The OP here was very clear, so I’m still trying to figure out why so many of you can’t understand his point. The point is that the doctor asked about a gun in the home but didn’t ask about any other safety-related features of the home, most notably the one that is way less safe for kids than a gun (i.e., a pool). It sure seems that the doctor is more concerned about guns in particular than about child safety in general.
Lol, another thread where gun nuts can’t stop crying.
Cry some more bitches.
Lol, another person who doesn’t understand the point of the OP but wants to pile on a persons expressing a minority view.
Great. All we need now is curlcoat to drive a stake through this thread’s heart…
No the op did **not **say that. If the op did say that then I would not believe the op was being truthful.
The op stated that a bunch of questions were asked and that the last one was about if there was a gun in the house, which offended our op. The op notes that specifically pools were not asked about, but does NOT state that the pediatrician’s only safety related discussion was about guns. Depending on the age of the child and time of year I am absolutely positive that any pediatrician asking about guns is also covering other safety related issues over multiple visits, be they sleep position for babies, car seats/seatbelts, poison control, lockng up medicines, what to do for a choking baby, bike helmets, sun screen, passive tobacco exposure, suicide risks, or some others. Perhaps the peditrician does different ones at different ages or rotates in pool/drowning risks as the weather warms up. Perhaps (s)he does not recognize the degree of mortality risk from drowning, or perhaps (s)he percieves that in his/her population a 30 second bit on how storing guns and ammunition locked up in separate locations is advised by the NRA for households with children will have more import than a 30 second bit about pools being adequately fenced all four sides, that soft sided pools are also a risk, that even bathtubs are and that smaller children cannot be left alone there even for a minute, that kids should learn to swim, and that children 4 and under and even those those who are not proven swimmers should always be within touch reach (arm’s length) of an adult when in the pool … we don’t know. What I do know is that we can only cover so much each visit and promotong more than a few simple messages each visit risks all getting lost as a mush.
DA, are you claiming that the only safety information your pediatrician has ever given your family is to ask about guns, as RR believes? Or just that (s)he failed to address something more dangerous than gun ownership and that you conclude from that a political agenda?
No. Its the irrational emphasis on guns… to the exclusion of pools. I am juxtaposing the two.. And even if they were to ever counsel me on pools, they would never suggest I am somehow being an irresponsible parent for owning a pool and I should cement it over but they do suggest that I get rid of my guns. So a 4 foot fence would be fine for a pool but but a 1800 pound safe is a second best choice to just getting rid of my guns.
Well, hell, what with 30% to 40% of American homes having swimming pools, its a wonder kids live long enough to wreck the car texting!
In Soviet Russia, Pool gets you !
I notice that we never hear hyper masculine defenses of pool possession. You know, like “you can have my pool when you pry it from my cold dead hand” and “Liberals are just scared of big blue things”.
Thank you for verifying the clear meaning of your op DA.
RR, are you clear now on the clear point the op has made?
Including a question about gun ownership as part of a long list of subjects asked about and discussed was, to the op, an irrational emphasis on guns. The fact that at that visit a single safety issue more of a statistical mortality risk than guns was not included in that list while guns were mentioned at that visit is, to our op, proof of a political agenda.
Yes, DSeid, I see his more limited point, and I was wrong in my earlier synopsis.
However, unlike the usual on-pilers on this thread, I do still think he has a point worth discussing. This doctor chose to discuss guns instead of pools (and more broadly people focus on guns instead of other worse risks, and even more broadly people focus on scary things that could hurt them instead of non-scary things that are actually more likely to hurt them). If the on-pilers in this thread are truly concerned about kid safety, then they would join Vinyl Turnip in advocating the banning of all pools (except that the would all be serious about it).
I think that’s pretty simple, really. People who aren’t gun enthusiasts don’t get what’s fun about guns, by and large. Guns, to them, aren’t empowerment and safety and the rush of a nice tight grouping at the range. They’re fear and anxiety and intimidation. Almost everyone gets what’s fun about pools. People do the risk benefit analysis in their heads, and there’s nothing in the “benefit” column for guns that outweighs the “risks”. They do the risk benefit analysis for pools and decide that recreation, exercise, family bonding, cooling down the yard, awesome parties, etc. outweigh the risks that can be mitigated by walls and locks and training and supervision.
For the record, I’m personally not in favor of banning guns *or *pools. But I am in favor of walls and locks and training and supervision for both.
[foil hat]It’s yet another part of the Obamacare plan! They’re going to use all the pediatricians in the US to compile a confiscation list of firearms! OBAMA IS THE EEVULS![/foil hat]
Seriously, responsible gun owners get mighty tired of people treating firearms like they’re vectors of a communicable disease. On the other hand there are the sort of idiots who leave a unsecured gun in a car full of unsupervised children. So a brief PSA on how to protect your children from firearms accidents seems reasonable to me.
