but as long as they aren't a significant/majority portion of the population or those who wield absolute power over you, their little idiosyncracies don't really have any meaningful bearing on your or my life. I doubt that this spring sphere has spread sufficiently to actually impact/restrict anyone else's life. Personally I think it's pretty silly to focus on weird outliers and try to magnify the phenomenon into something of relevance. Let that person call it a spring sphere if it floats their boat :) I think it's a perfect example of a non-issue that doesn't affect me whatsoever. Is anyone here seriously genuinely afraid to utter the words Easter egg out loud to the point that they'll refrain from it out of concern for the negative consequences? Somehow I doubt it.

I've never heard that song before now and I must admit that listening to it annoyed the **** out of me. Mostly because it was painfully repetitious. Should it be banned though? No. I can change stations. It's interesting how differently we perceive things. I don't really see it as more "innocent" than today. I just find whatever games those two couples are playing, irksome and repressed. For ***** sake, if you're attracted to someone, just come out and say it. That's the easiest way to find out if the attraction is mutual. First couple I see a man who's dense as a log. The second couple I see a woman who's equally dense. If someone keeps trying to put on their jacket and leave, chances are they aren't that into you. People who beat around the bush annoy me. A lot. And as far as I'm concerned, people who keep pulling your arm in order to stop you from leaving when you've made your intent clear, have earned themselves a no, a swat and a smack (in that order, as needed). While I'm semi jesting here, it should be noted that physically preventing a person from going where they're trying to go, is in most cases a criminal offense. (Well, unless you keep on singing at/to them in a jolly manner, in which case I guess it's okay ) I still don't think the song should be banned, but I guess it's safe to say that I won't be downloading that tune any time soon Before I can even begin to answer that, we'd have to agree on what "PC" even is. I have a feeling that if you asked ten posters to try to actually define what PC means, we'd get ten different versions. I also think that in some instances, some people stick the label PC on others, as a lazy copout when they don't want to or aren't able to support their own viewpoint in a rational and cogent manner. It's easy to just dismiss someone's position as being "PC", instead of accepting that the other person feels differently than oneself, based on their own opinions and personal values/convictions, rather then being "politically correct". Was there a clear definition of the term PC provided in this survey, or were respondents answering with their own personal/individual definition in mind? *** Could someone here who thinks we are too PC, give me ten clear examples (even five will do :)) of things they would like to be able to say, but feel they aren't able to, without being struck down be the "PC brigade"? I genuinely don't understand what PC means. Because I never feel curtailed or hemmed in. I feel that I can speak my mind and if someone objects it's usually because they have a different opinon than I, which is fine. It's not normally for the way I way it. I can't identify with this feeling of being restricted by what's PC, so I'd really appreciate if someone could give concrete examples. Personally, when I do manage to offend, it's normally because I intended to offend (or at a minimum, didn't care if I did). It doesn't just, oops, just happen... I can't blame that on anyone else, or hide beind that I don't like this "PC nonsense". I always try to own the insults I deliver. I'm responsible for them. @traumaRUs. I've never seen you be anything but well-mannered and civilized on this board. I assume that you're not habitually offensive to others in real life as well? I guess that just as with the term PC, we have to find a common definition for what's offending to others, cause I simply don't see being offensive as being something you do. Personally and generally speaking, I find it's always a good idea to think before I/one speak/s :)

Why do you have doubts? I mean, in my hospital we always refer to childbirth as "letting it all hang out". And we always talk to our patients like that too

I'm always suspicious of first-time posters whose first literary contribution to this forum is about either penises or vaginas. The above quote doesn't help. At all. Anyway, you're asking a question that the internet cannot answer. How could we possibly decide whether the hypothetical patient overreacted or not, when we have no way of knowing what actually took place in that hospital room. Only two people know. The patient and her nurse. I noticed that some posters have gotten a bit upset about some of the things you've written here. To me they're odd enough that I don't think I'll bother getting upset about them... I'll still offer my opinions on some of the things you bring up, because I think they're valid regardless of whether the specific incident described has actually happened. If things happened the way the patient described it, then of course that wasn't an acceptable way to behave towards a patient (or any person). The clue is the word forcefully. We don't forcefully conduct medical examinations and the fact that this happened near the genital area isn't even the point. You don't forcefully stick an otoscope into a patient's ear if they're saying no or are actively trying to pull their head away either. This was hardly a medical emergency where a delayed intervention might have cost a patient his or her life and even in such a situation there are ethical and legal aspects that have to be considered. Whatever happened or didn't happen, you are clearly describing a patient who is suffering/troubled by something. I know that you edited your post but you initially mentioned back alleys and parking garages and contrasted them to a hospital. Your thinking to me demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about sexual assault. If a person is sexually violated in some way, do you think they should feel less upset about it because of the setting it happened in? If anything it might even be more psychologically damaging in a hospital room than in a back alley, because in a hospital room you're vulnerable due to your illness/condition but you do have an expectation of being safe and cared for by a trusted profession, whereas most people are probably more on guard and "threat-aware" if they have to walk through a dark alley. So if I understand this correctly, the patient isn't claiming she was actively sexually assaulted, but that rather that physically prevented from trying to shield the parts of her body that she did not want exposed? As I metioned previously, we don't forcefully examine our patients. In this hypothetical situation the hypothetical nurse should in my opinion have explained beforehand what needed to done in order for him to check out the patient's complaint regarding pain and asked if it was okay. Areas that don't need to be exposed are normally left covered and if the patient wasn't wearing underwear (which is her business and nothing for you to opine about), you get something to cover her up if the gown hadn't been enough. One thing worth considering since you appear to think that it's strange that a patient would be sufficiently upset after a nurse has forcefully removed their gown from their genital area that they'd cry and call their husband. I've never experienced sexual assault and I still wouldn't appreciate (one damn bit) if a nurse did anything forcefully to me. And I would let them know. Imagine however how a person with a history of previous sexual abuse would react in the situation you described. Suddenly crying, not eating and calling their husband doesn't seem so strange, does it? I've been to the dentist dozens of times. My dentist still asks me to "open wide" instead of forcefully prying my jaws open. If I for some reason had a new onset anxiety attack at next dentist appointment he wouldn't say, lady I've seen your tonsils and thousands others, stop being such a fuss. Patients or any other person, have a right to their bodily autonomy and integrity. The fact that a specific orifice has been on display before doesn't change the fact that we as nurses should explain what we intend to do and ask if it's okay, and it doesn't mean that people can't be shy or uncomfortable for whatever reason. Seriously, enough with this childbirth thing. I'm not saying that the male nurse did anything inappropriate because as I've already stated, I wasn't in the hypothetical room. I can't even begin to speculate about it. What I can tell you is that a person's marital status or their profession is irrelevant. It's not like all sexual predators are single electricians or all thiefs are divorced museum curators. If you think being married has anything to do with the will and capacity to commit sex crimes, the crimes are primarily power and control related/motivated, not motivated by sexual need or desire. About the camera, I don't see anything strange with it being turned away from the patient if they need to get undressed or if any type of invasive exam/procedure needs to take place. I'm assuming the camera is there so that the patient can be monitored (for medical safety reasons) when the staff aren't present? As a patient I would refuse to even have a bandaid slapped on while "on camera". Actually I'd likely refuse the camera altogether. I'm fine with my nurse or physician seeing me naked if it's necessary but I'm sure as heck not fine with having an unknown number of strangers whom I cannot assess, doing the same. I'm not an American. We're big on integrity in my neck of the woods. We can't even have cameras in the cells in police stations or in prison cells, only in the public/shared areas. It's considered an invasion of privacy. One final thought. If a nurse, male or female, is concerned that patients will level false allegations against them, they need to bring a coworker along each and every time you enter the patient's room. It's in my opinion absolutely pointless to do it only for Foleys or procedures involving the nether regions. If a patient is going to falsely accuse someone, the reason that someone was in the room is of no consequence. You can sexually violate someone in less than a minute even if they start off fully clothed. Thankfully most patients, most people, don't make false accusations. The few times I've felt that something was a "bit off" with a patient, I've brought someone along with me on a couple of occasions. But the rest of the time, I'm fine on my own. Personally, I think the same goes for male nurses. Use your people reading skills, take care to inform patients properly and listen to their requests. That applies whether you're a male or a female nurse and with both male and female patients. You can't really protect yourself against every possible threat out there, but you can be situationally aware and make a habit of treating other people, including patients, with respect. I think that goes a long way.

