New gun licensing assessments to be carried out by GPs in WA, has drawn mixed reviews.
Newly introduced legislation in Western Australia now requires GPs to conduct physical and mental health assessments as part of routine firearm licensing processes.
The legislation has been in effect since 31 March.
Notice of the legislation was first publicly announced in July 2024 and has since drawn mixed reactions from GPs as the primary care community navigates its roles and responsibility in gun control.
Similar policies were introduced in New South Wales last year to general acceptance due to an option to opt out of performing the assessments for referral to mental health professionals.
However, Western Australia does not have the same legislation as NSW regarding firearms-related anonymous reporting.
This means it would be more difficult to ensure anonymous reporting of patients that do not meet the necessary physical and mental requirements.
In an RACGP poll, 80% of participants responded “no” when asked whether they would be willing to provide a firearms health assessment for their patient.
Many have touted the potential for a degradation of patient relations as a result of undertaking firearms health assessments.
“I think the way this has been done is perhaps a cautionary tale for other states that might be considering doing the same thing in terms of the onus that it puts on GPs,” said Dr Michael Page, president of AMA WA.
“No doctor can predict who might be unsuitable in the end, or who might commit a gun-related crime in the future. There’s no way to reliably predict that.
“What we don’t want to see is doctors being pushed under the bus for not identifying people with unpredictable behaviour, which is, by its very nature, unpredictable,” he told TMR.
“Making a clinical judgement about a patient’s physical and mental health, in terms of any potential risk, is a new level of responsibility,” Dr Mariam Bahemia, deputy chair of RACGP WA, told TMR.
“It’s professionally and even ethically challenging, given the potential consequences of such a judgement.”
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For many Western Australian GPs, the legislation is still too fresh to make any strong evaluations on how effective it will be in the long-term.
Especially with the current requirement of health assessments only being needed once every five years for gun owners, it’s been stated as being “too early” to make any accurate judgements of the policy.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a change anytime soon, but, but what we would like to see is rigorous evaluation, see how it’s working, see if there are any issues that can be ironed out in the future,” said Dr Page.
“You want to see a real commitment from government and from the agencies involved to evaluate how it’s going and make improvements where they can for every stakeholder.”
