Doctors begged Congress on Wednesday to reverse laws that limit their ability to study gun deaths and ask patients about guns in their homes, after years of growing tensions between doctors and gun advocates over whether the federal government should fund medical research into gun violence. In the wake of the Newtown, Conn., mass shooting at an elementary school last year, a group of 101 doctors from the town have formed a group to push Congress to chip away at the restrictions. "We are being intimidated not to discuss gun violence as a public health issue," Dr. William Begg, the EMS director at a hospital near Newtown, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday during a hearing on gun violence. That hearing turned emotional with his testimony and that of the grieving parent of a 6-year-old murdered Dec. 14 in the Newtown massacre. "Jesse was the love of my life," Neil Haslin said of his slain son. "This is a tipping point. And this is a public health issue," Begg added.