I haven't fact-checked your claim but since few, if any, countries have more firearms per capita than you do and there are countries with higher homicide rates than yours, your assessment sounds reasonable. But what do you think it proves? Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country - Wikipedia List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia The ratio between the estimated guns per capita in your country versus mine is... 5.22:1 ... The ratio of intentional homicides per capita in your country versus mine is... drumroll... 4.99:1 ... Have I now proven that the cause for you having five times as many homicides is because you also have five times as many guns... ? If this topic wasn't so serious, I would have found it infinitely amusing that the ratios happened to be so close... I hadn't actually checked before now. But no. The fact that you have many more homicides and also many more guns isn't enough proof to be able to definitively say that the large amount of guns you have, are the direct cause of your high homicide rates. It's a plausible assumption that it's at least a factor, but the numbers themselves don't constitute proof. So I ask you again. What significance do you think your claim has when almost all countries that have higher homicide rates than yours are countries in Africa, Central and South America and the European "outliers" Russia and the Ukraine? Many, or perhaps even the majority, of countries that makes your stats look reasonably good are countries that face either one or several of the following serious challenges; poverty, generally high levels of crime, social unrest, war, high level of corruption and undemocratic governments. God-given? Did God author your Constitution? I thought it was a man-given right... Or does the Bible say that all Americans shall have arms...? If you're going to mock people by laughing your posterior off, it helps if you hit the quote button. That way we know whom you are addressing I'm not in the least bit hysterical. Regarding the condescension. Yup. Guilty as charged. Yes, I am seriously asking that question. OP started a thread about gun violence and talks about firearms-related homicides and suicides. She also offers up suggestions about what she thinks that we as nurses and as private citizens can do in order to keep patients safe. The very first reply she received to her post, was that well-known Heston quote. OP was probably hoping for a professional discussion regarding how lives can be saved, instead she got... this sad mess. Your first contribution to the thread was to go all Godwin... Did you believe that everyone was just prepared to let that particular strategy go unchallenged? I'm not. This was your post (it also included a book reference that I didn't include here). What was the point of your post? You say you hesitated to make it, yet you overcame your hesitation, so I gather it was important? OP's post was never about confiscating legally owned weapons, a fact that you conceded when you were asked about it. So now we've established that you agree that confiscation wasn't on the table. But for some reason you still felt a need to introduce a Nazi regime lead by Hitler into this discussion. A brutal regime that started a war that ultimately lead to the deaths of somewhere between 70 and 85 million human beings. You know what? I perceived your post as fear-mongering and I don't think you appreciate being asked to justify its relevance to this discussion. You were obviously trying to imply or say something with your post, or you wouldn't have made it in the first place. It's not at all clear to me what Hitler's Germany has to do with this discussion, so why don't you explain why you thought it had any relevance whatsoever? That way I don't have to guess and you don't have to ask me if I'm seriously asking you what on earth you mean. Because I seriously am. And the question I was seriously asking was this: Since my question appears to have either irked or befuddled you (not sure which), you're free to respond that of course civilians having more handguns, wouldn't have prevented Hitler's regime from committing atrocities. If you were to acknowledge that, that would bring me right back to.... Why on earth did you inject confiscations of legally owned guns and Hitler and his regime into this thread? Your reply is so short and non-illuminating that one has to wonder why you thought it worth making. You chose to quote only a single sentence from my post, and not the entire "train of thought". Allow me to refresh your memory: I should have finished the last sentence with the words, the invasion. I thought I had, but as my many spelling errors demonstrate, I was too tired to do any serious proof-reading. That was my mistake, but I suspect that it's still pretty clear that what I was saying was that confiscation of guns didn't chronologically occur before Hitler actually started the invasions. As your reply was clear as mud to me, I am again forced to ask questions in order to figure out what you're trying to say. You're saying that my claim that confiscations were not what lead to Germany invading and then occupying several European countries? Is it your position that the invaded countries were made into "softer" targets prior to the invasions? By whom? Did Hitler send civilians in advance to confiscate legally owned guns? (It couldn't really have been military personnel, because that would be the start of an invasion by a foreign power). Or did he recruit the governments in the respective countries that were subsequently invaded, and persuaded them to strip citizens of their guns so that he could successfully invade later on? Do you have any proof that widespread confiscations took place prior to the invasions? Once again, how is any of this relevant? What exactly were you warning your fellow posters about when you chose to make your post? I have noticed that the the first part is most often left out when the Second Amendment is quoted. It's pretty clear why it is. I'm not a legal scholar, (and they don't even always agree amongst themselves), but my amateurish layman interpretation is that, if the more often quoted part of the amendment, the part with the "non-infringable" right to bear arms, was truly intended to be standalone, there would be nothing in the amendment that says that each and every citizen doesn't have a right to bear any and every type of arms. Tactical nukes for example, would be permissible. Is anyone really arguing that they are or should be? I'm not sure what "militia" translates to in modern-day terms, but I'm pretty sure that the term "well regulated" allows for some type of rules. I think you're entirely correct. ~~~~~ To those posters who think it's meaningful to analyze various firearms technical details and educate the "liberals" in the thread, you guys need to understand that they in all likelyhood could not care less. I personally am among those who think that this long-winded and deep-diving explanations of various gun characteristics and performance, is just deflection. As someone who's spent quite a lot of time around guns, I'm well aware of limiting factors such as heat and magazine capacity, as well as the shooter's skill level. I just don't find it relevant. When I listen to the audio recording of the Las Vegas shooting, I can only imagine the horror the concertgoers must have felt and the panic they felt as they tried to flee. Thinking about it makes me very ad as well as sick to my stomach. I wonder why there are actually people who think the weapons and accoutrements this perpertrator used, is a necessary thing. Who the **** needs bump stocks? What are they good for? Self-defense? Accuracy? Moose hunting? Hardly. The only thing they're good for in my opinion, is to give a vicious murderer a power high.

