Heart attack free zones

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States accounting for approximately 600,000 deaths annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to all the dead people, heart attacks also have a negative effect on the family members who’ve lost a loved one, and all of the innocent bystanders who witness this horrible death. It is time to outlaw heart attacks.

I will grant that heart attacks are okay in the privacy of one’s home, but clearly not in public areas. Heart attacks should be banned in public buildings especially schools, libraries, churches and day care centers. Airports have more than their share of heart attacks and deserve special attention.

To ensure compliance, places where heart attacks are banned should be required to post “no heart attack” signs. These signs should be prominently displayed with contrasting colors so that anyone entering the building understands that heart attacks are prohibited within. Employers should incorporate “no heart attack” policy into their employee manuals. Because heart attacks are so serious, employee policy must be strong on the subject. Heart attacks should be a zero-tolerance issue. Employees must understand that anyone violating the “no heart attacks” policy will be subject to immediate termination.

We know of course, that this will not stop all heart attacks, so additional steps are required to make this policy work. In “heart attack free zones” civilians should not be permitted to intervene during a heart attack. No one should administer aspirin, begin CPR or loosen clothing. The last thing we need during a heart attack is ordinary people trying to play doctor.

Even those with training and licensed to use tools to save lives should be prohibited from possessing those tools in heart attack free zones. There is no need for such things when we have a viable 911 system that can quickly respond to such emergencies. Trained health professionals accidentally kill 200,000 to 440,000 people annually. Just think of how terrible the death toll would be if ordinary people tried to help in such stressful and confusing moments as loved one having a heart attack.

Heart disease is a serious problem in our country. I call on President Obama to appoint a surgeon general who will politicize heart attacks and use the power of his office to make sweeping changes to better control heart attacks. There is certain to be strong resistance to my ideas, but with the attorney general forcing them down America’s throat, we can make compliance mandatory. It might even fit under the Obamacare umbrella allowing the use of the IRS as an enforcement agency.

While heart attacks are a nice starting point, it is not enough to go after just one type of disease. We must control all diseases like cancer, strokes, respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Americans spend a lot of time at work, and they deserve the right to work in disease-free buildings. Common leisure gathering locations like parks and sporting events must also be required to ban deadly diseases.

Some may read this and think that I’m just being silly, or that I’ve gone insane. Some will note the idea of banning heart attacks is ridiculously impossible. Substitute the words “gun” for “heart attack” and “gun free zones” for “heart attack free zones” and ask yourself if this story makes any more sense.

In the wake of yet another multiple victim shooting in a another “gun free zone” on the premises of an anti-gun business who fires employees for violating its anti-gun policy, maybe the most insane notion is that we continue to allow employers to adopt such dangerous policy and give them immunity for the deaths that result.

Jim Irvine is the Buckeye Firearms Association President, BFA PAC Chairman and recipient of the NRA-ILA's 2011 "Jay M. Littlefield Volunteer of the Year Award" and the CCRKBA's 2012 "Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award."