OTish: Bipartisan bill filed in MA House to ban pre-8th grade tackle football

BradyFTW! said:

What you're describing is a textbook case of risk compensation: as people feel safer and more protected, they 'compensate' for this sense of safety by engaging in riskier behavior. It's a well-established and widely observed phenomenon that definitely applies to football. Also applies and is commonly seen with cars and the steady adoption of safety features there. The safer people feel, the more recklessly they drive.

Risk compensation - Wikipedia

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. Didn’t know the official term for it

BradyFTW! said:

They made weed legal for adults. Football is also legal for adults. "Regulate what children can legally do based on the fact that they're incapable of making informed choices on areas that have long-term impacts on their development and health... but generally let consenting adults conduct themselves how they like where others' rights aren't being interfered with" seems perfectly fine to me.

Frankly, I don't see what kind of ideologically consistent beliefs someone could have to be for adult drug prohibition but against regulating tackle football for kids. If you're okay with the government telling adults they can't grow and smoke their own weed, then you pretty much have to either accept you're a hypocrite or accept that banning kids from doing things at high risk of compromising their development is acceptable. If the government telling adults they can't engage in behavior where they're the only 'victim' is fine, then surely the government telling kids they can't engage in behavior where they're the only 'victim' must also be fine.

I have mixed feelings on banning tackle football at such a young age, but at a minimum I don't think it's completely without merit like I suspect most of this forum does.

Click to expand...

Because parents are capable of making those decisions. No one wants a nanny state since it takes parents to raise a child

If we ban football, we have to ban soccer, baseball, hockey, skiing and any other sport where kids get seriously injured.

There’s risks involved with everything. How many people die from lightning strikes vs football? They should have pamphlets for parents before signing kids to football addressing the risks involved and allow the parents to make an informed decision about their kids playing football. It’s just the more rational thing to do instead of mandating how we have to live.

QuantumMechanic said:

"Under a bipartisan bill supported by 17 House members, schools and leagues would be fined $2,000 for allowing children in grade seven and below to play organized tackle football, which research suggests is more harmful to young players than previously thought."

Beacon Hill Weighs Banning Youth Tackle Football

Click to expand...

Awful

QuantumMechanic said:

"Under a bipartisan bill supported by 17 House members, schools and leagues would be fined $2,000 for allowing children in grade seven and below to play organized tackle football, which research suggests is more harmful to young players than previously thought."

Beacon Hill Weighs Banning Youth Tackle Football

Click to expand...

Why not, oh I don’t know, let parents actually parent and let them make their own decisions for their children? If you’re banning football, ban soccer too. That sport has a high rate of concussions.

Steve:Section 102 said:

I have a problem with the government banning sports, yes. I don't need the government to parent me or my children. I can make the decision as to whether or not my pre-highschooler can play football. I don't need Big Brother to tell me.

Click to expand...

Should it be legal to beat your kid?

Would be curious to see studies on injuries, concussions, etc in towns/regions where kids aren’t allowed to played tackle until middle school or older vs. when they’re younger. Maybe it’s out there and just haven’t looked. Knowing how to tackle is a variable. If kids have a great coach in the 5th grade who teaches how to tackle properly, it may serve them better than say kids who don’t play tackle until 7th grade who are taught sh*tty tackling technique by someone’s blowhard dad. It only takes one bad hit for it to be detrimental.

The overreach of the state into how parents raise their children will continue into more areas of their lives until people slap their hand and tell them enough.

Sadly at the rate we are going it will be far too late by the time we get to that point.

Mass has long turned into an intolerable nanny state. Its gun laws are wacky, draconian and will be found unconstitutional when SCOTUS deals with them.

KontradictioN said:

Why not, oh I don’t know, let parents actually parent and let them make their own decisions for their children?

Click to expand...

I know this discussion is going to be had at the extremes, but I'll just say that I'm not in favor of parents being able to make any choice they want when it comes to their child. This particular ruling feels like it is going too far but at the same time I don't think parents should be able to decide to not get medical care for a sick kid because of religious reasons, as one example.

Unless you believe in full parental prerogative then you're already accepting that the state will prohibit a parent from engaging in some behavior with their kid. As is the case with most things a lot of what we consider ok for the state to prohibit probably is due to normalization. I suspect parents 100 years ago would be marching in the streets to set city hall on fire over religious views on medical care if the state had prohibited it back then.

Again this argument is pretty pointless without numbers.

Here's a study that concludes that 5% of all youth football players age 5-14 sustain a concussion each season:

https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31586-5/fulltext

I tried to find the same for soccer, and some studies said it was a similar number, but they were reporting concussions as a percentage of injuries, not as a percentage of all players.

Also, concussions have increased over the years, but most articles say that's due to the increased emphasis on them and diagnostic ability.