I think knowing our history is extremely important, but I wonder about the conclusions you've drawn. Of course I've heard the same claim you're making here, many times from other gun rights advocates in the U.S.. (Not a common narrative anywhere in Europe as far as I know). So is it your opinion that Hitler managed to take power, murder millions of Jews, socialists, communists, intellectuals, liberals, gypsies/Romani and other people he deemed undesirable and invade and occupy several European countries, because of confiscation of legally owned weapons? Are you going as far as implying that the Holocaust wouldn't have taken place if the Jewish people in Germany had been better armed? In my opinion, you would have been better off using Mao's China or Stalin's Russia/USSR if you wanted to demonstrate that totalitarian leaders sometimes try to disarm the general public. I'm not sure if you're simply regurgitating a talking point you've heard or if you've actually taken the time to study European history from the early 1900s to the end of WWII? Gun laws in Germany were arguably stricter during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) than during the Third Reich (1933-1945). In the first years following the end of WWI and the from a German perspective, humiliating Versailles treaty; Germany faced a growing post-war economic crisis, marked by worsening debt balances, food shortages, hyperinflation and political turmoil. From the mid to late 1920s, Germany experienced some temporary relief with a period of relative stability and it saw a growing economy, decreasing unemployment and less civil unrest than during the years immediately following the war. Then the Great Depression hit worldwide and Germany was severely affected by it and things took a turn for the worse again. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in early 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression. The Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment through using heavy military spending and extensive public work on infrastructure, including the construction of Autobahnen, was undertaken. The return to economic stability served to boost the regime's popularity. Antisemitism, was from the beginning a central feature of the regime. Hitler was actually reasonably popular amongst Germans, at least the non-liberal, blond and blue-eyed ones. Germans were primed by the defeat in WWI and the economically very challenging years that followed, to be wooed by the "charms" of a strong-sounding demagogue who promised them economic success and a status as the superior race. Nazi gun control argument - Wikipedia Disarmament of the German Jews - Wikipedia The Jewish people were targeted early on, before Hitler, and they were not allowed to own guns. However, they were singled out. This wasn't an effort to disarm all Germans, "only" and specifically an identified and targeted minority. As far as confiscation of guns in occupied countries, didn't that come after the occupation? Of course an invading country will want their continued presence to be met by as little resistance as possible, so that makes sense from their perspective. However confiscations of guns didn't lead to countries being invaded and occupied, the confiscation came after. If there's anything we can learn from history here, it's that it's extremely dangerous for freedom and democracy when a majority of a population actively support or at least silently accept, when a minority population is being vilified, demonized, and persecuted. I'll let you draw your own modern-day conclusions, if any, regarding that. No matter what your reason for bringing up Hitler's Nazi regime, you must realize that the ship has sailed on "you the people" figthing off a tyrannical goverment with whatever arms you have at your disposal. You are overpowered many times over. Have your guns if you feel you need them for defense against ordinary criminals, if you like to hunt or enjoy shooting for competitive purposes, but don't kid yourself into believing that they could keep you safe if your government in the future decides to come after you. If you want to safeguard against a tyrannical government, you are in my opinion much better served by "nipping it in the bud" by keeping your government accountable and actively calling out any anti-democratic/totalitarian/authoritarian tendencies you may witness. But hey, that's just my $0.02. Ah yes, and almost one hundred years later, how many more school bombings in the U.S.? How many mass shootings? If you add up the number of children murdered, do bombs or firearms "win"? To a grieving mother or father or sibling it doesn't make the tiniest ******* difference, whether their murdered child or brother or sister was one of 44 or one of 27. The only acceptable position in my opinion, is coming up with a plan on how to better protect children and keep them alive and safe. This attempt at normalizing one horrific crime by referring to another horrific crime, makes me slightly sick. Why do you think that the fact that one man used a bomb translates to guns "not being a factor" when so many murders are carried out with firearms? To me, that's just poor logic. And I'm sure you have just as little evidence to support your quote, as the poster who originally wrote it and who you quoted, has. You are free to make the unsupported claim that guns are NOT a factor, but until you show me the evidence the backs up your claim, I'll treat your "expertise" and authority on the subject the same as I regard my "Doctor Google" patients. If you happen to know a forensic behavioral analyst, ask him or her about what usually motivates a school mass murderer and what psychological profile is most common? What kind of feeling/result are they hoping to achieve? Then you can ask them whether in their experience and professional opinion, a perp with that typical profile is more likely to "do the deed" with firearms or a bomb? I agree, it's easier to have these conversations in real life. And a beer or two never hurts Don't worry about any potential language abuse, I'm one of the worst offenders myself. My vocabulary is fine, but my butchering of your grammar is quite brutal. Anyway, thank you for your reply :) I appreciate that you took the time to write a serious response. That earns a "like" from me eventhough I might not agree with everything you say. If we ever get the same high homicide rates as you have, I promise I'll shut up :) Seriously though, I think doing an international comparison and analysing what factors are the same or similar in other countries and which factors are different, might provide some valuable insight. Ehh.. There's at least one guy in this thread who's proclaimed that he wouldn't surrender his weapons even if they were declared illegal. I may be mistaken but I got the impression that a cop killing or two in order to "protect" his guns wouldn't be outside the realm of the possible. I hope I misunderstood that part. Anyway, that wasn't you. Again, I don't think the majority of people want or that the people in government are seriously entertaining the idea of asking for all firearms to be turned in. I just think a whole lot of people are genuinely sick to their stomachs from the neverending occurence of bew mass shootings and general gun-related violence and wish to implement policies that at least lower the number of shootings. I peronally don't think taking all guns from law-abiding citizens is necessary to achieve that. I think that some of the effects and consequences of various acts/actions aren't as much a foregone conclusion as you may think. I'll try to clarify what I mean. You're in all likelihood quite correct, I don't see criminals lining up to voluntarily surrender their guns. But there are ways for law enforcement to minimize the number of guns they have without depending on them to volunteer. It's takes an active effeort on their part, but it can be done. It won't be achieved overnight, it's likely a longterm project. Why would it though? If there was an automatic correlation between the number of guns law abiding citizens have and the number of crimes committed against them, then countries where few civilians are armed would have much higher crimes rates (not to mention being taken over by dictators all the time since we're all defenseless...). Instead it seems in many cases that the opposite is true. That indicates that there are more factors in play. Just like most people in general don't own guns in my country, a vast majority of criminals don't either. Gun violence has gotten worse over the last ten years or so, but it's still quite rare that innocent people get shot. The bad guys who are armed, tend to shoot their competition. Money/cash transports are carried out by guards who are unarmed. Although there was one spectacular robbery back in 2005 that involved both firearms and explosives, the two guards were physically unharmed. (Psychologically is likely a different story). That robbery was unusually brutal. It's not uncommon that the robbers show up armed with a crowbar or similar. Since they know that the guards aren't armed, they do not need guns. I'm a night person and I actually fairly regularly go out for runs in the central parts of town at two, three or four in the morning. I'm definitely aware of my surroundings when I do, but I'm never afraid. I'm female and while I admit being 6'1'', spending a lot of time at the gym and having a decent number of years of jiu-jitsu and krav maga under my belt helps, I certainly wouldn't go out if I had an expectation of meeting a gun-toting fool every 200 yards. There actually are societies with a whole lot fewer guns in circulation than yours, and I think that the biggest mistaken assumption you make, is thinking that fewer guns in general (among "normal" folks), will still mean that criminals feel it's necessary and be willing to risk the punishment that comes from being arrested while in possesion of a firearm, to still be armed to the teeth at all times. In my experience the majority criminals, unless they've drugged their brains into something resembling scrambled eggs with the same cognitive and analytical capabilities as you'd expect from that favorite breakfast dish of mine, do a risk/reward analysis. One thing that struck me when I lived in the U.S. was that many people are afraid. Being stopped on routine checks by police demonstrated clearly how the prevalence of guns in your society affects them. They were extremely focused and sometimes even jittery/jumpy and that made me feel that I should probably not even blink as they approached my car. Here, you'd have to pull over thousands of cars until you statistically find one with a gun inside. I'd often walked to the grocery store (cause walking's good for'ya and the weather in SoCal is beautiful :)) and concerned police officers would stop and ask if my car had broken down. They'd look at me as if I was semi-nuts when I replied, nope, just taking a walk. Often, when I get involved in these "gun threads", someone always brings up home invasions. I admit I haven't researched the statistics thoroughly, but I have to wonder. Is a home invasion really a more likely threat than being in a car accident? Sometimes I just feel that the fear is a bit disproportional compared to the likelihood of the threat. The cynical side of me suspects that the fear is being meticulously cultivated and stoked by those who stand to profit from gun sales. Aren't you fed up with living in fear? Thank you and right back at ya It really breaks my heart to read about the things some of you have experienced and lived through. There just has got to be a way to make people agree on ways to decrease the number of senseless deaths that occur way too regularly.

