As expected, with the 2024 presidential election just months away, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a national health emergency Tuesday — but not on a Monkeypox or Avian Flu pandemic designed to make mail-in voting the norm.
Nope! He issued an advisory declaring that "gun violence" was a public health crisis.
"It is now time for us to take this issue out of the realm of politics and put it in the realm of public health, the way we did with smoking more than a half century ago," Murthy told the Associated Press.
Under the heading "Firearm risk reduction strategies," Murthy’s advisory suggested:
- Requiring safe and secure firearm storage, including child access prevention laws;
- Implementing universal background checks and expanding purchaser licensing laws;
- Banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines for civilian use;
- Treating firearms like other consumer products, including requiring safety testing or safety features;
- Implementing effective firearm removal policies when individuals are a danger to themselves or others; and
- Creating safer conditions in public places related to firearm use and carry.
These are all the same old talking points that have been coming from President Joe Biden, long before his presidency.
And the states and municipalities that have adopted them — like California and Chicago — have the greatest problems with firearm-related deaths at the hands of criminals.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, took issue with the surgeon general’s implication that gun ownership is a disease.
"This is just one more effort by the Biden administration to demonize guns and the law-abiding citizens who own them," he said.
"The problem with violent crime is not that it is a disease, but a symptom of failed leadership, from the White House on down.
"From the day he took office, Joe Biden has treated gun owners like social lepers. He considers us second-class citizens who should be ostracized as though we are spreading a plague."
Gottlieb, who’s also the executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, added that both Murthy and Biden ignore crime’s real cause — the criminal.
"The real crisis in America is the failed policies of the Biden administration," he said. "Instead of focusing on locking up felons and disarming criminal gangs, he wants to disarm millions of honest gun owners whose only crime is that we exercise our right to keep and bear arms."
Randy Kozuch, director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute of Legislative Action, fired off his own response.
"This is an extension of the Biden administration's war on law-abiding gun owners," Kozuch's statement began.
"America has a crime problem caused by criminals. The reluctance to prosecute and punish criminals on the part of President Biden and many of his allies is the primary cause of that. That's a simple fact."
But those aren’t merely the beliefs of gun rights organizations.
At least one law enforcement professional, one with many decades of experience, agrees with Gottlieb and Kozuch.
Former Police Chief James Craig disputed the claim that the private ownership of firearms was the problem three years ago.
"We don't have a gun problem in America, we have a criminal problem," he said in response to Biden's push for more gun control.
"Criminals don’t follow the law. They’re going to get guns." Craig previously served as chief of police for the cities of Detroit, Cincinnati, and Portland, Maine.
He added, "Years ago when President Obama was president, I made a statement that I believe, based upon my years as a practitioner — 44 years — that law-abiding citizens who are armed can have an impact on reducing violent crime. I believe that."
And in fact they do.
The Heritage Foundation reported that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and three million times each year, according to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That was backed by a later study, which also found that the much-maligned AR-15-style rifles and so-called high-capacity magazines, targeted by Murthy and Biden, are in common use for lawful purposes, making them legal under the Second Amendment per the U.S. Supreme.
A parable-like meme made the rounds a few years back that illustrates the consequences of disarming law-abiding citizens.
In it a wolf attacked a herd of sheep, killing one. The surviving sheep noticed that the wolf used his teeth to kill their companion, so they agreed to remove each other’s teeth for their own safety.
Disarm law-abiding gun owners so that only the criminals will have arms, because, as Chief Craig observed, "they’re going to get guns."
Yeah, that’s Biden’s idea of gun control.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.