Response to Dr. Arthur Kellermann's opinion article "Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia," Philip F. Lee July 2, 2008 (revised July 13, 2008) [ Op Eds ] Dr. Arthur Kellermann's opinion piece ("Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia," Washington Post 6/29/08) claims the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home outweigh the potential benefits. His advice, that keeping a gun constitutes a public health menace, is based on a study that does not consider individual circumstances of the gun keeper. For example, his study didn't make any effort to distinguish risk of death to criminals keeping guns from risk to decent citizens who might keep guns. A school teacher killed in her home would provide the same body count to Dr. Kellermann’s Seattle data as would a thug killed in his home. Yet, patterns of firearm deaths show risks to criminals are higher than school teachers (or other decent citizens). But Dr. Kellermann makes no allowances in his advice for such differences. Dr. Kellermann has a record of promoting laws to treat responsible adults as if they were children to be ordered about by the government for the public benefit. His paternalistic attitude is not new in issue advocacy. What is new is the moral blindness displayed by equivalencing different circumstances of deaths. He equivalences the benefit of nine self-defense shootings in his study data to lives assumed saved by not keeping a firearm. But he can't know the suicides or homicides in his data wouldn't have occurred even without a firearm in the home because he does not examine whether the individuals killed are engaged in risky (criminal) behavior or suicide while mentally disturbed. He ignores the benefit to the public of criminals being driven off without being killed – he credits no public benefit unless self-defense produces a body. He claims support from peer reviewed scientific studies, but within his own community the failure of peer review has become a matter of concern as illustrated by the article "Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review," by Edgar A. Suter MD, March 1994 J. of Med. Assoc. GA, 83(13). It is true that responsible gun owners should consider their circumstances in deciding whether and how to keep a firearm in the home. The founders of our republic thought that the people are the best repository of that decision-making authority, but Dr. Kellermann doesn’t want the people making that decision. He wants laws to treat you as children . . . for your own benefit.