The G word

[MachineGhost]

Accusations of "political correctness" is almost as annoying a red herring as the governmental and social silencing of opinions themselves.  I had to say the pledge of allegiance as a kid.  Was my teacher forcing me to do that "political correctness," or is a school administrator disallowing teachers to force it upon kids "political correctness."

Cry me a bloody river.  I had to sing the Star Spangled Banner every day!  No joke.

[I Shrugged]

In some states (at least), if you express to a doctor as much as a concern about depression or other mental issues, and the doctor finds out you own guns, you can be barred from owning guns.  I suspect this is the fear behind the Florida law.

[WiseOne]

Doctor: I want to discuss safety issues related to your kids with you (to mom) since accidents can have disasterous consequences. And run through a list mentioning a number e.g. pools, unlocked guns, including details for each etc.  This should be allowed. 

I agree with you.  Which is the whole point.  The Florida law imposes severe penalties on doctors for doing what you say here "should be allowed."  So why all the smoke & fire?

Honestly, I don't get it.  Accidents are the leading cause of death in children.  It's part of the pediatrician's job to advise parents on creating a safe environment, and there is existing law that makes physicians liable when children are in an unsafe environment and this is known to the physician (i.e. laws about mandatory child abuse reporting).  This is the entire context in which pediatricians counsel families about gun safety. 

This is not to say that some doctors might not behave in a way that offends some people who are (apparently) extremely sensitive on the topic of guns.  That a) isn't a reason to make a law, and b) isn't a reason for physicians not to ask these questions.  Part of my job is to ask people about things like sexual dysfunction for heaven's sake!  How is the topic of guns any more sensitive than that??

[WiseOne]

In some states (at least), if you express to a doctor as much as a concern about depression or other mental issues, and the doctor finds out you own guns, you can be barred from owning guns.  I suspect this is the fear behind the Florida law.

NOT TRUE.  Your mentioning a "concern about depression" is not a mental illness diagnosis.  And depression is not a diagnosis that would cause safety concerns unless it is determined that the patient is suicidal.

BTW agree that trying to find out if parents own guns, in the absence of any other extenuating circumstances, is weird  - but then, we have no idea what the backstory is or whether events indeed happened exactly as narrated.  If something unprofessional occurred, then the family might indeed have a basis for a complaint about the doctor in question.  Which is how that should be handled.

[coinstar]

I wonder how the liberals would feel is docs who were "islamaphobic" were asking their patients:

-So what religion are you in?

-Islam, eh? Have you thought about putting on a suicide vest and blowing up Christians in the name of Allah?

-Oh well, don't be offended but Islam is the only religion INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED TO KILL CHILDREN.

-Yes, it's actually in the Quran have you read it? It's actually a religion of hate and violence if you look into it.

-Well, I'm just going to enter here in your chart that you're Muslim so that in case you start acting weird, the government, who now has access to these electronic health records, can visit your house to make sure you're not misusing your Islam faith.

-Peace? LOL. Sure, whatever you say, buddy.

[coinstar]

For anyone who disagrees with my above post, look to New Jersey in recent years for "common sense" government intervention in gun owners lives when a teen posts a picture holding a hunting rifle on Facebook and gets multiple visits from the state department of children and families demanding to see the guns and making sure the teens don't have access and what mental problems the teens might have.

Or the child who chewed his pop tart into the shape of a gun and was expelled.

I'm frankly shocked that anyone can find this law appalling in any way. It specifically EXCLUDES reasonable questions about guns. If a patient went to a doctor's office and expressed suicidal or homicidal ideations then YES the doctor can ask about gun ownership. It makes sense in that case. If my tonsils are sore what does gun ownership have to do with anything???

It will become a standard question on every patient questionarre eventually. What medications do you take? What family medical history do you have? Do you own guns? If so, what calibers and how many of each gun?

How about when Obama through executive action wants to have a CDC study on percentage of gun owners and firearms accidents. So as a MANDATORY REQUIREMENT, all health care professionals MUST ask about gun ownership to get the denominator of that study. If not, no reimbursement from health insurance or Obamacare.

Don't believe me? Go into any clinic today and tell them you have a runny nose. You'll be answering questions about travel to Africa and being screened for DVTs, sepsis, and all sorts of other ridiculous things that have NOTHING to do with your visit. But the government mandates they ask those questions or they lose their certification to be a hospital/clinic.

