Write the American Academy of Pediatrics and tell them to drop anti-gun politics

**Wounded Ronin** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 9:47am

Well, a lot of doctors are. If you read about firearms in medical textbooks they tend to just have a blurb saying how you're more statistically likely to get shot in various circumstances if you have guns in the house than if you don't. Which in my opinion is kind of a dumb thing to say, because any probability of being shot goes up when guns are present versus when they are not present and the probability is therefore zero.

**hapkido_keith** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 10:29am

Originally Posted by Colin

Sounds like a very legitimate concern from where I'm sitting. Your viewpoint that this is discriminatory against gun owners (If I understand your criticism properly) Is clearly not based on a concern for the wellbeing of the patients, but rather for a semi-political personal or community goal for gun acceptance. (or at least, to avoid demonization of guns).

Now, I can understand this on an academic level, though I do not feel encouraged to agree with the opponents to the AAP.

Personally, I think such questions are entirely appropriate for a Doctor to ask their patients, or ask of their patients' parents, and therefore any politicking in the background is well outside of my own level of concern. I'm actually pretty appalled that Doctors questioning patients is the angle of attack chosen by the pro-gun lobbyists, and therefore it's a pretty ridiculous criticism to level at the AAP.

Would you also think it appropriate to ask parents if they have a swimming pool?

**BKR** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 11:04am

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

Would you also think it appropriate to ask parents if they have a swimming pool?

Or a bathtub? Or electrical outlets in the house? Or carseats/booster seats after measuring how tall the kids are? Or a trampoline? Or liquor/cigarettes? Or bikes (helmets?)Or live near a busy street? Or ever yell at each other in front of the kids, yell at the kids, drink alcohol in front of the kids? Do illegal drugs or abuse prescription drug? Any violent/sexual video games played in your house, sir or Ma'am?

The list goes on and on. I advocate the anyone who wants to have a kid apply for a license, and only granted after thorough genetic, psychological, and means testing as well as a year of training, theory and hands on, with a thorough test at end of said year. Until then everyone should be forced to use contraception. I guess you give the shots to women, don't have one for men yet.

I look to Australia to lead the way on this.

Ben

**Robstafarian** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 3:33pm

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

Would you also think it appropriate to ask parents if they have a swimming pool?

Originally Posted by BKR

Or a bathtub? Or electrical outlets in the house? Or carseats/booster seats after measuring how tall the kids are? Or a trampoline? Or liquor/cigarettes? Or bikes (helmets?)Or live near a busy street? Or ever yell at each other in front of the kids, yell at the kids, drink alcohol in front of the kids? Do illegal drugs or abuse prescription drug? Any violent/sexual video games played in your house, sir or Ma'am?

Better examples would be a circular saw, Passlode®, or maybe a FuBar™.

**hapkido_keith** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 6:34pm

Originally Posted by Robstafarian

Better examples would be a circular saw, Passlode®, or maybe a FuBar™.

I like swimming pool because both a swimming pool and a gun are primarily used for entertainment (yes the gun can be used for self defense, but, really, how much more often do you use one to blow off steam at the range than stop a home invasion) but the swimming pool is many times more dangerous to children than the gun is. Yet no one thinks twice about a having a swimming pool in the same house as kids while the gun is viewed as a deadly attractive nuisance.

**Robstafarian** · Posted On: 4/23/2011 11:26pm

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

I like swimming pool because both a swimming pool and a gun are primarily used for entertainment (yes the gun can be used for self defense, but, really, how much more often do you use one to blow off steam at the range than stop a home invasion) but the swimming pool is many times more dangerous to children than the gun is. Yet no one thinks twice about a having a swimming pool in the same house as kids while the gun is viewed as a deadly attractive nuisance.

I am certainly critical of all attempts to paint correlation as causation, so don't think I'm blindly supporting the AAP here, but there seems to be a lot of false equivocation in this thread.

A swimming pool is not a weapon by design.
A swimming pool is not portable.
A gun is not an environment.
A gun is not a widely recognized source of exercise.
A child can be taught to swim long before he or she is capable of understanding the consequences of lethal weaponry.
A swimming pool is a commonplace sight.
Swimming pools aren't widely portrayed in media as a source of power, respect, or conflict resolution.

