Gun ownership, deaths, injuries and crime set the United States apart from the rest of the world. Bolstered by the second amendment to the Constitution and a belief that having a gun will provide protection for the household, gun ownership is common.
I won’t write about how many guns there are or who has them. I won’t write about the types of guns or how much ammunition they hold. I’ll just be writing about common sense.
The recent Florida law HB 155 prohibits a pediatrician from asking parents if they have guns in the house. From the pediatrician’s point of view, it’s a public safety issue on par with safety devices for electric plugs, child safety seats, poison control and a host of other aspects of ordinary life that endanger children. The NRA backed law sees the issue as one of freedom from being hassled about owning guns.
This law reminded me of something I saw years ago that I will never forget. It shapes my thoughts and actions to this day.
I met a 13 year old boy in the operating room at Darnall Army Community Hospital during the fall of 1983 when I was on the surgical team on call that day. We opened him up and found that a bullet had passed from his left side through his body and out the right side transecting the aorta and vena cava (in addition to other serious injuries). There was too much bleeding, too much damage, and the boy died on the table.
I removed my bloody gloves and gown, got dressed and walked towards my car, but as I passed through the emergency room on the way to the parking lot, there was an elderly man in distress. His shirt was off and he had electrodes attached to his chest, and he was wailing. I was told that he was the boy’s grandfather, and he was the one that shot and killed his grandson.
The emergency room doctors told me that they had been hunting deer, and they were wearing camouflage. The grandfather saw his grandson walking and mistook him for a deer. I can only imagine the emotions that went through that man’s mind after he fired his rifle. He was probably joyous at first, terrified when he saw his grandson instead of the deer he expected, and then he probably experienced guilt.
I have no doubt that his guilt was a contributing factor to his chest pain, and I have no idea if he lived or died that day. I left him there, crying, but I’ll never forget the expression on his face.
Sometimes I see men in the fall wearing camouflage, or men tell me they’re going hunting. Most are proud to tell me that they are taking their children or their grandchildren hunting with them. Maybe they might be upset with me for recommending that they wear orange vests, but if they are, I tell them what I experienced, and I hope I never experience again. Maybe they’ll listen, maybe not.
The Florida law would keep me from even asking if they are going hunting, although their clothing, from boots to hat, scream hunting.
The Florida law isn’t about gun ownership. It’s a law to protect the sensitive ears of gun owners from stories like mine, and warnings about dangers, and recommendations for safety. Maybe doctors aren’t qualified to make such recommendations, like keep the guns locked up and the ammunition separate from the guns. Maybe the gun owning parents already know everything a doctor could possibly tell them about gun safety – and more. But children still get guns and shoot themselves or others – on purpose or accidentally. And hunters still wear camouflage without an orange vest in the hopes they can be more effective hunters.
Those, of course, are aberrations, lapses of common sense, bad judgment or neglect and not at all representative of the average American gun owner, but I can see no harm in hearing advice even if the person hearing it needs no warning. The advice is, after all, only common sense.
A warning is only unnecessary if there is absolutely no risk of danger. As long as there is risk, common sense should tell us that the voices giving warnings should not be silenced.
Is this such a dangerous concept? “According to federal statistics, there are guns in approximately half of all U.S. households. Even if no one in your family owns a gun, chances are that someone you know does. Your child could come in contact with a gun at a neighbor's house, when playing with friends, or under other circumstances outside your home.” This is from the NRA. It seems they realize the risks of unsecured guns in homes, but hope that nothing happens. They go on to say that you should teach your child about gun safety, but children aren’t adults; they aren’t as responsible, as knowledgeable, or as mature as adults. The NRA still does give some good advice. In this web site (http://www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/infoparents.asp), they offer information that they would prevent pediatricians from offering.
Almost everyone could agree that leaving a loaded weapon within reach of a child (depending on how you define child) would be child neglect, or possibly child endangerment, or possibly worse. We find out about most cases like these after the fact – the cold fact of the injury or death of a child or adult resulting from the “accidental” or even intentional discharge of the weapon by a child. By law, pediatricians, and indeed all physicians, are obligated to report child neglect and child abuse. Many cases of child abuse and neglect come to the attention of the pediatrician, sometimes as a result of the questions asked during a visit. When gun owners successfully stifle the questions, they are in effect saying, “It’s none of your business” if I decide to engage in behavior that is dangerous to my child.
But it is the business of the pediatrician. It is the business of all of us, but pediatricians are uniquely placed to examine the child (literally) and speak with both child and parents. The purpose is not nefarious and the result is not intended to be punitive. The goal is keeping the children alive.
Do parents fear that they will be suspected of neglect? They shouldn’t unless they gleefully admit to being neglectful. “I let my kids play with my loaded weapons. They like the noise the guns make when they shoot ‘em. Heck, it’s better ‘n fireworks.” The questions asked are only meant to determine if there is a situation that would put a child in danger. Parents who are knowledgeable about gun safety are a blessing for pediatricians. We, doctors, parents and children, are all on the same side.
If a family’s pediatrician seems to be “stepping over the line” and giving unwanted advice, the parents are free to find another pediatrician, or ignore the advice, but to deny that guns are a safety concern worthy of the attention of the pediatrician is ludicrous. People should not be forced to see physicians (or other health care providers) with whom they disagree, but to silence the doctor in an effort to avoid the issue is, or should be, as illegal as it is willfully ignorant.
I’m sure there are parents who would like to silence doctors on the issue of diet and exercise for children. Maybe the parents don’t want or need to hear it, and perhaps physicians can avoid offending by avoiding the subject, but that is contrary to the best interests of their patients. All questions of child safety are uncomfortable for some parents, but the duty of the physician is to the patient, the child, even when it comes to “uncomfortable” issues. At the very least, the discussion of guns and safety may be redundant. At most, it is life saving.
Imagine if the tobacco lobby persuaded a state legislature that pediatricians should not ask parents if they smoke. Or imagine the automobile industry lobbying to prohibit pediatricians from asking parents if they are using appropriate child car restraints. I wouldn’t be surprised if the automobile industry would like to avoid having parents think of their children dying in automobile accidents when they purchase a new car. The list of lobbyists that might like to suppress the speech of pediatricians is almost endless.
The only reasonable course is to allow pediatricians to do the best job they know to do, and if the patient/parent is unsatisfied, find another. Laws prohibiting this speech are un-American, unconstitutional, and an intrusion of Big Government that should be an anathema to everyone regardless of political persuasion.
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