In the first few years of a child's life, a pediatrician will ask parents a series of questions about household safety: Do you have a pool? Where do you keep cleaning supplies? Do you smoke? Do you have pets? What is the temperature setting on your water heater? Do you own a gun? Such inquiries appropriately explore patient safety at home.

Only the last question provoked the ire of pro-gun legislators, activists and legal scholars, creating a legal showdown between the First and Second Amendments in the Eleventh Circuit, stemming from Florida's Privacy of Firearms Owner's Act. As the current Congress and executive administration act to repeal gun control measures, including the repeal of restrictions barring certain mentally ill individuals from owning guns, the roles of the physician as health care provider and mandatory reporter of abuse and neglect rely unconditionally on the physician's First Amendment rights.

Many physicians in Florida rightly saw the Firearms Owner's Act as a violation of their First Amendment rights and a group brought suit against the state (Wollschlaeger v. Governor of the State of Florida). The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida agreed with the physicians, noting that the physicians' questioning does not interfere with the right to keep and bear arms, but that the law directly interferes with a physician's First Amendment right to free speech. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit sided with Florida and the same three-judge panel ruled three times on the issue, offering multiple reasons why the law was reasonable and constitutional (noting at first that the law was a valid restriction on physicians' speech, then applying the same argument under a slightly more strenuous level of review, again finding in Florida's favor, and finally stating that even under a strict scrutiny review, the government would have a compelling interest in protecting the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment). Thankfully, the full panel of the Eleventh Circuit has recently ruled in a 10-1 decision that the law violates the First Amendment rights of physicians and other medical care providers.