Without anything stopping them, they WILL eventually mandate gun ownership questions. And really, if doctors aren't going to misuse their relationships with patients to ask about gun ownership (which this law does NOT prevent, because they CAN ask if it's pertinent to their visit), then this law does NOTHING. The law ONLY kicks in IF the doctors are misusing their power. So either you think they will misuse their power and this law is good, or you think they won't misuse their power and this law has ZERO impact.

So you should either LOVE this law or be 100% neutral to it.

[Pointedstick]

Doctor: I want to discuss safety issues related to your kids with you (to mom) since accidents can have disasterous consequences. And run through a list mentioning a number e.g. pools, unlocked guns, including details for each etc.  This should be allowed. 

I agree with you.  Which is the whole point.  The Florida law imposes severe penalties on doctors for doing what you say here "should be allowed."  So why all the smoke & fire?

Honestly, I don't get it.  Accidents are the leading cause of death in children.

Sorry WiseOne, but while unintentional injury is indeed the leading cause of death among children (citation), if you break down those injuries by type, gun accidents (unintentional firearm) isn't even in the top ten for all age groups except 10-14 with a grand total of 22 (in a country of 310 million) reported in 2012 (citation). It is an infinitesimally small risk. The bigger gun risk is apparently gun homicide, which as you'll notice rises sharply with age, suggesting gang activity and induction into criminality. I suspect if you could break these out into "intention" you would find that in the 15-24 age group, the vast majority of gun homicides are in the "I wanted to kill that guy!" category and not the "I was stupid enough to pull the trigger while pointing it at my best friend!" category.

I totally agree that this is a completely overblown thing, and I think the law is excessive and inappropriate, and I would like it repealed. But, again, we need to ask ourselves why this happened. It happened because some doctors poisoned the well by focusing on a tiny tiny risk, on a subject that's one of the most politically volatile issues in the USA, in a way that REALLY upsets a lot of parents (asking kids to spy on their parents). Given the (IMHO legitimate) fears of gun registration etc, there were and are fears that the medical community will be used to compile a list of gun owners or get gun owners disarmed--probably because these things have actually happened, and prominent medical publications are known to have strong anti-gun biases (NEJM for example). In the age of electronic medical records and the IRS getting your medical information, these really aren't illegitimate fears, I don't think. And rightly or wrongly, these are things that gun owners REALLY don't like, and 45% of American households own guns, so we have a HUGE amount of political power. So, again, while I disagree with the law, it's kind of like a kick-the-hornet's-nest-and-get-stung situation.

[WiseOne]

Doctor: I want to discuss safety issues related to your kids with you (to mom) since accidents can have disasterous consequences. And run through a list mentioning a number e.g. pools, unlocked guns, including details for each etc. This should be allowed.

I agree with you. Which is the whole point. The Florida law imposes severe penalties on doctors for doing what you say here "should be allowed." So why all the smoke & fire?

i don't see how you get to the conclusion that this is a restrictive gag order that stops doc's from asking questions under these circumstances. especially when it is written into the law that it excludes reasonable questions..

Because "reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder.  It's a stinking trick to allow the law to apply penalties in just about any case where someone either complains about being questioned, or where there's a bad outcome, and there's nothing physicians can do to protect themselves.  Many state driving restriction laws work the same way.  Why shouldn't I react to this law as adding yet one more reason to get the h**l out of clinical medicine?  Then there's be no doctors to talk to about anything, and Floridians will be presumably be happy that their guns are safe from doctors.  I find the whole thing to be inexplicably weird because out of all the reasons why gun owners might lose their gun rights, just about the last item on the list is "going to a pediatrician".

Maybe I'm against pretty much the entire board because I fundamentally don't understand why guns are such a sensitive issue.  Perhaps because they resemble a certain male body part.  I can't think of any other reason.  The one about how government will come and destroy you if you don't have guns is pretty darn irrational.  Governments are restrained by several things but gun ownership is simply not one of them.  If that were true, then Australia and New Zealand for example would be repressive dictatorships by now.  Doesn't seem like that's happening.  Is there a rational basis for this that someone can explain to me?