No apology necessary in my opinion, but thank you :) It's easy to overreact to some of my posts, especially when I deliberately attempt to push buttons (or at the very least not care if I do) :) (Yes, I have my moments...) And yes, this is a subject that can trigger emotional responses. I genuinely believe that we'd get along just fine in real life and I never turn down a few beers and interesting conversations. My beef isn't with you or any other responsible, sane, safe and law-abiding gunowner. My war is with individuals who stoop so low as to refer to dead children as "victims" and who are motivated solely by a 100% egotistical desire to protect their right to do whatever the hell they please, the consequences to other people, including innocent children, be damned. Are you operating under the assumption that if you just sound cocksure enough about something, that something becomes a factual truth? (Interesting typo by the way. Some murderers actually do it for the fun of it. So yeah, even fun can actually be a factor, just as guns in all likelihood are). You're forming your opinions about this from a position of emotion and self-preservation (of your gun rights), not facts and research. If you want anyone to believe that your conclusion is valid, you need to show us some evidence. Things don't magically become true just because someone repeats them often enough or loudly enough. Who in this thread has argued that guns are a direct causative factor of depression and suicidal ideation? If someone did, I sure missed it and since you didn't quote a specific post, it's hard to know who you're addressing. I have admittedly not read all of OP's links, but are you saying that someone has claimed that the mere proximity to a gun is an actual cause of depression? Being around guns won't cause depression, but if you already are depressed and considering suicide, they may seem a quicker and probably more painfree method than getting a chair, rigging a rope and hope that the process is speedy and that you just don't end up hanging there and slowly and painfully asphyxiate. Or taking a bunch of pills only to "wake up" in an ICU with various organ damage, still miserable and alive. Personally, I don't believe that the potential to significantly reduce the number of suicides committed primarily comes from reducing the number of guns in circulation. This societal problem that causes so much misery, is likely a whole lot more complex than that. I think the largest gains from reducing the total number of guns floating around in a given society and making it harder for criminals to get their hands on guns, have a bigger chance of affecting homicide rates, rather than suicide rates. But mental health and suicides are not my area of expertise, so I am just guessing based on what little I do know about depression and suicides. You might not be looking for a debate, but it seems you're getting one anyway. What's makes you think that you are stating the obvious? In this thread I've asked several versions of what is basically the same question. Not a single poster, despite presenting themselves as some kind of authorities on the subject by sounding 100% confident of the accuracy of their various unsupported claims, have answered my questions. Let's see if you can be the first one to answer. Why do countries with fewer guns in circulation have much fewer homicides in general and specifically a lower incidence of firearms-related homicides, if criminals will "always find a way to possess a firearm"? So many of you spout nifty-sounding little slogans as if they were actually proven facts. I don't claim to have all the answers. That's generally what happens when you immerse yourself into a subject matter. The more you learn, the more you realize that there's a whole lot more that you don't know. So I'm asking you, what makes you so sure that you're right? Why does it matter what AR stands for? I was aware before reading your post, but if I hadn't been, it wouldn't have changed my opinions on guns, gun safety or my opinions on any aspect of crimes committed and the criminals who commit them. You're right, it has been mentioned a billion and one times (also known as ad nauseam). I think that this fixation on technical specs and details is nothing more than an attempt to deflect from the discussions about many people dying each year from gun violence and that many of these deaths could likely be prevented by measures that are in no way Draconian or "liberty-usurping" (yeah, I make up my own words). You still haven't answered why this handful of billionaires wish to disarm America? What in your mind, do they plan on doing once they've achieved their objective? For them to create such an elaborate scheme, they must have a very specific aim in mind? You cooked up this conspiracy theory, now it's time for you to provide a sane-sounding rationale for their nefarious plan. Good luck. And as many other posters have pointed out, you really need to stop disparaging victims of horrendous crimes and attempting to deny that the evil and tragedy they've faced is real, if you have any desire at all to be regarded as someone even remotely resembling a decent human being.

