As has been rightly noted already, there's a measure of hypocrisy in this issue, on both sides. I don't recall any doctor--including my kid's pediatrician--asking me whether I store the keys to the car securely, or whether I obey all traffic rules, even though once's chances of being injured in a motor vehicle collision are significantly higher than those of incurring a gunshot wound. On the other hand, it's remarkable to see a Republican asserting that there
is "an individual's right to privacy" after all the bitching about the SCOTUS was "legislating from the bench" in
Roe v. Wade by acknowledging that exact same right.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is definitely peddling some horseshit, though.
"One in 25" sounds more dramatic than "4%" doesn't it? Either way, it's meaningless without telling us how many patients are admitted specifically to pediatric trauma centers (as opposed to regular ERs and non-pediatric trauma centers), and whether there are particular kinds of trauma for which a child is more likely to be transferred to specifically a pediatric trauma center.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used to kill a friend or family member than a burglar or other criminal. The best way to avoid firearm injuries and deaths is not to own a gun.
Still using Kellermann's 1986 exercise in junk science?
Yeah, look at how much lower suicide rates in western Europe and Japan are! Oh, wait...
It's not actually what the study says, by the way. The study says firearms ownership is a "risk factor," which is one of those weasel phrases (along with "linked to" and "associated with") that medical and public health researchers use to mean "correlation with no evidence of causation, but we'd like you to think there is." It also says that "additional studies are warranted" on this issue, which is standard, because medical/public health researchers only ever do
retrospective studies of firearms-related topics, and never try to confirm the results with prospective studies for some odd reason. Probably because the correlations they've managed to extract by
fudging the numbers until they supported the authors' predetermined conclusion adjusting for other factors would evaporate.