[Greg]

I'm certainly not an expert in this by any means, but to your points WiseOne for why it is sensitive, I look at a couple of things:

1.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_or ... ted_States, Ruby Ridge, Waco, people are worried about a New World Order and want to be able to protect themselves if the government tries to rise up against them.
2.) As PointedStick said at one point, it is an equalizer. A small man/woman can then have equal (or above equal) power against a large young man. Even with the thought of that going away if you live in a bad neighborhood could spook you.
3.) There are tons of guns on the street, and I'm assuming a lot that are unregistered (needs citation). If gun control were to take hold more or have them become illegal, I look at it going the way drugs end up going. A black-market develops more, and crimes to obtain them rise. Also it normally means more bad people have access to guns for their purposes versus good people for defending their land/their body/their property, etc.
4.) If I had a gun, I may or may not want others knowing I do. It might act as a deterrent if I had a sign on my lawn that says, "don't intrude, I'll shoot you with my gun". Or you might want to have it as your "secret/surprise" weapon if the need ever comes up to shock the intruder because they didn't know you had anything (Note intruder could be a bad person or NWO people like in #1 above).

[Benko]

WiseOne,

I may not be a primary care doc, but I do sympathize with what you are saying. Having said that, if fear of lawsuits is going to get you down, there are a lot higher risk issues to drive you crazy than this one.  Unless this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, in which case you need to recognise it for what it is.

I can't speak to the guns directly (perhaps PS can help you there).  I can tell you that I view this (e.g. asking adult to leave the room to question a child) as just another example of trying to shove your i.e. progressive agenda down our throats and some of us don't like it.

And if you're going to mention NZ,  I can tell you from personal experience much of the progressive BS that exists in the US now would not fly there.

[MachineGhost]

Maybe I'm against pretty much the entire board because I fundamentally don't understand why guns are such a sensitive issue.  Perhaps because they resemble a certain male body part.  I can't think of any other reason.  The one about how government will come and destroy you if you don't have guns is pretty darn irrational.  Governments are restrained by several things but gun ownership is simply not one of them.  If that were true, then Australia and New Zealand for example would be repressive dictatorships by now.  Doesn't seem like that's happening.  Is there a rational basis for this that someone can explain to me?

Our independence from King George the III?  It was different back in the day.  Repressive dictatorships were the norm, not the exception.  It's a proud heritage tradition and since women were not part of the militia, there's not that cultural pressure of having to hold up machismo, phallic symbolism, etc..  One way you can look at gun control is feminization of men.  Which isn't a bad thing in terms of expressive violence, but we all know they won't give that up too easily.

[Pointedstick]

Maybe I'm against pretty much the entire board because I fundamentally don't understand why guns are such a sensitive issue.  Perhaps because they resemble a certain male body part.  I can't think of any other reason.  The one about how government will come and destroy you if you don't have guns is pretty darn irrational.  Governments are restrained by several things but gun ownership is simply not one of them.  If that were true, then Australia and New Zealand for example would be repressive dictatorships by now.  Doesn't seem like that's happening.  Is there a rational basis for this that someone can explain to me?

Then it sounds like this entire issue is simply a proxy for your bewilderment on guns in general; obviously discussing the gag law isn't going to help out there so let's get to the meat of the issue.

The "male body part" thing is something that I find sexist and insulting, especially because more than a quarter of gun owners are women, and guns have nothing psychologically to do with male genitalia, any more than baseball bats, pencils, or skyscrapers represent penises. I am always surprised to hear people who I consider fairly tolerant and open-minded on other matters engage in this kind of discourse. It should be self-refuting and self-shaming to one who buys into any of the arguments against sexism in any other context.

But that's neither here not there. Let me tell you a story from my own life. It doesn't concern government destroying people for not owning a gun, bur rather something different; in fact, it's the thing that gun owners are always worrying about: government trying to destroy you for owning a gun.

I was living in New York at the time. A little north of NYC. I was a 20 year-old college student, and I decided that I wanted to purchase a firearm. I was not a conservative in the least; I voted for Obama later that year. I just felt like I wanted a gun because I thought they were mechanically interesting and I felt like doing something to commemorate my growing up and becoming more mature (hah!). Just something simple; a .22 caliber rifle. Nothing scary or "military-style." So I went out and bought one. This was a big leap for me because I felt like I was stepping into another world due to having been raised to be an anti-gun extremist, but that's another story.