I do agree that there is clear evidence of some pretty blatant attacks on your status as a functioning democracy. However, I'm not sure how you think your peashooters will protect you against that. (Compared to what the government has, they might as well be peashooters). Not sure where you got the figure 10,000? These are the stats I found: FastStats - Homicide These homicide statistics are for the year 2016. Total number of homicides for that year appear to be 19,362 (which translates to 6.0 deaths by homicide/100,000). Out of the total amount of homicides, 14,415 were firearm homicides. FastStats - Suicide and Self-Inflicted Injury The total number of suicides for the same year was 44,965 which amounts to 13.9 deaths by suicide per 100,000 population. Out of the total number of suicides 22,938 were committed with a firearm. So unless my math is completely off, that's a total number of 37,353 intentional deaths caused by firearms in 2016. Did the numbers go down dramatically in 2017? By the way; 6.0/100,000 homicides per year is a high rate if you compare it to almost every European country. From memory, in 2016 we had approximately 1.2/100,000 homicides in my country and while very low by international standards, that's still more than twice the rate of our neighbor, Norway. If, on the other hand, you prefer to compare yourself to some of the more dangerous countries in South America or Africa, you're doing just fine. Considering how large a percentage of your homicides are committed with firearms, I'm amazed that anyone can deny that you have a gun problem. But hey, carry on... Anyway, it doesn't really make a difference for the sake of this argument whether you have 10,000 firearms-caused intentional deaths or closer to 40,000 (well it matters to the victims and their loved ones of course), but what on earth makes you believe that your Second Amendment can protect you against a totalitarian/tyrannical government? I'm trying hard not to be too darn condescending, but that notion is actually quite quaint (18th century or thereabouts) and somewhat laughable. Even if your Second Amendment rights were greatly increased to include for example tactical nukes (not gonna happen), your government has much bigger nuclear weapons and other scary crap. Not to mention the immense power they have to control you with the surveillance technology they have at their disposal. Face it, if your country (or my country) ever comes under the control of an authoritarian/totalitarian regime, your and my respective liberties as we know them, don't stand a fighting chance. Whatever guns you happen to possess will do diddly-squat to protect you from a tyrannical government. How incredibly disrespectful of you to dismiss the opinions of people, including teenagers, who've been through hell as being members of a puppet organization. You actually think you can just invalidate their LIVED EXPERIENCES by labeling them "puppets". Shame on you. You sound like a conspiracy theorist. What are the "handful of billionaires" planning on doing once they confiscate your guns? Please enlighten us. Who are they? Do you care to name them? OldDude, I realize that I used the wording "as a European", but really I don't understand the huge passion many American have for their guns, the same way that some Americans don't understand the unbridled infatuation..... As is the case on any anonymous internet forum, you of course have no way of knowing all the details of my life. Here are some of them. I'm Scandinavian by birth. I've lived in about a dozen countries on four different continents, as a child and as an adult. I have lived a couple of years in California. When I did, the people around me were for the most part, very "gun-friendly". Who's "gun-friendly" in California you might wonder. I've offered up enough personal details about myself for now, so I'll let you figure that one out :) ~~~~ Some posters seem almost paranoid that someone's coming for their guns. I believe they are victims of scare-mongering courtesy of the gun lobby. It's not even practically achievable to take all guns from people, you simply have too many of them in circulation. I don't think there are many people who even actually support trying to do it. It's really pretty telling that any attempts to address the problem of firearms homicides are met by that level of hysteria. Why isn't it possible to discuss the problem and impact of deaths caused by firearms, without people frantically expressing worry about having their guns confiscated. Why can't we even talk about what can be done in order to reduce the number of homicides? It really shouldn't be surprising that we agree on some things. I don't hate guns. What I hate is the lacking will to do anything about the large number of deaths caused by firearms. For a first-world country you really are unique in that sense. Your countries' response to all those dead children, is to do nothing. Kids will keep on getting murdered when they go to school. The only thing I've heard suggested, apart from the mandatory thoughts and prayers, is to arm teachers. What a bass-ackwards defeatist approach. Just surrender to the idea that the world is such an unsafe place that kids have to spend their formative years in an environment that resembles a prison more than a educational institution. This punctuation thing seems contagious Yes, there have been several instances in Europe of trucks being used as weapons by terrorists. They have a habit of doing monstrous things like that as well as flying planes into buildings. So what should we do? Should we just resign to the fact that people who are capable of doing really vile things, or should we try to take measures and implement policies that at least decreases the risk of such events happening again? The truck terrorists favor large open areas where a lot of people congregate or major shopping streets with many pedestrians or crowded bridges with a lot of foot traffic. So can you outlaw trucks? No, that's impractical. But you can, and it's being done, build physical obstacles that prevents, or at least lessens the speed that they are able to reach, in the areas where people walk. So what can you do to lessen the risk of for example another school massacre or attack on concert-goers? What can you do, apart from turning teachers into Rambos, to at least minimize the number of injuries and deaths should another attack or shooting take place? Thinking that more guns is the solution to a gun problem, is in my opinion only making the problem worse. You never answered my question regarding why you think that other countries don't have the amount of mass shootings that you do, despite schools being so called "gun-free zones" in those countries as well. Do you have any therories? Reading your post, you sound so certain regarding what.will.not.work. I have no way near that level of confidence, despite actually having a degree in Criminology. (My first degree, prior to nursing). Why do you dismiss ideas out of hand? Have you decided that murdered kids is something you just have to accept and you're simply not going to try different solutions? Do you think that crime incidence is a static phenomenon and whatever rate you have of a certain crime, is the one you're destined to have in perpetuum?

Oh, I used to study crap like domestic terrorism. I wasn't a nurse when that bombing took place, so I'm aware. Not sure why you bring it up though, surely you realize that I'm not advocating that civilians use bombs for self-defense or encouraging their use among those of the criminal persuasion? Criminologically speaking bombers tend to be a different breed than mass shooters.

