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I have mixed feelings about this law. One one hand, it is an effort to counter the idea that gun ownership is a "health" issue, another tactic by which the gun-grabbers seek to marginalize gun ownership and legitimize further restrictions on ownership. To that extent, I sympathize with the law. On the other hand, it criminalizes the mere asking of a question, and to that extent reminds me of ominous trends in Left-wing legislation, such as laws prohibiting landlords from asking certain questions of prospective tenants. So this cuts both ways, in my opinion.

As I recall, there was an organized lobbying effort by one of the pediatricians associations which brought about these questions as a supporting process for their anti-gun political position. They weren't asking about storage of chainsaws or of baseball bats or kitchen knives, they were only asking about guns.

The policy was designed on their part to make it difficult for gun owners in some small way, it had nothing to do with safety.

Personally I'm glad to see it go.

So this cuts both ways, in my opinion.

Yes, it does.

If the data indicate that fewer households have firearms than do, the pediatric injury/death statistics will show the presence of a firearm to be proportionally more dangerous than it actually is.

That will be shouted from the rooftops every time a gun control bill hits a legislature. (along with the liberal battle cry: "Forrrr the Chillldrennnn!"

If even people who do no have firearms reply that they do, the number of owners will appear greater, the danger less, and the study will be buried.

Our pediatrician sent home a brochure suggesting you should lock your guns up along with other safety advice. I have no problem with that, but I remember they were thinking about pulling the kids aside from their parents to ask them that question, with which I have a total problem.

With how difficult HMOs and other quasi-socialized medicine groups are making it to switch doctors, I don't have an issue with this. The fact that they only ask about FAs and not "do you have a pool in the back yard? do you cover it? is there a fence around it?" tends to prove that they are abusing the doctor-patient relationship and restrictions in free choice in order to keep a form of tabs and registry on their patients (don't forget Slick Willie's misleadingly titled "Medical Privacy Act" which actually enabled health agencies to share databased information with other agencies) and to make law-abiding citizens feel pressured into not exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.

Since the increase in Medicare/Medicaid regulations and other government regulations and the MPA, doctors are more and more becoming agents of the state. I object to this. But until we get the free market back into medicine, it is as wrong for doctors to ask this question as part of their personal political agenda as it would be for agents of the DMV.

On the other hand, it criminalizes the mere asking of a question, and to that extent reminds me of ominous trends in Left-wing legislation, such as laws prohibiting landlords from asking certain questions of prospective tenants. So this cuts both ways, in my opinion.

There are many thousand times as many people who die from medical mistakes in hospitals than who die from accidental gun shots.

Are we allowed to ask how many have died in the hospital, where he practices, and what is he doing to stop these accidental deaths?

He should stick to his field, and not get sidetracked.