Anyway, I didn't have a car at the time, so I walked to Mount Vernon and couldn't help but notice that there were a cluster of gun stores nearby, clearly having been zoned into the bad part of town. Interesting. I got there, purchased my rifle without much fanfare, and headed home. I had never been there before so I didn't have a great sense of direction, so I asked for directions from someone and discovered that I had walked into The Bronx.

No big deal, right? Except, it was. Because NYC has been granted the authority to write completely different gun laws than the rest of the state, and The Bronx is in NYC. The act of stepping over this arbitrary and invisible border exposed me to NYC's law on gun ownership: no possession without a license. With my brand new unloaded rifle locked in an obvious rifle case, I was in violation of this law and could be charged with "Unlawful Possession of a Firearm", a felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 1/2 years in prison.

I knew this at the time because I had done my best to study the laws, but it never dawned on me that I could accidentally violate them.

I viscerally remember the sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized that if any police officer happened to come by, I was in very real danger of being arrested and imprisoned for doing basically nothing at all--in fact something that was legal 500 feet north of me--resulting in my expulsion from the college I was attending and the likely destruction of any career prospects I would have. My life as a member of the upwardly-mobile would basically be over. And you know what? That feeling stuck with me. The cosmic injustice of victimless crimes. The arbitrariness of unmarked borders with drastically different criminal penalties on one side compared to the other. The terror of firearms and their owners among members of the state's policymakers.

Thankfully I managed to get the hell out of NYC before I was arrested for a victimless crime and my life was ruined.

In a lot of ways, guns are a little like physical gold. A gun is actually pretty inconvenient to own. It's large, heavy, needs to be protected, etc. It's expensive, and once you have it, there are ancillary expenses you might not have considered before. You expose yourself to more legal jeopardy compared to not having it, especially in certain places. Transporting it across various types of borders can be a legal nightmare and result in significant personal risk. There's no perfect answer regarding how you store it safely and securely, but with enough personal access in an emergency. Theft is a non-zero risk no matter where it's stored.

All in all, it's much easier to not own a gun and tell yourself that the risks it protects you against are exceptionally unlikely to occur. But, like gold, god help you if you ever find yourself in a situation where it's the only thing that will save your bacon but you don't have one. Not owning a gun is like having a 60/40 investment portfolio because you don't believe in the risk of hyperinflation or the value of gold in protecting against it.

[moda0306]

PS,

Your maturity around guns is not as common as you may think.  A large portion of gun enthusiasm in this country, sub-consciously, is just a metaphor for their masculinity, with little-to-do with "protecting freedom," or whatever they want to claim (while simultaneously supporting laws that remove freedom of speech and business practices of doctors).

If we're going to have the "quit kicking the hornets nest" conversation, that can go both ways.  A solid portion of gun owners are so ridiculous in their arguments and enthusiasms that they scare a huge portion of the population (not just left-wing-nutjobs) into being VERY sympathetic to gun control laws.  I think I've done more to protect gun rights in MN by inviting folks to go trap shooting who have never done it before (and many later admit to having pretty anti-gun views due to their lack of knowledge and only being exposed to right-wing nutjobs).

The last thing we need is another school shooting worse than Sandy Hook with either a handgun or AR-15, with the majority of centrists and center-left folks having no exposure to gun enthusiasts other than ridiculous claims and calls for revolution, as well as speaking out of both sides of their mouths with gag laws like this.  I'm actually probably much closer to agreement with a right-wing nutjob (libertarian view on guns) than a left-wing nutjob ("gun-free zones," illegalizing handguns and fast-firing "assault weapons," etc).  If I was king for a day, I don't know if I'd be able to come up with any sort of gun control policy that I thought would work in a fair way to responsible gun owners.

But the narrative of the RWNJ's isn't just a well-laid out logical claim.  There's an attitude about it that people can smell the grasps for masculinity all over.  And it turns them off... because those are the same guys cutting you off in their jacked pickup on the freeway, and calling for revolution in NV when some rancher gets challenged by the government.

I can understand being a bit offended by comments like WiseOne's, and I wish women who make claims like that were less apt to attempt to have their sexist cake and eat it too (when describing differences (or are there any?) between men and women).  But let's be honest... part of what makes owning guns so sweet isn't just the logical arguments about what they bring to us and our family, or society.  It's that rush you get when you get to shoot at something, and the power you feel while doing it.  (If you truly feel none of this, I apologize for projecting)  There's something subconscious that I think we're not acknowledging, here.