Regardless of how they compare to soccer, let's take the 5% number on face value. Your kid has a 1 in 20 chance of sustaining a traumatic brain injury that could severely affect his neurological development given that < 14 years old is the worst time to get these injuries.

Should tackle football then be allowed? Should parents be given the ability to make that decision for their kid? Keep in mind that as cliche as it is, some parents are living vicariously through their kids or have unrealistic expectations that they'll play in the NFL some day, and are willing to take that 5% risk to keep deluding themselves.

I actually don't know what to think in this situation (I only have a daughter so as of now it's moot). I'd have to think about it more. 5% chance seems pretty high though.

If you think 5% is small enough that the benefits of tackle football outweigh that risk, what number would be too high? 80%? 99%? Just curious.

Hey! I GOT IT!!!!

OUTLAW EVERYTHING!!!! then we can stop with these ficken' sobfests about the dangers of LIFE.

at the very least, outlaw that damn Fnord...he's a MENACE

Overreach imo. If towns and cities want ban youth football in their schools that’s their right, but the state shouldn’t be creating a universal ban on it.

.

fnordcircle said:

This particular ruling feels like it is going too far but at the same time I don't think parents should be able to decide to not get medical care for a sick kid because of religious reasons, as one example.

Click to expand...

The moment misinformed (or uninformed) idiots can cause unnecessary measles outbreaks is the moment you can say without much doubt that "parents" should definitely not have absolute say when it comes to health related decisions for their children.

PatriotsReign said:

Saw this earlier on FB. The vast majority of comments were strongly against this.

Kids get concussions and disabled playing baseball, soccer, skiing, hockey, gymnastics and boxing. We should not allow our legislators to dictate which sports they can play in my opinion

Click to expand...

Kids get concussions in those sports, however at *significantly* lower rates than football.

It’s a slippery slope but I don’t mind legislation that attempts to protect those who are really incapable of considering the potential ramifications of head trauma, which anyone younger than 12-13 really can’t properly analyze and think rationally about.

CTE is virtually a death sentence.

Steve:Section 102 said:

I have a problem with the government banning sports, yes. I don't need the government to parent me or my children. I can make the decision as to whether or not my pre-highschooler can play football. I don't need Big Brother to tell me.

Click to expand...

I suppose (hypothetically speaking) if you came to the conclusion that it was perfectly fine for your child to binge drink alcohol (and your child wanted to binge drink, too), that’d be no problem and we should entirely trust your judgment without any attempt to legislate away that decision and the resulting behavior?

It's a weak analogy but the point is that the state always has been proactive about protecting those who are not (legally) capable of consenting to inherently dangerous activities. Is binge drinking (on average) more dangerous than playing football? Absolutely. But *if* someone playing football develops CTE, you're done for. Not a matter of if you'll die from it, it's when, and the progression of the illness sounds absolutely awful ... there's no quality of life there.

pheenix11 said:

The overreach of the state into how parents raise their children will continue into more areas of their lives until people slap their hand and tell them enough.

Sadly at the rate we are going it will be far too late by the time we get to that point.

Click to expand...

If a parent wanted their kid to participate in bull-fighting, or a parent wanted to give their child a sedating drug (such as a benzodiazepine) to help them sleep (and in both cases the child consented), should the parent have full autonomy to make those decisions without any attempt by the state to create laws that protect children who are not capable of fully realizing and thinking through the potential consequences of their actions?

Yes, not everyone who plays football will get CTE, but we now have strong anecdotal evidence (and some data, I believe) that those who play football develop CTE at (in my opinion) notable rates. CTE is a death sentence, and it's only a matter of how long it takes to cause fatal neurological deterioration, not if.

It's a tricky issue because if someone does not develop CTE there is seemingly no reason not to play football; the other injuries that occur, while surely debilitating in some regards, are not life-enders. But CTE is a veritable life-ender and therefore the decision to play football, especially among young children who lack the ability to rationally consider what CTE would mean for their life, should be considered extremely carefully.

I have no problem with the legislation proposed, but I understand why others would be hesitant/uncertain/opposed on principle.

dreighver said:

Kids get concussions in those sports, however at *significantly* lower rates than football.

It’s a slippery slope but I don’t mind legislation that attempts to protect those who are really incapable of considering the potential ramifications of head trauma, which anyone younger than 12-13 really can’t properly analyze and think rationally about.

CTE is virtually a death sentence.

Click to expand...

I guess as long as the law doesn’t age-creep and morph into banning tackle football through high school

jboston19 said:

God forbid they focus on important things. Until cigarettes are completely outlawed, banning stuff like this seems asinine.

Click to expand...

Tobacco products and cow farts.

My hope is Mass will be the first to take action against these bovine polluters.