Pediatric doctors’ effort to ban guns
is medically and factually misguided

WASHINGTON, DC — A plan by pediatric doctors to lobby for a
ban on handguns because they’re a “risk” to the safety of children –
and to quiz parents about guns in the home during children’s
physicals — is “malpractice against the Constitution,” the
Libertarian Party charged today.

“Pediatric doctors should concentrate on helping children, not
attacking the Constitution,” said Steve Dasbach, the party’s national
director. “Pediatric doctors have no business lobbying to restrict the
rights of adult Americans — and trying to disguise their politics as
medicine.”

Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) passed a
new policy statement demanding that handguns be banned by the federal
government; that trigger locks and other “safety” features be mandated
until that happens; and that the Consumer Product Safety Commission be
allowed to regulate handguns.

The AAP also urged pediatric doctors to interrogate parents
about guns in the home during routine physical examinations of
children — and to urge parents to remove any weapons.

Fatal shootings of children have reached an “epidemic” level,
said the AAP, which is why “the most effective strategy” to protect
children is “to get rid of guns.”

But the AAP effort is misguided not only on Constitutional
grounds, but also on the basis of the facts, countered Dasbach. The
reality is, he said:

* Guns are not a major danger to children.

“The Centers for Disease Control reported that only 42 children
under the age of 10 were killed accidentally by guns in 1996,” said
Dasbach. “While any death is tragic, keep in mind that 40 children
under the age of five drown in a typical year in five-gallon water
buckets, and another 80 drown in bathtubs.

“If pediatric doctors are genuinely concerned about children,
why aren’t they lobbying to ban five-gallon water buckets and
bathtubs?”

* Guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans save lives.

“According to a study by John Lott and David Mustard at the
University of Chicago, concealed carry handgun laws reduced murder
rates by 8.5% in those states that passed such laws,” noted Dasbach.
“Had such right-to-carry laws been in effect all across the USA, there
would be 1,600 fewer murders every year. That’s potentially 1,600
parents who would be alive to raise their children in a happy, healthy
home.

“In their zeal to protect children, these pediatric doctors are
putting parents and families at risk.”

* The power to ban guns gives the government too much power.

“What these pediatric doctors don’t seem to understand is that
a government powerful enough to ban handguns is also powerful to
nationalize the medical industry, micromanage their practices, and
ration healthcare and medicine,” said Dasbach. “Children won’t be safer
if the Constitution gets sicker — and neither will the freedom of
doctors to practice medicine.”

For all these reasons, said Dasbach, the AAP should get out of
the anti-freedom lobbying business — and go back to the medical
business.

“When doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, they swear to, ‘First,
do no harm.’ The AAP has violated that oath by trying to harm the
Constitution — the document that outlines the basic freedoms that made
America the most free and prosperous country on earth, with the most
medical choices,” he said. “These pediatric doctors need to remember
that in the long run, children won’t be safer in a country where the
government has the power violate people’s basic civil liberties.”