[Pointedstick]

PS,

Your maturity around guns is not as common as you may think.  A large portion of gun enthusiasm in this country, sub-consciously, is just a metaphor for their masculinity, with little-to-do with "protecting freedom," or whatever they want to claim (while simultaneously supporting laws that remove freedom of speech and business practices of doctors).

If we're going to have the "quit kicking the hornets nest" conversation, that can go both ways.  A solid portion of gun owners are so ridiculous in their arguments and enthusiasms that they scare a huge portion of the population (not just left-wing-nutjobs) into being VERY sympathetic to gun control laws.  I think I've done more to protect gun rights in MN by inviting folks to go trap shooting who have never done it before (and many later admit to having pretty anti-gun views due to their lack of knowledge and only being exposed to right-wing nutjobs).

I've been meaning to bring this up for a while now, because I feel like you've been guilty of building up an entire group of strawmen. I've noticed that gun discussions with you always go the direction of, "well, there are a ton of unreasonable crazy gun owners out there!" Do you have personal experience with this? I've known many gun owners personally and none of them have been crazy militia survivalists, slack-jawed rednecks, irrational white-knuckled rifle-clenchers, etc. I think these are harmful stereotypes that are used to marginalize and otherize an enormous number of people who are massively, overwhelmingly just like you and me. You really need to recalibrate your perceptions and try to be more open-minded about your friends, neighbors, and countrymen. Go to a gun show sometime and talk to people. The vendors, the participants, everyone. See how many of your preconceptions are confirmed vs how many women, families, highly-educated people, awesome people, etc you meet.

(See what I'm doing here with using leftist discourse against unconsciously bigoted leftist arguments? This is left's biggest weakness on guns: they start to sound like intolerant xenophobic conservatives and it undermines their own strengths)

I can understand being a bit offended by comments like WiseOne's, and I wish women who make claims like that were less apt to attempt to have their sexist cake and eat it too (when describing differences (or are there any?) between men and women).  But let's be honest... part of what makes owning guns so sweet isn't just the logical arguments about what they bring to us and our family, or society.  It's that rush you get when you get to shoot at something, and the power you feel while doing it.  (If you truly feel none of this, I apologize for projecting)  There's something subconscious that I think we're not acknowledging, here.

The lawful and socially acceptable uses of guns have nothing to do with masculinity. What they have to do with is protectiveness, which is an impulse that is shared by both men and women. Men want to protect women, women want to protect their children, both want to protect themselves, you name it. The "masculine" use of guns is probably what gangbangers are doing--swaggering around with guns and shooting and killing to show off their toughness, their machismo, their naked power. If you think this is what normal gun owners like you and me and everyone in the NRA has in mind, you're deluding yourself. These kinds of people are the ones that gun owners like you and me picture as the aggressor when we imagine ourselves using a gun to protect our families (don't try to deny it, I know it's true! ). The lawful gun owners who do this kind of thing--I think you're thinking about the jerks of Open Carry Texas who carry AR-15s into Chipotle--there are seriously like 20 of them. I could provide you with links from my collection full of stories about gun control activists who have physically assaulted gun owners if I wanted to. This isn't about the bad apples. Every movement has some cranks.

In the gun community--and this is especially true in the more "traditional" parts--gun are used to teach boys to moderate their masculinity and channel it into protectiveness rather than aggression. Guns are not for imposing your will on the world; they are for preventing the world from imposing its will on you! If you look at things from this perspective, I feel like a lot of the arguments that people make on both sides make a lot more sense and the differences between the worldviews that inform them come into sharp contrast. I have never known a person who was very strongly in favor of gun control who didn't actually want to impose their views on lots and lots of people, and who subconsciously understood that personally-owned firearms were a threat to this goal because they allowed people the ultimate form of resistance again the imposition of a foreign set of goals and actions: the ability to respond to it with violence if all else fails.

[Libertarian666]

Maybe I'm against pretty much the entire board because I fundamentally don't understand why guns are such a sensitive issue.  Perhaps because they resemble a certain male body part.  I can't think of any other reason.

