Just days before Biden’s catastrophic debate debacle on CNN, his surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, issued an announcement. Gun violence is a public health threat. I’d call it a logistical move, but almost no one noticed, and before the Friday News Dump arrived, Joe’s “performance issues” were all anyone wanted to discuss.
Murthy’s grand gesture got lost in the stampede, but it’s out there, and we all saw it coming. Petty despots armed with emergency powers many of us never knew existed until the China Virus crossed our borders would find inventive applications in the future. The drive to neuter that overreach became a priority with some successes and other failures.
Some aging bits of parchment weren’t going to stop them on their own. And while Murthy is supposed to be the nation’s top Doc, no one gets there without being a politician.
“Firearm violence is an urgent public health crisis that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain, and profound grief for far too many Americans,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. “We don’t have to continue down this path, and we don’t have to subject our children to the ongoing horror of firearm violence in America. All Americans deserve to live their lives free from firearm violence, as well as from the fear and devastation that it brings. It will take the collective commitment of our nation to turn the tide on firearm violence.”
Why not try to get a public health emergency powers foot in the door to do something about guns? What is there to lose? Worst case, no one does anything but is that truly all that might come of it? Let’s look at the closing paragraph before citations.
While further research is needed to better understand firearm violence and its impacts, we can promote programs, policies, and practices right now that create safer conditions for the American people. This requires leveraging community leaders, working closely with at-risk populations, and educating the public on key protective actions. An all-of-society effort is required to help create safer conditions, build healthier communities, and save lives.
Current Judicial precedent would likely destroy an actionable legislative response that infringes on Second Amendment rights, while the overturning of Chevron suggests that HHS has no mandate here. Congress could try to give it one, but the specificity of such wording might still fall afoul of ruling protecting gun rights for law-abiding Americans.
Cars might strike pedestrians and kill them, so why not a commission on getting people to ride bikes instead? It’s a lazy comparison, but in my defense, that’s not what animated me about this. What if someone took this seriously? Might they discover that the root causes of violence, and therefore gun violence – most of which occurs in a few dozen Democrat-run cities, were decades of failed proglodyte policy?
From the destruction of the family and fatherless children to the welfare trap, high cost of living, inadequate housing, public policy that drives jobs away, poor education, generational poverty, and disarming the innocent so that only criminals have weapons. We should put Professor Thomas Sowell in charge of the research group with free reign over who should assist. Properly done, modern “liberalism” would be exposed as the biggest public health threat in modern American history.
And the cure?