(from quotesgram.com)
In case anybody missed it earlier this month, amidst all the national heartache, finger-pointing, drama, and lies, the American Academy of Pediatrics decided again never to let a tragedy go to waste.Yes, the AAP announced yet another “New Initiative”.
Go ahead, read the whole thing—I’ll wait.
As if they hadn’t already stepped far enough outside their professional lane in advocating against Second Amendment Civil Rights, now the AAP wants to “Confront Violence in Children’s Lives”. And though what kind of violence didn’t make the headline, we all know what that is (*nudge-nudge, wink-wink*).
“The initiative’s members, agenda and goals will be shared in the coming days, and will address gun violence as well as the underlying contributors of racism, religious intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, terrorism or any other form of intolerance.”
There it is in the opening paragraph—lumped in with every other evil of society—”gun violence”. Not baseball bat violence, not closed fist violence, not violence in general – just “gun violence”.
As is usual with the AAP, it’s all because of children—however tangentially. There was a child in the car in St. Paul, is one reason given by the AAP president.
But the lamest of lame justifications came from the AAP CEO. After giving a list of mainly terrorism-involved tragedies in the past year, she states that “Every person involved was once a child.” Astounding revelation there, Captain Obvious! If you have to reach that far to justify yourself, even YOU know you are being lame.
This “Initiative” is full of what I call the Impotent Something—as in, We HAVE to Do SOMETHING!!!
The AAP President said, “Today, we must act. As president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, I am eager to convene our experts and think boldly about the role pediatricians and the AAP must play to confront the twin epidemics of violence and intolerance in the lives of children, adolescents, young adults, and their families.”
There ya go—they are going to “think boldly”. An Impotent Something if I ever heard one.
Then there is this: “Pediatricians may not be able to solve these problems—which leave in their wake fear and mistrust, confusion, anger and deep sorrow—but pediatricians know children best.”
And this: “Through this new effort, we will confront the violence in children’s lives and its root causes. We don’t yet know where this conversation will lead us, we just know we need to act. I look forward to beginning this work as soon as possible.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I myself did not learn a thing in pediatric residency about how to “confront violence”. I was however, once physically attacked in the peds outpatient clinic by a mother who wasn’t quite all there. Does that count?
The only place where I have learned to “confront violence” was on the range at Gunsite Academy. I don’t have any data on this, but I’m guessing that they haven’t hosted a whole ton of pediatricians other than me.
By their own admission, the AAP doesn’t even know WHAT they want to do, and they admit that they probably won’t be able to DO whatever that is anyway, but hey – they’re going to “act”.
Nonsense like this is how really bad legislation happens. Emotion rather than logic abounds in “initiatives” like this.
The twin dangers here are:
1) Medical organizations like the AAP anointing themselves as “experts”, even though issues like this lie well outside their training and expertise,
and
2) Well-meaning, emotionally-driven Somethings, though they make everybody “feel better”, are often useless in the face of the actual problem, and are frequently more harmful in the end, as they distract from the actual causes of the problem, or infringe upon the rights of those who are NOT the problem.
The AAP needs to hang this quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis in their main offices: “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Brandeis’ words already hang in the U.S. Capitol building, but apparently our legislators haven’t read it either.
—“Dr. LateBloomer” is the pen name of a female general pediatrician (MD, MPH, FAAP) who enjoys competitive shooting sports, including IDPA, USPSA and 3-Gun. Evil semi-automatic firearms are her favorites.