Schools are "gun free zones" in a majority of other "first-world" countries too, yet they have no way near the number of mass shootings as yours do. Why do you think that is? Home invasions aren't really a thing in my country. I live in a medium-sized city (~2 million) and many of my neighbors in the apartment building I live in don't even lock their front doors when they're home during the daytime. If home invasions genuinely pose a statistically significant threat to you, then I think you have other problems that need more interventions than merely increasing gun ownership among the population. How many people actually support gun control laws that completely deny a law abiding citizen the right to own a gun? Can you pass a background check and are you otherwise emotionally and physically equipped to handle a firearm in a safe manner? If you can and are, I personally don't see a problem for you or anyone else who meets those criteria, to own a gun. The question isn't whether you should be allowed to drive a car despite the fact that other people get DUIs. The question is if a person who's been convicted of his or her third DUI has a sacred right to keep their driver's license and keep on driving. I'd love to see some reliable stats (for example from the FBI) on how many crimes are actually prevented/stopped by armed civilians. I'd also be very interested to know what percentage of these crimes (the prevented ones), involved an armed perpetrator. Because if you have less firearms circulating in general in any given society, chances that you will encounter an assailant armed with a gun, also decreases. This old chestnut... Do you seriously think that the Las Vegas shooter could have murdered 58 people and left 851 people injured if he had been armed with a rock or a baseball bat? Or even a car? There's a reason why you don't have any mass stonings. You simply can't kill many people in a short period of time with a rock (or ten rocks). Not only are guns much more efficient, they are also the coward perpetrator's weapon of choice because they allow them to kill many victims from a safe distance at minimal risk to themselves, compared to when they have to get up real close and risk being overpowered, in order to for example stab someone. I don't know if you have experience with actually shooting another human being or if you've ever had to physically hurt someone with your bare hands (and other body parts). Psychologically the difference is huge. The gun gives people confidence. If your school shooters didn't have access to firearms, I very much doubt that the majority of them would have the "guts" to act on their fantasies. In my opinion most violent criminals are cowards at heart, and most likely perform some version of a risk assessment before they embark on one of their endeavors. I was once attacked (off-duty/job-related). He had a knife and he got really close. I can still remember the sickening feeling (touch) and sound of breaking, crunching cartilage (his) as I defended myself. It's harder to be close. I understand why the gun manufacturer's lobby want to facilitate the sale of as many guns as possible with minimal "red tape". I don't understand why ordinary folks won't support background checks and and want laws and policies that make it as hard as possible for people who aren't fit to carry firearms, to gain access to them. OP started a thread about what you/we as nurses can do to help keep patients safe, and the first response she got, was a quote from a former NRA spokesman.

How is your response to OP's post supposed to be interpreted? Does it mean that you feel that any education on gun safety is a waste of time and energy and that public health concerns are of no interest to you? I don't see how OP's suggestions mean that you have to relinquish your Second Amendment rights. Before becoming a nurse I spent about a decade working armed. I viewed my gun as a helpful tool for the job I had to do, just as my radio and handcuffs etc. I was not more in love with one or the other object and even though I really enjoyed the many hours spent on the range, I don't miss carrying a gun every day and I certainly don't need a gun in my home. As a European I really don't understand why so many Americans seem so infatuated with their firearms and the right to carry one whenever/wherever. I'm done wasting my breath attempting to convince y'all that there are ways to reduce the numbers of homicides committed on a daily basis... I will just take this opportunity to congratulate your country on your formidable capacity and willingness to sacrifice the lives of school children on the altar of your personal freedom. It's truly remarkable. One has to wonder if you'll ever reach your breaking point. I know I'm being blunt, but really the habitual thoughts and prayers offered up every time some more kids have been slaughtered, are useless. They don't protect a single child. They don't save a single life. First of all, I'm am genuinely very happy that you didn't, four years ago. Of course I don't know you other than as a poster here on AN but Viva, please know that I like and appreciate your contributions here I read your post in this thread and I thought about it. I guess my response is that if all people, and that means people both with and without any psychiatric illnesses, always made their decisions with such maturity, intelligence and self-awareness/insight, we could dispense with laws and law enforcement altogether. But that's not the world we live in. So how make the world as safe as possible for the largest amount of people possible? Guns in America: Attitudes and Experiences of Americans | Pew Research Center I find it pretty sad that 2/3 of gunowners cite protection as a major reason for owning a gun. That suggests a rather widespread perception of insecurity and a feeling of living under threat. Why is that and are there any other possible remedies than arming oneself?

I have the feeling that you didn't really appreciate my first two posts, but I'm nothing if not stubborn and persistent, so I'll give it one more try :) Believe it or not, but I'm actually trying to help you. If I'm honest with you, reading your posts I perceive an air of helplessness. To me, it's like you're looking only to someone else to fix your problems (administration), and you seem to view yourself as completely powerless, at the mercy of whatever admin does or doesn't do. I'm also challenging your position that administration encourage and reward abuse of nurses. I completely agree that management should support their staff when they are treated in an unacceptable manner but the failure to do so, is not the same as actively encouraging and rewarding abuse. I'm seeing a bit of a victim mindset instead of a "take charge" mindset. I'm reminded of giving relationship advice to some of my girlfriends when they're complaining about husband/fiance/partner problems. My first question is usually, have you told him that this behavior of his upsets you and have you spelled it out to him what you do expect of him? (As you might have guessed, they are normally initially about as thrilled about my advice as I'm guessing that you are...). Most of the time they haven't told him what they want and reply to me that if he loves them, he should understand how they feel and treat her as she wants to be treated. (That notion drives me nuts by the way, it's one of my pet peeves. Why expect that people be mindreaders?) Well, admin isn't anyone's husband but the same principle kind of applies. If you're unhappy with how you're treated, I think you need to let them know and just be clear about what you'd like to see change. What you're asking for is extremely reasonable. Abuse in the workplace is not okay. Your statements in this post at times appear to contradict each other. It makes it more difficult to offer advice. To me yelling and name calling is a run of the mill jerky person. Should security be called every time or not? Again, I'm having trouble understanding your position. As I've already mentioned I think that sometimes calling security is definitely the correct choice but other times I think a situation that could be competently managed by a skilled nurse, is unnecessarily escalated. I think that sometimes attempting to reason with an irate person is the best form of protection as it can defuse the situation. I think that you believe so too, so don't you agree that these situations have to be judged and handled on a case-by-case basis? I think that we see things a little differently here. If I interpret you correctly, and please tell me if I got this wrong, you seem to think that the only mindset and attitude that matters, is that of the patients/general public. I view this as my own mindset having an equal, if not larger, bearing. Why should I care if a small group of the public feels that nurses are there to be abused. I don't accept that. And what I think actually has a larger impact on my everyday life than what others think. I think when you realize that, you'll feel empowered. I guess what I'm talking about is primarily assertiveness. Since I make it very clear that I don't accept being treated poorly, the result seems to be that a) people don't seem to treat me poorly as often as they do someone who's less assertive and b) management is affected by the way I view myself and tend to agree with the fact that I don't deserve to be treated poorly and they actively support me. In an ideal world, people would automatically be nice and supportive to someone who's nice to them, but in this world sometimes you just need to teach people how to treat you. Yes. Some people are definitely just complete unredeemable jerks. How we let jerks affect our lives is in our control. OP, I hope that you, together with your coworkers and admin, can implement policies and even more importantly, come up with strategies that minimize the amount of abuse occurring in the workplace. OP, I'll end my third post to you the same way I did my first. Best wishes! I've only been a nurse for ~11 years but in my hospital we haven't had intercom announcements for codes/rapids for about 20-25 years. The only place that had it until relatively recently was the building that houses the CTICU and some other acute coronary units. Until a couple of years ago the rest of the hospital (large univeristy hospital in a foreign land :)) called a phone number (an easy one, like 55555 and it didn't matter if you accidently pressed the "5" four times or six times or whatever) and you reached the code coordinator and all the correct resources were paged. Now each floor has several tablets with touchscreens mounted on the walls and when you press/touch it, it gives you three options. Adult, pediatric or pregnant. These three options are large enough to together cover the entire screen so even with adrenaline-shaky :) fingers you will press the right one. Then the screen changes and all the resources that are being paged are listed. Like Physician1, Anesthesiologist1, Nurse anesthetist1, Nurse1, Physician2 etc. As these individuals confirm their page, the bar with their function/name changes color and turns green. The screen basically goes blip, blip, blip for the first 30 seconds or so as you stand there watching it. There's a phone right next to each tablet in case you need to call the code coordinator, but so far the technology seems to work. I personally like it because I think those code announcements are a huge stressor for many patients, plus I really detest noisy environments :)