This is an oppressive misandrist position that shocks me when propounded by a woman who is otherwise a great asset to the board.

[MachineGhost]

All in all, it's much easier to not own a gun and tell yourself that the risks it protects you against are exceptionally unlikely to occur. But, like gold, god help you if you ever find yourself in a situation where it's the only thing that will save your bacon but you don't have one. Not owning a gun is like having a 60/40 investment portfolio because you don't believe in the risk of hyperinflation or the value of gold in protecting against it.

Unless you were stupid enough to live in a place like ghetto Detroit or barrio El Paso, a gun isn't going to save your bacon anywhere frequently as gold does in actual reality.  Gold is not just for the SHTF scenario!

Seriously, do you ever wonder why a gun should be so difficult to own compared to gold instead of just manning up about leftwing loonie gun control nuts?  Gee, could it be that its designed to kill people?    Gold's pretty benign in comparison.

[MachineGhost]

But the narrative of the RWNJ's isn't just a well-laid out logical claim.  There's an attitude about it that people can smell the grasps for masculinity all over.  And it turns them off... because those are the same guys cutting you off in their jacked pickup on the freeway, and calling for revolution in NV when some rancher gets challenged by the government.

Oh, baby!

[align=center][/align]

[Pointedstick]

All in all, it's much easier to not own a gun and tell yourself that the risks it protects you against are exceptionally unlikely to occur. But, like gold, god help you if you ever find yourself in a situation where it's the only thing that will save your bacon but you don't have one. Not owning a gun is like having a 60/40 investment portfolio because you don't believe in the risk of hyperinflation or the value of gold in protecting against it.

Unless you were stupid enough to live in a place like ghetto Detroit or barrio El Paso, a gun isn't going to save your bacon anywhere frequently as gold does in actual reality.  Gold is not just for the SHTF scenario!

…And guns aren't just for ruined urban hellholes. I scared off a prowler with a gun on my first day living in a very night neighborhood some years ago. Crime that is preventable with a gun happens all over the place, just like how gold can do a portfolio good more often than when there's a major currency collapse.

Seriously, do you ever wonder why a gun should be so difficult to own compared to gold instead of just manning up about leftwing loonie gun control nuts?  Gee, could it be that its designed to kill people?    Gold's pretty benign in comparison.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but I think it's an appropriate comparison. People here frequently talk about how to store gold, where to store it, in what form to buy it, whether to insure it, etc. There are similar concerns with guns.

It's so obvious as to barely bear mentioning that guns were designed for killing. I'm not sure what the fixation on this is. Of course my guns can be used for killing. That's why I own them. And yet, despite the violent intent of the object's creation, the CDC tells us that the primary killers of children are other things. Cars, drowning, suffocation, falling down, etc. The intent behind a something's origin does nothing to tell us about its relative danger. Doctors intend to cure but end up killing something like a quarter million people a year (citation). Should we ban doctors?

[coinstar]

I support reasonable common sense restrictions on how doctors practice medicine. LOOK at how many deaths happen each year caused directly by doctors!

[moda0306]

I support reasonable common sense restrictions on how doctors practice medicine. LOOK at how many deaths happen each year caused directly by doctors!

So do I... gag orders don't accomplish this... what they do a phenomenal job of is showing us that a hefty wing of the gun advocate population doesn't give a rip about individual liberty... they just want their guns.

[Libertarian666]

I support reasonable common sense restrictions on how doctors practice medicine. LOOK at how many deaths happen each year caused directly by doctors!

So do I... gag orders don't accomplish this... what they do a phenomenal job of is showing us that a hefty wing of the gun advocate population doesn't give a rip about individual liberty... they just want their guns.

Right, because of course no government would ever grab anyone's guns. So putting data in a government-accessible database, which is every database, is perfectly safe!
You should write these guys immediately and tell them they are wrong in reporting this obvious lie:
http://www.businessinsider.com/californ ... ban-2013-9

[moda0306]

It's so obvious as to barely bear mentioning that guns were designed for killing. I'm not sure what the fixation on this is.

It's worth mentioning in the context of all the ridiculous comments a certain wing of the gun enthusiasts finds it necessary to work into their arguments that "guns are just tools," or "bathtubs cause more deaths," or "should we ban cars too?"

