Your Pediatrician Can't Ask You About Guns: The Bad, the Good, and the Hilarious in Senate Bill 432

By Brandon K. Thorp Wed., Apr. 27 2011 at 5:01 AM

Categories: Law

Of potential pediatric concern.

The bad news: After percolating through subcommittee and getting yeaed and nayed half to death, Senate Bill 432 is headed to the Senate Floor today. SB 432, please recall, is the bill that would prevent pediatricians from asking parents whether they own a gun. (Pediatricians generally ask parents about guns so as to determine whether to share gun safety advice.) SB 432 is a bill constructed of pure paranoia, born of the fear that some pediatrician's gun ownership database will be used by an oppressive government to round up patriots' firearms. (Note to legislators: If you think it's part of your job to forestall The Cohen Act, pediatricians are the least of your problems.)

The good news: Senate Bill 432 was too crazy to pass, so it's been rewritten almost unto meaninglessness. Now, pediatricians can't ask about gun ownership unless they think the question is relevant to a child's health. Since the only reason a pediatrician might ask about gun ownership is because of guns' well-documented potential for punching holes in children's bodies and since having a hole punched in one's body is, with a few notable exceptions, considered harmful to one's health -- yeah, pediatricians are pretty much in the clear. All Senate Bill 432 will prevent them from doing is compiling a database of gun owners and refusing the right to service based on a patient's answer to gun-related questions. Which sounds just fine.

The hilarious: Even in its denatured state, SB 432 is ironic in at least two ways. First, it's worth noting that SB 432's author, Sen. Jason Brodeur, has been pretty clear about his opposition to bureaucratic intrusion into patient-doctor relationships. It's also ironic that the NRA, when it's not extolling the virtues of SB 432, spends a great deal of time promulgating precisely the kind of gun-safety advice that pediatricians are wont to give gun-owning parents. Education, they insist, is the key to gun safety -- except when it comes from people, such as pediatricians, who mightn't be gun nuts, in which case it's oppressive and wrong.

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Tags:

Jason Brodeur, NRA, Senate Bill 432

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Deadcenter56

Fabrication is an essential part of the gun control argument. If the lies with words get to blatant then lie with photos.

Jbphillips

So where is a Doctor's training concerning Gun Safety? Is it in Pre Med right after you learn how to hold a scapel? I love the irony in insinuating that doctors know anything at all about Gun Safety. Perhaps we can get the NRA to teach eye surgery?

Sean Sorrentino

Could you point to the place in Pediatric Medicine where the Doctors are trained in firearms use and safety? Make your doctor sign this liability release form before giving advice.http://bit.ly/iIdbDJ

KennyPowersSays

Seems incongruous that a pediatrician would actually be concerned with preventive medicine in the guise of gun safety.

MikeD

If you're going to post a picture like this why not write an article about the malaria epidemic in the US with pictures of children in Africa and South America. Or maybe even the huge problem we have here with land mines, showing pictures of more African children missing limbs. Oh wait that's another continent and showing those pictures would be misleading... Try not to lie so obviously next time.

Miguel Gonzalez

Nope... Deception is their only way.

Thai An Hiro

Is that even a photograph from the US?

Brandon K. Thorp

I don't think it is. This is a blog entry about kids and gun. I paired it with a picture of a kid and a gun. The kid's nationality didn't seem to matter. Does it?