I wish gun advocates would learn that the following argument:
makes them look really fucking stupid.
I’m curious to see what the pamphlet actually looks like that contains all of these accusations of irresponsibility. To me, insults don’t seem like the best way to counsel young parents. It does contain something more accusatory than the assertion that “no guns in the house” > “guns stored in a gun safe” when it comes to the statistical likelihood of a child finding and shooting him/herself with a firearm, right? I’m no logician but that seems pretty iron-clad to me, along the lines of abstinence > condoms for avoiding knocking up your girlfriend. If they said otherwise it might be more palatable to the highly sensitive, but wouldn’t be quite as true, would it?
So what names does it call you? Are there heart-tugging photos of dead children with holes between their eyes? Insulting cartoons of Yosemite Sam shooting himself into the air with his dual pistols? Anything? Maybe if you have a free moment, you could scan it so we can get a better picture of just how libelous this pamphlet really is.
Except the standard pediatric firearm safety schtick is not to tell anyone that guns should be banned or to tell someone that they should get id of guns they own. Certainly they may mention that a home that does not contain guns is safer than one with them. (I know that some gun owners believe that defensive gun use is a net benefit.) But the party line for preventative counselling is to identify those who do own guns and to promote to them the same basic ideas that the NRA endorses regarding safe storage in a household with children. (1800 pound safe not required.) Which surprisingly many gun owners do not do and which studies have shown many do start to do after even a short promotion of doing such from a doctor.
Yes, a fair cop that pediaticians do not do as good of a job as we should on reviewing how big of a concern drowning is. Also a fair criticism that pediatricians are subject to irrational risk assessments just like everyone else and that many percieve accidental gun deaths as a bigger risk than they are and drowning deaths as a smaller one than it is.
And yet pools kill more children under 14.
You also never hear anyone trying to take them away. They’re also not specifically protected by the constitution.
The conclusion of irrational emphasis wasn’t just based on the lack of mention of the pool. Like I said, tone and context are hard to convey on a message board.
To be clear, they didn’t ask me any other safety questions this time but they have asked about childproofing the cabinets in the past. They have just never emphasized the danger of anything else the way they emphasized the danger of firearms in the house.
I think the posters here are concerned about kid safety but the risks associated with guns have been so overblown in their minds that we might as well be talking about dynamite or rattlesnakes.
Guns are largely a hobby for me. I don’t intend to overthrow the government or defend myself against tyranny. I don’t think that Charles Manson is going to invade my home. I don’t live in a neighborhood where I have to worry about street crime. I don’t think there is a reasonable chance that I will need a gun to protect myself or my family. BUT, I have been in situations where access to firearms have protected the livelihoods of hard working families from looters when the cops could not or would not protect and serve and I wouldn’t take away those people’s rights to protect the means by which they feed their families, at least not without a constitutional amendment.
The pamphlet itself just says that you should keep guns unloaded and under lock and key. It also advises that if you have children in your home, ‘the safest thing is to not have a gun in your home, especially not a handgun.’
The pediatrician, however, advocated getting rid of the guns. They would never think of advocating cementing over the pool, they didn’t even ask about the pool. Why is that?
I like this pediatrician and i think her heart is in the right place but she displays an irrational fear of guns and I think she is instilling that fear in her patients.
I think the notion that pediatricians in general are anti-gun has been proven
What is it with you and swimming pools? Suppose we were talking about bullfighting. I’ve seen a bullfight, thought is was totally cool and was totally ashamed of myself for thinking so. Its cruel and barbaric to treat a poor dumb beast like that.
So then you come in and say Well, are you against hamburger, then? Want to close down all the packing houses? Because they kill cows too, you know.
About the closest you get to a point there is an ad hominem, like you want to suggest that people who favor more gun regulation are dishonest hypocrites. What you refuse to grasp is that even if they are, the point stands on its own, or it doesn’t. If the point is valid, it makes no difference…listen closely now, no repeat NO difference…what kind of people are saying it.
Say that’s so, just for your sake. How’d they get that way? Were they suborned and bribed by the gun-grabbers? Or are they educated people who studied the facts and came to an appropriate conclusion for someone who’s primary concern is the health of children? How’d they get that way? Mind control waves? What?
Kinda like bitching because the SDMB is so lefty. Smartest, hippest people on the planet. Well, duh…
DA, gotta say, I don’t doubt your sincerity, but you really are not any good at this whole “arguing” thing.
I don’t know why pediatricians develop an irrational fear of guns. I don’t know why doctors develop an irrational fear of guns but they certainly seem to have it (generally speaking). Maybe we can get the CDC to fund a study to find out why doctors have this irrational overblown fear of guns. The NRA would probably support that.
I’m trying but its taking longer than I thought.
Is that based solely on the “gun in the home” question, or is there something else that drives you to that conclusion?