Guns are just tools.  They kill less people than cars.  But ALL they are are tools to kill others.  They don't transport you to work.  They don't help you clean your body off.

With the level of regulations of products in this country, good or bad, is it any wonder why people would want guns regulated to SOME degree?  We regulate all sorts of products for safety purposes.  Is it that surprising/offensive that we regulate something with the sole, specific goal of killing another creature?  It may be debatable in whether it does much good, but certainly not uniquely worth fomenting a revolution over, which many in this country seem to think it is.

And this isn't a "straw man" as far as I'm aware. I would agree that most gun-owners are being mature/safe about their decision.  But even many of them are sympathetic with pangs of revolution and secession everytime gun control is brought up, and IMO their arguments ring of anarchist/libertarian assumptions that if carried universally would yield a very different government than they're complacent with on every other issue, including the gross intrusions into Americans' 4th Amendment rights.  So this tells me something.  If they're uniquely interested in liberty around guns, rather than any other area of government intrusion... as well as often failing pretty solidly on other areas of safety (diet, exercise, finance, etc).

And btw... I'm not trying to judge these folks.  Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, commies... we've all got our contradictions and quirks.  We're human.  But if we're going to discuss the true motivation for the bombastic enthusiasm around gun liberty relative to other areas of liberty or personal safety, then I think we should just be honest about it, even if it insults some of the sensibilities of some folks (we certainly don't shy away from getting real introspective on the core motivations of liberals).

Yes, a gun is a logical thing to own to protect your family.  But in my experience, humans aren't logical creatures, and gun advocates are by no means exempt from that.

[moda0306]

I support reasonable common sense restrictions on how doctors practice medicine. LOOK at how many deaths happen each year caused directly by doctors!

So do I... gag orders don't accomplish this... what they do a phenomenal job of is showing us that a hefty wing of the gun advocate population doesn't give a rip about individual liberty... they just want their guns.

Right, because of course no government would ever grab anyone's guns. So putting data in a government-accessible database, which is every database, is perfectly safe!
You should write these guys immediately and tell them they are wrong in reporting this obvious lie:
http://www.businessinsider.com/californ ... ban-2013-9

In this instance, it is gun advocates restricting liberty of doctors.  If we're going to advocate personal liberty, just don't answer the damn question... quit trying to control society to your benefit.  Sure, there could be some negative MACRO effects of asking these questions, but that's none of my concern if I'm an ardent individualist.

Look... if I was a doctor, I wouldn't ask about this.  I'd ask about the garbage parents are likely feeding their children.  I'd ask about the amount of time they spend on electronics.  Government regulates television and food... think of what they could DO with that information!!!

We could play this game all day long.  And part of me is glad these debates are being had to flush all the info on this to the surface.  But we sure are learning more about core motivations of populations, IMO. 

[Benko]

With the level of regulations of products in this country, good or bad, is it any wonder why people would want guns regulated to SOME degree?  We regulate all sorts of products for safety purposes.  Is it that surprising/offensive that we regulate something with the sole, specific goal of killing another creature?  It may be debatable in whether it does much good, but certainly not uniquely worth fomenting a revolution over, which many in this country seem to think it is.

And this isn't a "straw man" as far as I'm aware.

because we do stupid things in other areas, whether it a good or bad idea, whether it does any good or not, is it a wonder people want to do the same things to guns.  That is what you are saying.

[Benko]

With the level of regulations of products in this country, good or bad, is it any wonder why people would want guns regulated to SOME degree?  We regulate all sorts of products for safety purposes.  Is it that surprising/offensive that we regulate something with the sole, specific goal of killing another creature?  It may be debatable in whether it does much good, but certainly not uniquely worth fomenting a revolution over, which many in this country seem to think it is.

And this isn't a "straw man" as far as I'm aware.

because we do stupid things in other areas, whether it a good or bad idea, whether it does any good or not, is it a wonder people want to do the same things to guns.  That is what you are saying.

IMO, that's exactly what the gag order law is.

People don't want to be even *asked* about whether or not they own a gun, so they requested government intervention to spare them from the traumatic experience of such a conversation. 

Personally I've decided the gag order is a bad but very understandable idea.  And it is not the tramautic experience of the conversation, it is using the state to protect you from (the consequences of an overreaching) state as implemented by overzealous doctors who cannot control themselves. 

+1