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The Social Hygiene of Gun Control
By Timothy Wheeler, M.D.
CNS Commentary
20 March, 2000
American gun owners have had a bad couple of weeks. First President Clinton and candidate Al Gore all but blamed them for the awful shooting of a Michigan first-grader by her schoolmate. The five-year-old shooter lived in a house where drugs and crime were rampant. Register America's handguns and make every gunowner carry a photo ID, the Clinton-Gore team implied, and crack-house kid shootings will stop.
Then the public health doctors piled on, urging gun owners to submit to their hygienic measures for gun control. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) just issued an update of its recommendations for preventive child health care. The guidelines advise pediatricians to "influence community attitudes . . . legislation, and regulation" with the goal of "reduction or elimination of handguns."
The guidelines refer doctors to a detailed action plan and set forth a multi-tiered advocacy effort. Doctors are supposed to work this political agenda on patients and their families, in their communities, and in government. The plan specifically urges elimination of handguns. Civil rights and the Constitution are not mentioned, the Second Amendment apparently regarded as an embarrassing nuisance.
Pediatrics has a long and proud tradition of promoting the well being of children. Widespread immunization against polio and diphtheria, for example, is the result of years of pediatricians' vigilance and dedication. As a result, these old scourges are just a bad memory. Because of pediatricians, children in abusive homes are routinely rescued from injury or death.
But now pediatricians are redirecting the principle of prevention into our lives in a way never intended by their professional mandate. We allow physicians to know the private details of our lives so they can make us well. We depend on them to educate us in the promotion of health. How tempting it is, then, for a doctor to misuse that trust and offer a heartfelt political belief as medical advice. After all, it's for the children.
Pediatricians, regrettably, yielded to that temptation long ago with gun control. The pediatrician who is the chief architect of the AAP's anti-gun guidelines also founded the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network. This is an exclusive organization dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who oppose the HELP Network's radical agenda are not even allowed to attend the group's conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization.
Public health often balances the general good against personal freedoms. One need only look at the resistance of some parents to child immunizations to understand the issues of personal autonomy at stake.
But when public health intervention undermines a constitutional right, citizens are justified in resisting it. Today there is no clearer example of a public health assault on civil liberties than the pediatricians' campaign to persuade families that guns are bad.
There is another problem with the public health anti-gun crusade. It urges doctors to probe their young patients and their parents about guns in the home. Such meddling violates the boundary between a patient and doctor. Patients trust doctors to do what is right for them. When the doctor is driven by an ulterior motive such as trying to turn kids and their parents against gun ownership, she is committing an unethical act deserving of disciplinary action.
The AAP anticipates some patients may not go along quietly. "Pediatricians should be prepared for resistance," the guidelines warn prospective proselytizers. The organization's instructional packet for speakers includes a section on how to deal with "challenging individuals" who might object to the AAP's gun demonization program on scientific or constitutional grounds.
American gun owners feel the heat being slowly turned up. Now they are coming to realize that Clinton-Gore and the American Academy of Pediatrics are making no exception for law-abiding gun owners. In the war of words, they are being lumped in with the very few criminal gun owners who make daily headlines. A suburban father who takes his kids to the shooting range is the moral equivalent of a crack-addicted father who abandons his child to the care of another criminal. No wonder the National Rifle Association is signing up new members so fast.
We have become accustomed to exaggerated rhetoric from politicians. But our doctors? Never. Never should we have to put up with feigned motives and false counsel from the professionals in whose hands we place our children's wellness.
We can, however, believe the meaning of one pronouncement by Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, HELP Network's founder: "Guns are a virus that must be eradicated." American gun owners, you have been warned.
Timothy Wheeler, M.D., is the director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Claremont Institute.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
The Social Hygiene of Gun Control
By Timothy Wheeler, M.D.
CNS Commentary
20 March, 2000
American gun owners have had a bad couple of weeks. First President Clinton and candidate Al Gore all but blamed them for the awful shooting of a Michigan first-grader by her schoolmate. The five-year-old shooter lived in a house where drugs and crime were rampant. Register America's handguns and make every gunowner carry a photo ID, the Clinton-Gore team implied, and crack-house kid shootings will stop.
Then the public health doctors piled on, urging gun owners to submit to their hygienic measures for gun control. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) just issued an update of its recommendations for preventive child health care. The guidelines advise pediatricians to "influence community attitudes . . . legislation, and regulation" with the goal of "reduction or elimination of handguns."
The guidelines refer doctors to a detailed action plan and set forth a multi-tiered advocacy effort. Doctors are supposed to work this political agenda on patients and their families, in their communities, and in government. The plan specifically urges elimination of handguns. Civil rights and the Constitution are not mentioned, the Second Amendment apparently regarded as an embarrassing nuisance.
Pediatrics has a long and proud tradition of promoting the well being of children. Widespread immunization against polio and diphtheria, for example, is the result of years of pediatricians' vigilance and dedication. As a result, these old scourges are just a bad memory. Because of pediatricians, children in abusive homes are routinely rescued from injury or death.
But now pediatricians are redirecting the principle of prevention into our lives in a way never intended by their professional mandate. We allow physicians to know the private details of our lives so they can make us well. We depend on them to educate us in the promotion of health. How tempting it is, then, for a doctor to misuse that trust and offer a heartfelt political belief as medical advice. After all, it's for the children.
Pediatricians, regrettably, yielded to that temptation long ago with gun control. The pediatrician who is the chief architect of the AAP's anti-gun guidelines also founded the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network. This is an exclusive organization dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who oppose the HELP Network's radical agenda are not even allowed to attend the group's conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization.
Public health often balances the general good against personal freedoms. One need only look at the resistance of some parents to child immunizations to understand the issues of personal autonomy at stake.
But when public health intervention undermines a constitutional right, citizens are justified in resisting it. Today there is no clearer example of a public health assault on civil liberties than the pediatricians' campaign to persuade families that guns are bad.
There is another problem with the public health anti-gun crusade. It urges doctors to probe their young patients and their parents about guns in the home. Such meddling violates the boundary between a patient and doctor. Patients trust doctors to do what is right for them. When the doctor is driven by an ulterior motive such as trying to turn kids and their parents against gun ownership, she is committing an unethical act deserving of disciplinary action.
The AAP anticipates some patients may not go along quietly. "Pediatricians should be prepared for resistance," the guidelines warn prospective proselytizers. The organization's instructional packet for speakers includes a section on how to deal with "challenging individuals" who might object to the AAP's gun demonization program on scientific or constitutional grounds.
American gun owners feel the heat being slowly turned up. Now they are coming to realize that Clinton-Gore and the American Academy of Pediatrics are making no exception for law-abiding gun owners. In the war of words, they are being lumped in with the very few criminal gun owners who make daily headlines. A suburban father who takes his kids to the shooting range is the moral equivalent of a crack-addicted father who abandons his child to the care of another criminal. No wonder the National Rifle Association is signing up new members so fast.
We have become accustomed to exaggerated rhetoric from politicians. But our doctors? Never. Never should we have to put up with feigned motives and false counsel from the professionals in whose hands we place our children's wellness.
We can, however, believe the meaning of one pronouncement by Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, HELP Network's founder: "Guns are a virus that must be eradicated." American gun owners, you have been warned.
Timothy Wheeler, M.D., is the director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Claremont Institute.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.