Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on Thursday said his state will not comply with the surgeon general's public health advisory on gun violence that pushes for more research and stronger laws designed to reduce harm.
"During COVID, unelected bureaucrats used 'public health' as a pretext to deprive citizens of their rights – and I signed legislation to protect Floridians from government overreach," DeSantis said in a post on X.
"Now, Biden's Surgeon General is attempting to violate the Second Amendment through the 'public health' bureaucracy. We will not comply. Florida will always reject the Biden Administration's unconstitutional power-grabs."
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health crisis and released a 39-page report, titled "Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America."
In the document, he listed specific policy changes, including a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use, universal background checks, expanding purchaser licensing laws, and creating safer conditions in public places related to firearm use and carry.
"Over the last decade or two, this problem has been worsening. And we have now reached the point where gun violence is the leading cause of death among kids and teens — the leading cause of death. That is something that we should never take as the new normal. There's nothing normal about that," Murthy told CNN's John Berman.
The advisory, he said, is meant to "take it out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of public health, which is where it belongs."
"Many people I've talked to around the country worry that this may be an intractable problem, that there's no way to solve it," he said. "That's not true."