Eighty-one-year-old uncovers government deceit

I was reading a little election coverage over at Volokh Conspiracy when I noticed their post about an elderly woman who was denied a gun purchase until after an investigation. Of course, an elderly woman buying a gun for the first time would make you think of a suicide attempt, which I'm sure is why the purchase was delayed. Is this right? I don't think it is. I see two ways for nursing to intervene in health:

1. on a personal level, which would mean being directly involved with this woman in this case;
2. or, possibly, on a systemic level, which would mean interacting with communities with regard to re-payment schemes, pollution, etc., and would be excluded in this case since purchasing a gun is an inherently health-neutral act.

For nurses to approve what actually happened is stepping outside what should be clearly defined professional boundaries. There's a lot of talk in my nursing program about professionalism, but in, for example, law there's no way for lawyers ethically to push themselves into the practice of medicine or nursing. Part of being a profession is drawing a line that both absolves you of responsibility for saving the world and limits you from saving it.

Of importance to note is the fact that if the records had been kept according to the law, the woman would probably have not been prevented. Ah, the intertwining of ethics, letters, and enforcement!

I must confess that I lapsed into "health"-oriented "nurse think" when I first read about this--yeah, the law was broken and someone's rights were probably violated but maybe we saved a life. Luckily, there is the ever vigilant Nurse with a Gun who helped me get my thinking grounded again. Thanks, Xavier.