A gun is a lethal weapon; that is its purpose. My earlier mention of various construction tools (though it's fair to categorize a FuBar™ as a demolition tool) was intended to provide you and BKR with similarly portable and potentially dangerous objects as a basis of comparison. To compare just any household object to a gun is to gloss over what a gun actually is.

**hapkido_keith** · Posted On: 4/24/2011 11:00pm

Originally Posted by Robstafarian

I am certainly critical of all attempts to paint correlation as causation, so don't think I'm blindly supporting the AAP here, but there seems to be a lot of false equivocation in this thread.

A swimming pool is not a weapon by design.
A swimming pool is not portable.
A gun is not an environment.
A gun is not a widely recognized source of exercise.
A child can be taught to swim long before he or she is capable of understanding the consequences of lethal weaponry.
A swimming pool is a commonplace sight.
Swimming pools aren't widely portrayed in media as a source of power, respect, or conflict resolution.

A gun is a lethal weapon; that is its purpose. My earlier mention of various construction tools (though it's fair to categorize a FuBar™ as a demolition tool) was intended to provide you and BKR with similarly portable and potentially dangerous objects as a basis of comparison. To compare just any household object to a gun is to gloss over what a gun actually is.

What is the relevance of a gun being a weapon by design? The idea is that we want to save children, it shouldn't matter the designed nature of object that is killing them is. A gun may be intended as a weapon, but if it is not actually harming anyone then a ban or restriction on them is a needless infringement upon liberty.

No analogy is going to be perfect. Other household objects may be similar to firearms in size or shape, but they have practical uses. Sure I have power tools, but I use them for home maintenance. I HAVE to have cleaning agents of some sort in my home. Etc.

But there's really no reason to have a pool, other than entertainment (I suppose there may be isolated cases where a disabled person may require one to exercise, but these are special cases, much like a cop is required to have a gun). Child-proofing your pool can be as simple as putting a short fence around it to keep out small children but doctors don't even bother asking this question.

**donoraen** · Posted On: 4/24/2011 11:14pm

Because derailing threads is what all the cool kids are doing;

There are actually a lot of laws about pools and gates and fences and how close they can be to your back door and such to prevent accidental deaths in Houston.

**Robstafarian** · Posted On: 4/24/2011 11:36pm

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

What is the relevance of a gun being a weapon by design? The idea is that we want to save children, it shouldn't matter the designed nature of object that is killing them is.

The designed nature of the machine matters when debating the reasonableness of someone's concern about said machine's presence near children. A lethal weapon is more or less automatically worthy of greater concern than, say, a book.

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

A gun may be intended as a weapon, but if it is not actually harming anyone then a ban or restriction on them is a needless infringement upon liberty.

Whereas I agree with you in principle, your statement has little to do with doctors inquiring about gun ownership and/or storage. Beyond that the fact that a question is neither a ban nor a restriction, a doctor is not a legislative body.

Originally Posted by hapkido_keith

No analogy is going to be perfect. Other household objects may be similar to firearms in size or shape, but they have practical uses. Sure I have power tools, but I use them for home maintenance. I HAVE to have cleaning agents of some sort in my home. Etc.

But there's really no reason to have a pool, other than entertainment (I suppose there may be isolated cases where a disabled person may require one to exercise, but these are special cases, much like a cop is required to have a gun). Child-proofing your pool can be as simple as putting a short fence around it to keep out small children but doctors don't even bother asking this question.

This is another place where we don't disagree; I'm just never comfortable with someone acting as though a gun deserves anything less than absolute discipline—even with regard to language. This is the primary reason why you'll never see me refer to a gun as a “toy.”

**BKR** · Posted On: 4/25/2011 9:02am

I'd like to see a list of the questions that the AAP asks parents regarding child safety.

If asking about firearms is part of a list of questions about general household hazards/safety for kids of the age in question, I don't have a problem. If firearms are singled out or focused upon, something else is going on.

Ben