Remember when we warned you that the proposed World Health Organization pandemic treaty could be used to legally justify gun confiscation and Democrats derided us as conspiracy theorists and whackos?
Thanks to a worldwide outcry by freedom loving people across the globe – and the rare unity of Senate Republicans – that treaty is on temporary hold. However, that does not mean that Democrats have given up on the idea of using public health regulations and powers to undermine or thwart the guarantees of the Second Amendment.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy yesterday issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on “Firearm Violence,” declaring firearm violence in America to be a public health crisis. A Surgeon General’s Advisory is a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.
The Advisory concludes by declaring “A public health approach can guide our strategy and actions, as it has done in the past with successful efforts to address tobacco‑related disease and motor vehicle crashes. It is up to us to take on this generational challenge with the urgency and clarity the moment demands. The safety and well‑being of our children and future generations are at stake.”
This is complete BS – there is no constitutionally protected right to smoke or drive a car – but let’s take a look at what this declaration means in practical terms.
According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, an advocate for a public health approach to eliminating gun violence:
Policymakers and practitioners must craft interventions that address the risk factors for gun violence. These interventions should be routinely tested to ensure they are effective and equitable; rigorous evaluations should be conducted on a routine basis. The foundation for effective gun violence prevention policy is a universal background check law, ensuring that each person who seeks to purchase or transfer a firearm undergoes a background check prior to purchase. Universal background checks should be supplemented by a firearm licensing system, which regulates and tracks the flow of firearms, to ensure that firearms do not make it into the hands of prohibited individuals. Building upon this, policymakers can create interventions that target behavioral risk-factors for gun violence (e.g. extreme risk laws) and they can push for policies that address community risk factors that lead to violence (e.g. investing in community based violence prevention programs). In addition to these gun violence prevention policies, there are a number of evidence-based strategies that can reduce gun violence within communities. For example, community-based violence intervention programs work to de-escalate conflicts, interrupt cycles of retaliatory violence, and support those at elevated risk for violence.
But there is an interesting caveat in the Center’s suggested plan to reduce “gun violence”:
Strong gun violence prevention policies are only effective if they are properly implemented and enforced in an equitable manner. A key focus of the public health approach is ensuring that these strategies are not only effective but that they also promote equity. Historically disenfranchised groups should be involved in the implementation process to ensure that public health strategies do not have unintended consequences. For example, gun violence prevention policies should be consistently evaluated to ensure that they do not stigmatize individuals living with mental illness or perpetuate the discriminatory and racist practices embedded in the criminal justice system.
Translation: Don’t focus on minority neighborhoods where much of the “gun violence” occurs and definitely don’t “stigmatize” the mentally ill and convicted felons who are already prohibited from buying and possessing guns by aggressively tracking them.
Setting aside the laughable hypocrisy of demanding a public health gun violence prevention approach that promotes “equity” and does not stigmatize the perpetrators of said gun violence, this sounds a lot more like a jobs program for public health and sociology majors than it does a crime prevention program.
And let’s be real, setting aside suicides, gun violence is crime.
Vivek Murthy wants "the opportunity to take" gun control "out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of public health." Or, to put it another way, as @charlescwcooke said in a post to X, Murthy wants to bypass our constitutional order completely. The answer is no.
Principled limited government constitutional conservative Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana has a bill, S.2911 - Protecting the Right To Keep and Bear Arms Act of 2023 - to prohibit the President and the Secretary of Health and Human Services from declaring certain emergencies or disasters for the purpose of imposing gun control. The Capitol switchboard is (202-224-3121), call your Senators TODAY to demand they join Senator Braun as cosponsors on S.2911, the Protecting the Right To Keep and Bear Arms Act of 2023.
CHQ Editor George Rasley is a Glock ® certified pistol armorer, firearms instructor and a veteran of over 300 political campaigns, including every Republican presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. He served as lead advance representative for Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and has served as a staff member, consultant, or advance representative for some of America's most recognized conservative Republican political figures, including President Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. A member of American MENSA, he served in policy and communications positions on the House and Senate staff, and during the George H.W. Bush administration he served on the White House staff of Vice President Dan Quayle.
World Health Organization
Firearm violence public health crisis
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
universal background checks
Extreme risk laws
Public health challenges
United States v. Rahimi
Justice Clarence Thomas
Second Amendment
Protecting the Right To Keep and Bear Arms Act of 2023
Gun Rights
Right to Bear Arms
Domestic Violence Restraining Order
due process
historically fixed meaning
surety laws
fines
felony convictions
affray laws
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen