Fukkin Facist Florida Firearm Fanatics

[Debaser]

@DSeid

In short, no question the AAP and most medical group have looked at all the evidence and concluded that a household with children is safer without a gun in it than with one. You think that is anti-gun. Fine but it is not being gun-grabbing.

I never said gun grabbing, but yes it is anti-gun. There’s no question.

A household without a pool is safer than with one too. But they’re reaction to that is completely different than guns. The only explanation is that they’re anti-gun.

You think that all the medical groups that have concluded that children are safer in households that do not contain guns are politically motivated and that their conclusions should be censored.

I never said anyone should be censored. I’m simply pointing out the stupidity of their position. I wish the AAP would reconsider it. I haven’t suggested banning anyone from having an opinion.

Fine. The position based on that conclusion is still basic: from our read of all the evidence the health risks of gun ownership outweight the benefits; if you are going to own a gun or guns please make sure they are stored securely. Really not too controversial of a statement in my mind even if you think the conclusion is faulty.

But that’s not their opinion. Their opinion is parent shouldn’t own guns at all. If they just asked parents to secure them that wouldn’t be objectionable. But that’s not what they’re doing.

And yes the option of getting rid of a gun is potentially more on the table for discussion, something parents might be open to, than is getting rid of an extant in-ground pool or not driving.

Why is that the choice? If the AAP went on record as anti-pool ownership not every parent would fill in their pool. But surely, some number of parents greater than zero would decline to put a pool in. Some number would not buy a house that had a pool. Why don’t they do this? It would surely save at least some lives.

Plus, I have personally known people who filled their pools in. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not even expensive, given how much you save on maintenance by not having a pool.

Also few pediatricians tell their parents they are bad parents even when they do things that we know are stupid, like refuse or “space out” vaccines, or attempt to insist on an antibiotic script for the cold. As I have stated before, we are selling healthier behaviors and implying that someone is an idiot, especially when they are, is a poor sales tactic. Most of us know that. (I am not trying to sell the idiots here.)

Most pediatricians don’t rotate gun safety into thier preventative schtick. Probably for the same reason I don’t - it does not rise high enough on our perception of risks in our communities and we don’t believe a brief office based intervention on that will be the best use of our time. That is even true in communities with high rates of gun violence, like LA. Which pediatricians do discuss it?The pediatricians who are asking about guns tend NOT to be the ones who are anti-gun (which knowing pediatricians probably IS the majority of them) but the ones who are gun owners and thereby feel comfortable with the discussion and know that some parents do not take the responsibility as seriously as they should, as they personally do.

You know what? This is a good point.

There’s no way to know for sure, since the millions of conversations between docs and patients are private. But I bet you are right. Most docs probably have conversations with their patients and do act appropriately and aren’t rabidly anti-gun.

This is despite, and not because of the flawed policies of the AAP on guns.

[Debaser]

@Kimstu

That is hysterical-paranoidspeak for “they advise parents to talk to gun-owning adults in homes where their children hang out about the dangers of young children having access to guns”.

Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

It would also be perfectly reasonable to do for pools, and various other things. Yet only guns get singled out for this treatment. It’s undeniably intended to harass gun owning parents.

Sure. The (obvious) difference is that pretty much everyone who has a car needs it and uses it for the ordinary practical necessities of life. Very, very few people would bother to spend the money that car ownership requires if they didn’t make constant use of it for transportation purposes.

So what?

Pretty much everyone who owns guns use it for the ordinary practical necessities of life. What do you think people are doing with them? Without my gun, how am I supposed to hunt?

Yes, I bowhunt too. But what about the cornfields?

Don’t even try telling me that hunting in the fall isn’t a practical necessity of life.

Pools are likewise big and expensive objects that people tend not to own unless they’re genuinely invested in them (and can’t always get rid of very easily). While of course nobody actually needs a pool for practical purposes, nobody’s likely to have a forgotten or unwanted pool just hanging around the house.

Well get ready to have your mind blown because I know of people who have exactly that situation. Unwanted pools are common. Once you’ve got one a lot of the time it’s a hassle that you don’t want to maintain anymore. I know people who don’t bother filling them anymore with water. I know people who have filled them in.

The only point that you make that’s valid is in parentheses. Yes, pools are more difficult to get rid of than guns. But so what? Either way, the result is the same: Based on the advice of the AAP very few people will get rid of their pool or their guns. They’res no reason, other than anti-gun sentiments, to treat them differently from a safety advice standpoint.

However, plenty of people have one or more casually acquired guns hanging around the house that they don’t really use, want or need. Such a gun does not represent a big investment for them and they can get rid of it very easily. It makes perfect sense to advise such people to get rid of such guns if there are going to be young children in their home on a regular basis.

First of all, I’d love a cite that any significant number of gun owners don’t actually want or need their guns. I have no reason to think this is true, or more true than pools

Once the children are old enough to use guns themselves, it’s up to the parents to teach them proper safety procedures, and there’s no need for pediatricians to get involved.

The bolding is tedious.

This is actually a reasonable suggestion. Congratulations.

However, this isn’t something that’s shared by the AAP. They don’t have any guidelines that I’ve seen that they only are anti-gun for children of a certain age. They seem to want all parents to have gun free households for children of all ages.

If they suggested gun safety training for children of an appropriate age for gun owning homes that would probably save lives. But they don’t, because they are so anti-gun.

I’m not claiming that a complete legal ban on guns would be more feasible or appropriate than one on cars or pools. That’s silly; we weren’t even talking about banning guns (but it is very typical of the hysterical-paranoid type of gun owner to assume that any discussion about the risks or disadvantages of guns in any circumstances is just code for trying to ban them, which is one of the reasons that hysterical-paranoid gun owners are so tedious to talk to).

I know you didn’t. I was simply making the point that people are very much interested in keeping their guns and they value them more than they do pools.

Your insistence that people just happen to have unwanted guns hanging around and don’t value them just isn’t based in reality.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Kimstu

Dude, you’re disagreeing with the American Academy of Pediatrics and every other medical organization tasked with overseeing the practices of healthcare for young children, not with DSeid in particular.

Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to disagree with them, indeed to shout from the housetops, should you so desire, “I think official pediatric guidelines for health supervision of young children are bullshit, and I, as a practicing lawyer, am a much better judge of what is and what isn’t a medical issue in pediatric care than the American Academy of Pediatrics is!”

But you should be aware that attitude makes you look like a delusional fuckwit, not like a thoughtful person expressing reasonable disagreement with a bold and controversial position.

Face it, the pediatric guidelines for helping new parents establish and maintain a safe and healthy home definitely do include questions about guns as a completely unremarkable routine issue. The pocket guide for pediatricians includes, along with questions like “Do you have pets at home? If you have cats, have they been tested for toxoplasmosis antibodies?” and “What emergency numbers do you have posted near your phones?” and “What thermometer do you use?”, other questions like “Do you keep guns at home? Are there guns in homes you visit (grandparents, relatives, friends)?”

This communication is a normal part of pediatric outreach to help ensure safe and healthy homes for kids. Sure, you can disagree with it if you want to, just like you can disagree with the unwarrantable government intrusion of putting pedestrian crosswalks on street corners and telling pedestrians to cross at the light. But you need to recognize that you come across as a somewhat reality-challenged loon rabidly grousing about an ordinary standard safety procedure.

Was the case that prompted this legislation?

The gun question you reference is a prelude to the statement:

“Remove guns from home; if gun necessary, store unloaded and locked with ammunition separate.” I take it this means your home and any homes you visit (grandparents, relatives, friends).

The question about cats is not a prelude to “get rid of your cats” or don’t visit homes of people who have cats, it seems like a prelude to a “learn about pet risks” discussion. Why do guns have to be necessary to keep around while cats do not?

Why isn’t the gun question a prelude to a “learn about the risks of having a gun in the home” discussion?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Airbeck

Is it harder to become a doctor, or to become a pharmacist?

I would say doctor but mostly because of the internship/residency requirement which is like a year of boot camp followed by however many years of MOS training.

Medical schools might be tougher to get into but phamacy schools have an acceptance rate of something like 5-10%.

I’m not sure what this has to do with who gets more training about drugs.

When you are sick or injured and require medical attention, do you go directly to a pharmacist? It sounds like you don’t see any reason for doctors to even exist based on this response, just go to Walgreen’s and ask the pharmacist right? They know so much more about medicine right?

