Trauma surgeons make pitch for gun control at Headliners Newsmaker

Three trauma surgeons made their case for a ban on assault-style weapons at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

The doctors, all former presidents of the Western Trauma Association, discussed why the physicians group unanimously passed a resolution calling for a ban last year.

They cited the level of injury caused by high-velocity bullets fired from a semi-automatic rifle such as the popular AR-15, the gun used by the Parkland, Florida, shooter.

Unlike the "straight pathway" of a bullet from a common 9 millimeter handgun, a bullet from an AR-15 rolls and tumbles and causes more widespread and fragmented injury, said Ernest "Gene" Moore, editor of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.

A self-decribed "avid hunter" and former member of the National Rifle Association, Moore said such weapons are meant for military use.

"They're not designed to hunt," said Dennis Vane, former chair of pediatric surgery at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. "They're designed to hurt people."

Tom Scalea, physician-in-chief at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, said wider injury means more blood loss, and that a person shot only in an arm or leg can bleed to death in as little as four or five minutes. One-third of the children in the Sandy Hook school shooting died of blood loss, he said.

The three doctors emphasized that they're not seeking to restrict other weapons or change the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which the Supreme Court has said guarantees Americans the right to own firearms.

The National Rifle Association opposes restrictions on assault-style weapons and is challenging state bans in court.

"Is this the answer to gun violence in the United States?" Vane asked. "No, probably not. But is it a way to begin to address one of the problems of gun violence in the United States? We think it is."