I can't comment on the specific situation that you described which is why I asked for clarification regarding some of the details. Speaking generally though, we'll have to agree to disagree, that security should be called every time a patient is verbally abusive. Speaking only for myself, I know which situations I can handle myself and probably better than security staff, and which situations warrant their presence. I understand that part, but what I asked you is if you ever tell patients that you don't accept being addressed that way. I can't tell you how you should act in every situation you find yourself in because a threat assessment needs to made in each individual situation, but what I can tell you is that my ability to speak up for myself, means that my need for someone else to speak up for me, significantly decreases. You do actually have a say in how other people treat you.

I'm sorry that's happened to you. Some patients, well some people, are just plain rude and obnoxious. Being hospitalized is, as I'm sure you agree, of course stressful and sometimes people behave out of character due to that stress, but some folks are ****s 24/7. It's kind of their default position. How come you called security? Did you feel like you or some other member of staff or patient, were in physical danger? If the patient was "merely" being rude and loud, with no risk of physical escalation that you'd identified, I don't really see what security could do that you yourself couldn't have done. I'm assuming/hoping that security aren't allowed to forcibly transfer the patient to the other floor, so what did you think they'd bring to the table? If a person is agitated already, bringing in "the uniforms" will likely just trigger/escalate them further in my opinion. If you did fear for your or someone else's physical safety, then I do think calling security was warranted. That kind of sounds like it's in the patient advocate's job description. Perhaps kissing their derriere is a bit above and beyond, but I wouldn't expect them to admonish or "chastise" the patients. What does "basically tells" mean? Have they actually said outright that you should tolerate abuse from alert and oriented patients, or are you interpreting their lack of support when it happens, as tacit approval or acceptance of the patient's behavior? Personally, I've never felt that management finds abuse of nurses or any other hospital staff, acceptable. It's been my experience that they have my back in that regard. Granted, I'm a nurse in another country, and we don't think of patients as customers. That may be a factor, but I do think that the main reason for not being expected to tolerate abuse, is that I signal very clearly that I don't accept it. Alert and oriented patients don't yell at me very often and almost never calls me names. On the few occasions that it has happened, I've addressed it head on. I'll just tell them that I realize that situation x, y or z is causing them stress and I'll be happy to help solve the problem if it's in my power to do so. But in order for that to happen, they need to calm down and start acting their age. (Well, I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that because calling a person a child is a surefire way to escalate things, but I usually get through to them). I tell them that I'm there to help them, but I'm not their emotional punching bag. I must look like I mean it, because it works. If they're not on drugs or suffering from some disease process that affects their self-control, they always stop with the abusive behavior. I've never gotten in trouble despite being very direct, and perhaps even blunt in some cases. I don't know exactly who you mean when you say "administration", but have you told them about how you perceive your job situation and that you don't feel like they support you when it comes to abusive patients, and what you'd like to see change? Do you know for certain how they'd react, if you were to tell a patient who's clearly abusing you verbally, that they need to stop that behavior because it's an unacceptable way to address you or any member of staff? Are you clear with your patients regarding what you expect of them? It's seldom defensible or justifiable to be rude to patients, but I don't see how anyone could fault you for standing up for yourself and asking that you be treated with basic civility. Best wishes!

Your two coworkers sound quite dramatic and frankly thin-skinned. I don't understand how a single challenging patient hospitalized for what must have been for a relatively brief period of time for a hip surgery, could make one nurse quit her job altogether and another switch from full time to part time. That seems like a massive overreaction. It seems both you and your coworkers give this patient way too much power. You've been a member here since 2006. Have you been a nurse for all that time? I don't think you should let one demanding patient question your entire career. Frankly, I'm very surprised if this is first time you've encountered a difficult patient. We deal with all of humanity and are bound to see all sorts of behavior. Back when I did floor nursing, if a specific patient acted out in ways that made me worry that they were capable of lying about the care they received, I'd bring a coworker along as a witness. That only happened on a couple of occasions. For the vast majority of patients, I'd just carry on and do my job, and not worry about it. Personally, I never worry about losing my license as long as I do my job conscientiously and according to best practice.

So it's the fact that a woman is married and in love that makes her not want unwanted attention? A single, not in love woman, would be more amenable to unwelcome attention? Or perhaps all human beings, women and men, completely independent of their marital status, have a right, and probably an expectation, to not be subjected to creepy behavior. I know, it's a radical thought. Why would any woman feel like she owes an explanation to the person whose attention she doesn't want.? Why isn't I don't want this sufficient in your eyes? Why feel the need to explain how in love you are with your husband? The husband thing is in my opinion clearly a crutch when one is uncomfortable with assuming full accountability for the rejection of the person's advances/attention/behavior. I reckon there are a few people in this thread who won't be helping the next generation of women be assertive and know their own value. That's pretty sad. Yes, that was absolutely appalling. @Rocknurse. My "like"of your post was of course offered as support. I didn't like the contents which I hope and trust you know.