Pharmacists aren’t really trained to diagnose or perform procedures.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Airbeck

False equivalency. Eye doctors would not be expected to perform abortions because babies don’t develop in people’s eyes. Geriatric physicians would not be expected to perform abortions because 75 year old people don’t get pregnant. Neurosurgeons would not be expected to perform abortions because pregnancy doesn’t occur within the brain. Doctors have specializations, pharmacists do not. Pharmacists dispense medication, and of course have to be knowledgeable about them and their dosage and interactions with other drugs, but there are not eye pharmacists, geriatric pharmacists, or neurosurgery pharmacists, are there?

Replace doctor with obstetrician if you like.

Being a pharmacist who is unwilling to dispense certain drugs because of religion is exactly the same as a someone running a hot dog stand but refusing to serve hot dogs because pork is against their religion. Don’t accept a job that you cannot perform because of your religion. If your religion is that important, then choose a career that doesn’t require you to do things you morally object to. What is so hard about that? The only reason to go this route is if you want to impose your religious views on others, and you want to use your job to proselytize. That’s bullshit.

OK, then any obstetrician who refuses to perform an abortion is like that hot dog stand vendor who has religious objectios to pork too. Right? So why don’t we force doctors to perform first trimester elective abortions on demand as long as there are not contraindications?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Bricker

Oddly, when the American Pharmacists Association says that pharmacists should have the right to refuse to dispense abortion-causing drugs, and liberals disagree, it’s the liberals that are right?

Dude.

ooohhhh snap!

[Bone]

@DSeid

There is, theoretically, a risk that an answer might be something along the line of as Clothahump’s was, that the owner keeps (presumably loaded) multiple guns at ready access near all doors and windows in a household with kids in the house, in a state in which laws exist which mandate secure storage from children in a household - (a Child Access Prevention Law such as Florida has), and that the owner might respond further with anger in the office. Further that such a response might lead a mandated reporter to conclude that the owner was not a very stable person and interpret that instability and the breaking of known Child Access Law as something that they should report. (As Sinaptics stated (s)he would do.) That risk is bad and requires a response to censor any discussion about guns between doctors and their patients.

I’m not commenting on the level of risk of a generalized group of individuals acting as mandatory reporters in an illegitimate way. However, the law as you stated is not correct. It does not “mandate secure storage from children in a household”

TheFL law reads:

790.174 Safe storage of firearms required.—
(1) A person who stores or leaves, on a premise under his or her control, a loaded firearm, as defined in s. 790.001, and who knows or reasonably should know that a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm without the lawful permission of the minor’s parent or the person having charge of the minor, or without the supervision required by law, shall keep the firearm in a securely locked box or container or in a location which a reasonable person would believe to be secure or shall secure it with a trigger lock, except when the person is carrying the firearm on his or her body or within such close proximity thereto that he or she can retrieve and use it as easily and quickly as if he or she carried it on his or her body.
(2) It is a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083, if a person violates subsection (1) by failing to store or leave a firearm in the required manner and as a result thereof a minor gains access to the firearm, without the lawful permission of the minor’s parent or the person having charge of the minor, and possesses or exhibits it, without the supervision required by law:
(a) In a public place; or
(b) In a rude, careless, angry, or threatening manner in violation of s. 790.10.
This subsection does not apply if the minor obtains the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry by any person.
1(3) As used in this act, the term “minor” means any person under the age of 16.

A loaded firearm has to be:
[ul]
[li]Left in a premises under your control[/li][li]Known or reasonably should have known that a minor is likely to gain access to that firearm[/li][li]Without permission, and required supervision if any[/li][/ul]

Only then is the person required to keep the firearm either locked, trigger locked, or in a place that a reasonable person would believe it to be secure.

Nothing in Clothahump’s post meets these criteria.

Or are you saying that you think a “more militant doc” might report to CPS gun ownership itself (or a declination to answer the question) as child abuse and that such a report would be taken seriously? And the proper response to that risk is to criminalize all inquiring about guns by all of one specific group of mandated reporters.

Not sure about the extent of the hypothetical or what the proper response is, but it’s not like CPS hasn’tharassed people in the past.

I’m not personally in favor of the law - I’m happy to lie to my doctors about guns. I tell my kids to either not mention, or to lie if asked, about guns. I’d rather they not have to lie. There is just no upside and only downside to disclosing. That being said, it doesn’t bother me that the law is in place either.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@elucidator

Not denying, simply wondering how this dreadful state of affairs came to be. According to you, that is.

Just a theory but… many doctors have done a rotation in the emrgency room and have seen the effects of guns. They mostly live in (and come from) neighborhoods where it is hard to see the safety value of owning a gun. So they reach the conclusion that guns are bad and never stop to think about the good they can do.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Sinaptics

Ummm, maybe you’re looking at a different chart, but your linked chart has a lot of firearm deaths between unintentional, homicide, and suicide. The only greater causes of death I see are drowning and car accidents.

Thats only if you include intentional causes of death (i.e.e firearm homicide). If you are going to count all causes of death inentional and unintentional, then you should be looking at this chart. But homicide (particularly homicide of kids over 10) doesn’t strike me as somethign that is driven by having a gun in the home (the suicide numbers might).

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Debaser

Unintentional firearm only makes the top ten for one age group and it’s not near the top. As to firearm related homicides, the docs would be better served asking about gang activity than guns in the home of they wanted to address that issue.

And its not in the top ten of that age group in other years. When all it takes is 16 deaths to make the top ten, then a badly designed baby crib might make the top ten some years.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Lobohan

I actually agree it’s out of line to say, “you need to get rid of all the guns in your house.”

It’s not out of line to say, “You should keep your guns and ammunition locked away so that the child can’t access it.”

The law forbids any mention of guns. Which is overreaching.

Well, overreaching by a group frequently leads to raectionary overreaching in response.

[Sinaptics]

@Bone

I’m not commenting on the level of risk of a generalized group of individuals acting as mandatory reporters in an illegitimate way. However, the law as you stated is not correct. It does not “mandate secure storage from children in a household”

TheFL law reads:

A loaded firearm has to be:
[ul]
[li]Left in a premises under your control[/li][li]Known or reasonably should have known that a minor is likely to gain access to that firearm[/li][li]Without permission, and required supervision if any[/li][/ul]

Only then is the person required to keep the firearm either locked, trigger locked, or in a place that a reasonable person would believe it to be secure.

Nothing in Clothahump’s post meets these criteria.

See something. Say something. Isn’t it always the refrain of anti-reform people that we need to target mentally ill people BEFORE they commit the crime? Yet here you have a person who reacts in a disproportionate manner to a routine question and mentions that they have a weapon at every entryway in their house with children around and you would have us shrug and move on.

I suppose I also shouldn’t mention the guy that sits across the street from the bus stop saying something like, “I should have been a priest” while leering. Sure, he hasn’t said he molests kids, so no bother, right?

[Sinaptics]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Thats only if you include intentional causes of death (i.e.e firearm homicide). If you are going to count all causes of death inentional and unintentional, then you should be looking at this chart. But homicide (particularly homicide of kids over 10) doesn’t strike me as somethign that is driven by having a gun in the home (the suicide numbers might).

It all depends on how they define homicide, for which I didn’t see a clear explanation. If a 12 yo accidentally shoots his sister, is it homicide? They don’t make that clear.

To be honest, I really don’t like this chart. The groupings are too broad and the age ranges could have been done better (I’m looking at you 15-24 group).

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Airbeck

You keep making this point and its completely wrong. I already addressed it once.

In case you missed it:

So if I replace the word doctor with obstetrician, then it goes from being completely wrong to being completely right? I think you’re quibbling.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Kimstu

Rather, guns are dangerous so they tell people either not to have guns or to follow safe-storage procedures for guns.

The fact that you can only make your case by deliberately leaving out an important part of their message is very telling.

And, of course, most people who are not hysterically paranoid on this issue do understand why there’s a practical difference between “telling people not to have guns” and “telling people not to have cars” or “telling people not to have pools”.

Mind you, I think responsible law-abiding people who want to own guns are just as entitled to own a gun as they are to own a pool or a car. But it’s obvious to the meanest (non-hysterically-paranoid) intelligence why cars and pools are generally considered less dispensable in most homes that maintain them than guns would be.

Wait, you’re leaving stuff out too.

They say “get rid of your guns” in the first instance and then follow up with saying that if guns are necessary THEN follow these safety procedures. BTW, you should also amke sure taht your friends and relatives also don’t have guns but if they must have guns THEN make sure they follow these safety procedures.

The approach to guns is a little different than their approach to things like cats or pools or cars.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@MaxTheVool

Actually I was thinking about this… if a woman is pregnant, and then she has a medical emergency where if she doesn’t terminate the pregnancy within the next half hour she has a 75% risk of dying, and she has the risks explained to her, and she chooses to terminate the pregnancy, and only emergency room doctor available is one who doesn’t believe in performing abortions… does he have the right not to do so?

I don’t know. I suppose I was thinking about elective abortions. Emergencies by definition are extentuating circumstances and I would say that if someone came in with a life and death situation where the failure to immediately dispense an abortion pill would kill the woman, I don’t know what sort of duty the pharmacist would have. If I was on a jury, I would be willing to read her duties broadly enough to revoke her license at least.

[Terr]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t know. I suppose I was thinking about elective abortions. Emergencies by definition are extentuating circumstances and I would say that if someone came in with a life and death situation where the failure to immediately dispense an abortion pill would kill the woman, I don’t know what sort of duty the pharmacist would have. If I was on a jury, I would be willing to read her duties broadly enough to revoke her license at least.

It’s a red herring. I am not aware of any (well, I am sure there is one or two nuts, but…) anti-abortion people who would object to an abortion in an emergency in order to save the mother’s life.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DSeid

Sometimes. Usually after that and seeing it used by the specialists for a while too. We don’t jump on the newest meds all that often. Because I heard about it from a rep? Never.

Sales reps btw are not pharmacists. They are usually either pretty young women or former jocks who are in sales.

Well, I have been told that doctors now get their info from internet subscription sites.

Agreed. How they work they’ve got down. Which one is the right one to use for a particular patient, if any? No.

Sure. And I was talking about pharmacists knowing HOW drugs work.

That was the fact that “cite” was requested for - that accidental firearm was in the top ten for that age group. Yes, as mentioned in that post homicide and suicide by firearm are higher for older kids … the 5 to 9s shoot themsleves and their freinds by accident … the older kids are at least classified as having meant to do it, given access.

I DO talk about car safety issues a lot. It gets the time. To some I probably do come off as evangelizing … moreso about bike helmets. And back when more parents smoked I was a bit strident about the risks that presented to the kids. Got lots of adults to quit actually. (I do know how to sell.) As far as guns go it seems that asking about guns counts as evangelizing against them and such should be illegal.

Again, in certain communities, probably some in rural Florida, likely have higher than average accidental gun death rates and successful child suicide facilitated by household gun access rates. If I worked in one of those communities I’d be putting gun discussions higher on my list. Making that call and acting on it or not would be in my job description. (Just like in our community in the Western suburbs of Chicago we have had to develop tools to discuss herion use and educate parents that middle class kids, often star athletes, are at risk. And how we need to develop better skill sets at demystfying depression and talking about suicide. Things that those who think of us as “body mechanics” would consider outside our mandate but which we consider part of our job, even if we don’t always do it as well as we’d ideally like to.)

Oh, I don’t havea problem with pharmacists advising parenst about risks like guns as long as they don’t have an agenda.

[MaxTheVool]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Wait, you’re leaving stuff out too.

They say “get rid of your guns” in the first instance and then follow up with saying that if guns are necessary THEN follow these safety procedures. BTW, you should also amke sure taht your friends and relatives also don’t have guns but if they must have guns THEN make sure they follow these safety procedures.

The approach to guns is a little different than their approach to things like cats or pools or cars.

You’ve argued long and reasonably that the pediatric guidelines are anti-gun. Which they fairly clearly are. And that that they’re more anti-gun than they are anti-pool…
At the same time, given this quote from you later on:

Oh, I don’t havea problem with pharmacists advising parenst about risks like guns as long as they don’t have an agenda.

you don’t seem to think that the law banning doctors from asking about guns at all is a good idea.

So… what are you saying, exactly?

And do you think the pediatric anti-gun stance is something you DISAGREE with, or something that is in some fashion UNETHICAL? And/or something that ought to be completely outside their purview?

[MaxTheVool]

@Terr

It’s a red herring. I am not aware of any (well, I am sure there is one or two nuts, but…) anti-abortion people who would object to an abortion in an emergency in order to save the mother’s life.

You will note that I deliberately constructed my hypothetical so that it wasn’t CERTAIN that the mother would die, but was PROBABLE. I agree that even most ardently pro-life people would perform the abortion when not doing so was 100% certain to kill the mother, but 75%? 50%? 25%?

But I was mainly asking because I’m curious whether anyone actually knows what the law really is in a situation like that. Can a doctor who is seeing a patient refuse to perform emergency time-critical possibly-or-probably-life-saving legal regulated medical operations for personal ethical reasons?