I once worked with a surgeon who'd enter the OR with a loud smiling "good morning or good evening gorgeous". But he did that to everybody. It didn't matter which one of us he first laid eyes on :) Male, female, older, younger and in-between. That was just his personality, and we didn't mind. In fact his sunny disposition made the shifts quite pleasant. But when a specific person is singled out for this treatment and that person also has their personal space invaded, then yes I definitely agree with you. It's deeply suspect. It damn well is enough. (I'm not cussing at you LibraSunCNM ). The reason I'm annoyed is that it upsets me that not each and every woman knows this and that not each and every person accepts it. I'm 50% saddened and 50% angered that so many women still believe that their word doesn't have equal weight as the rest of the human species. In my opinion, parents need to do better when raising the next generation. Oh and Klone, love your signature line :)

This must be a cultural thing :) I'm Scandinavian and right now I literally look like this ---> after reading all the posts offering similar advice. I've been married, have had a couple of other serious relationships and right now I'm in a longterm relationship. I have never once thought to use a husband or a partner as an excuse or reason for attempting to stave off unwanted attention. Why isn't it enough to say that you don't want the attention or that you aren't interested? Does one really need to use a partner as a "support structure" to give ones wishes more weight? What a person wants for themselves matters, all on its own. No added "legitimizer" required. If married women should mention their husbands when they're faced with unwanted amorous or sexual attention, who should single people use as a "fortifier" when they try to ward off unwelcome attention? They of course have as much right to not be subjected to it as a married person has. I'm assuming we all agree that married status isn't the only legitimate protection against creeps and sexual harrassment? In my opinion people need to learn to speak up for themselves and women in particular I think, sometimes struggle with making demands for themselves and laying down the rules. Again I'm not an American, but do pharmacists actually participate in raids? Here that's the job of law enforcement officers and the pharmacists gets to sift through whatever stuff in the form of pills, powders, iv meds etc. that was seized during the raid. They generally get to do that in a nice and calm environment, like a lab. Anyway... That's not what you came here asking for advice about. If a dude did that to me, I would definitely assume that his interest in me goes beyond that of a coworker. In my former career I used to be the lone female in a group of a couple of dozen men. They weren't in the habit of leaning in real close and whispering non-workrelated stuff. If they had, I would have thought them a bit strange and told them so. And we actually trained together, weightlifting, cardio and practising various self-defense techniques, for about ten hours every week. So we got physically very close when it was warranted but at other times they were aware of and respected my personal space. I honestly have no idea whether the specific scenario that you've described is motivated from a place of "creepiness" or if he thinks that it's appealing and perhaps that you find it acceptable/are interested in him. It's hard to offer advice when you don't have access to all the details and haven't had the opportunity to gauge this person for yourself. But for me personally, if something similar happened to me, I'd just tell him clearly and firmly that I don't want him to lean in so close, that I prefer to be called by my name and that three to four visits per shift is over the top (or whatever you happen to feel). in your case, only you can decide if what you want from him is that he gives you bit more personal space and stops with the beautiful & whispering parts, but that you're still okay with talking to him every now and then OR if you want the visits to stop altogether. If you know that it's safe for you to do, then whatever you feel is the desired outcome for you, is what I think needs to be clearly articulated to him. In my experience it's possible to be firm and direct without being mean. It allows the other person to save face in case their interest is benign and they just enjoy your company, but it's generally also a good first step in case this needs to be escalated to HR or further, in the future. Since I haven't met the man in question I can't know if he's 100% benign or if he has some predatory tendencies. Whatever you decide to do, please be mindful of your own safety! Best wishes OP! Edit: Many people aren't great face readers. It's not generally an effective method of communication. When you imagine that you're clearly telegraphing a specific message, that might be completely missed or misinterpreted by another person. Words are better. You said early in your post that he's a "very interesting individual". He might not be aware that you now feel that the attention is too much and not wanted.

That sounds unfortunate and rather messed up. Here, the unions will fight hard for employees who face discrimination or are otherwise treated unfairly and will hold employers accountable regarding labor laws etc., but an employee is expected to do their job as outlined in their job description and of course to be law-abiding. The unions won't protect someone who has a habit of shirking their duties or behaving illegally or unethically. I agree. While I'm sure that there exist people who attempt to infantilize the elderly, I don't think that's what's going on here. I agree there appears to be some extremely immature and downright nutty behavior demonstrated in more than one facility judging by some of the threads we see here, and most of us probably hope not to end up in one of those facilities. But remember, this is the internet... with all that that entails I certainly haven't encountered anything like what's described in these threads in real life... so pro-bab-ly not very common occurrences.... OP, I have to be honest with you. It really strains credulity that your facility has actually experienced a fall as a direct consequence of the "cartoon terrorist", and management still aren't doing anything to put a stop to it? I assume they're aware of this incident? Am I really understanding your post correctly? You keep adding new details. I of course have no idea where you work and I don't know the people who run your facility, but even if they happen to lack a heart, I assume they're concerned with their reputation and their bottom line? Aren't you concerned that this might happen again? Seems to me like you guys need to come up with a plan. Unfortunately this won't be solved on the internet.

Granted, I don't work at your facility but that's not how I interpret the choice of channel. I think this person chooses cartoons because they are the loudest most annoying crap they can find. If your motivation is simply to make someone watch something, you don't turn the volume up to 100. Not only are they spending a good chunk of their workday not doing their job, but they are wasting time for all other members of staff who have to constantly go and turn off TVs. Not to mention how disrespectful it is to residents to assault them with loud noise. Seriously? Why have you, your coworkers and management ALLOWED this to go on for three months? I really don't understand that part. Honestly, I don't think it would be a ridiculous reason at all. I'm Scandinavian and we have strong union protection. You definitely can't fire people willy-nilly. But there's no way the union would protect and advocate for an employee who makes coworkers waste time on a daily basis by running around looking for a blaring TV to turn off, when they could be doing their jobs and taking care of residents instead. There's no way the union would protect someone who harasses patients for months on end. And yes, I think that's what this behavior amounts to. From how you describe the situation, this TV "prankster" is in my opinion a disruptive element. You came here asking for advice. I'm on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean so I can't help you in any substantial way :) Neither, I'm guessing, can any of the other people on this thread. I'm a second career nurse, former law enforcement. I've spent thousands and thousands of hours on various stakeouts. If what you're decribing happened where I work, I would happily sacrifice a day off and skulk in a suitably located supply room, waiting for the cartoon marauder to strike I cannot fathom why you guys haven't been able to catch this person red-handed after three whole months of these shenanigans. It really shouldn't be that hard. Unless the layout of your facility is very odd, at some point in time it must have been possible for one of you to stick your head outside the door (if you're in a resident's room) and look down the corridor/hallway in the direction where the VERY LOUD noise just erupted from, and see who comes scurrying out from that room.