While tyrannical governors may have been the norm during COVID-19, it is always a bit of a surprise when politicians find a new low they can sink to. A recent act of authoritarianism in New Mexico serves as a blatant reminder of this statist phenomenon. Citing an “epidemic of gun violence,” the New Mexico governor Michelle Grisham decided to declare a public health emergency across Albuquerque and surrounding counties.1https://www.koat.com/article/new-mexico-governor-gun-violence-public-health-emergency/45040319 Among other things, the emergency order banned citizens from lawfully carrying, even if they held a concealed carry permit. The excuses for tyranny come in all shapes and sizes, yet this latest rationale sounds like they weren’t even trying. How does a citizen carrying a gun create a public health emergency?
Ask any normal person, and you’ll get a normal answer: “It doesn’t.” But if you want a long and complicated answer, you’ll need to ask the medical industry.
History
In 1979, near the height of a decades-long crime wave, the United States Surgeon General’s Report released an update on the nation’s health. The first of its kind, the report was an attempt to guide national priorities – recommending abortions for “unwanted births” and providing family planning resources at the “earliest possible age.” When it came to violence, the report noted that young blacks were five times more likely to be murdered than their white counterpart. The report continued: “Injury rates are linked to factors — lifestyle and socioeconomic — not usually addressed by health programs. Nevertheless, […]this is a major public health problem.” 2“Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention” – 1979, https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584932X92 Citing economic and family issues, the “glamorizing of violence” in the media, and the availability of handguns, the report recommended a range of actions; from safe storage measures to a ban on gun ownership.
Since the 1980s, the CDC has taken an active role in violence prevention programs. Initially focusing on community outreach and research, the CDC quickly found itself shifting into a Leftist political arm. The federal agency continued to recommend bans on gun ownership in their reports for years and directed their funding to that same end. In 1993, a CDC-funded research grant caught the attention of Congressman Jay Dickey. Titled “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home,”3https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506 the subsequent study concluded that people should be “strongly discouraged from keeping guns in their homes.” In response, Congress passed The Dickey Amendment, a law forbidding the CDC from using research funds for their partisan gun control advocacy.
While the amendment may have briefly paused the CDC’s activism, it wasn’t until 2011 before this clause was extended to cover the NIH as well. Two years later, major medical groups claimed that they had had enough. The Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Gun Violence, and the Annals of Emergency Medicine all called for Congress to restart the funding. It was an odd request, as gun violence research was never actually halted, only the blatantly biased gun control measures labeled “public health recommendations” at the end of the report. It was almost as if modern medicine couldn’t imagine performing research into gun violence that didn’t conclude gun ownership was bad. Continuing the trend, more and more medical organizations started to speak out. Some simply wanted more studies, while the majority demanded outright bans.4You can see an incomplete list of statements from medical organizations here: https://safetennesseeproject.org/medical-organizations-policy-statements-related-to-firearms-and-firearm-laws/
Looking back, it’s obvious that the Dickey Amendment was merely a bump in the road. Medical organizations across the country were at war with gun ownership, whether the CDC recommended it or not. Like clockwork, any study on gun violence that took into account firearm ownership inevitably concluded there was a relationship between a gun existing and the gun being used. But medical academia was determined to keep pushing. In their minds, guns had already been categorically labeled a public health issue. This categorical confusion would be a far more troubling matter for the rest of us than any number of Leftist research papers.
Categorical Problems
Many people are confused by the term “public health,” especially in the world of academia. But don’t be fooled by the word “health” – public health is something entirely different. While the term originated from the desire to combat disease and poor sanitation, it has been expanded over time to encompass a truly monstrous proportion. Today, you might think of it as a sort of pre-crime – the measures taken before someone actually gets sick or injured. Sometimes, public health is a matter of information, like distributing nutritional pamphlets at the doctor’s office. Other times, it’s lobbying congressmen to enact certain manufacturing or workplace safety measures. But it doesn’t end there. The University of Southern California lists some other examples of public health issues: social media misinformation, health equity, social isolation, data modernization, and cannabis legalization.5https://web.archive.org/web/20230613202030/https://mphdegree.usc.edu/blog/public-health-issues/ So, as far as everyone else is concerned, “public health” appears to be a catch-all term for anything that medical associations want to have a say in. A term this broad includes anything under the sun, so a discussion of gun violence as a public health problem will transcend almost every category you have.
Further adding to the confusion is the claim that gun violence is a “mental health problem.” As with public health, we are once again left with ambiguous definitions and extremely biased research. Some in the medical industry claim that suicide (a symptom of poor mental health) is clearly to blame for gun violence. After all, when compared to homicide, suicide has caused more gun deaths.6In 2021, suicide accounted for 54% of gun deaths vs 43% by homicide – https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ But other medical journals are quick to point out that the focus should still be on the gun ownership. In January of 2023, the AAMC hosted an article titled: “It’s tempting to say gun violence is about mental illness. The truth is much more complex.” First, the article explained that gun violence is not causally linked to mental illness. They even claim that less than 5% of mass shooters would have presented with a gun-disqualifying mental judgment. In fact, the authors go so far as to condemn this line of thinking. “…erroneously placing mental illness at the center of the American gun violence narrative stymies solutions to both these public health problems, which come together only on their edges.” Next, the article noted that suicides accounted for a much larger portion of gun violence, even though suicide was causally linked to mental illness. “Despite such complexities,” the article continues, “what is clear is that people who may be suicidal should not have access to firearms when they are most at risk.” 7https://www.aamc.org/news/it-s-tempting-say-gun-violence-about-mental-illness-truth-much-more-complex The authors finally conclude the article with two suggestions: gun safety training and red flag laws.
Once again, the logic surrounding mental health and gun violence miraculously concludes that guns must removed from society in the name of public health. But this was always the inevitable conclusion for the medical industry.
They cannot comprehend a world where someone would intentionally use a gun.
The Start Of Public Health
Today, organizations like the American Public Health Association (APHA) exist as a walking contradiction; they claim to oppose gun violence on the one hand yet praise infant murder on the other. But even if I spent my life documenting all the ethical failures of today’s doctors, I could not possibly hope to cover them all. However, there is one last point that needs to be addressed. The rise of modern medicine certainly led to an expansion of the healthcare industry, but it only partially explains how completely unrelated items like gun possession came to be understood as a health issue. We must look at how “public health” was first understood to understand that.
Dr. Stephen Smith founded the APHA in 1872. A skilled surgeon, Smith found himself focused on reforming public sanitation and disease control. “Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness,” quoted Dr. Smith, praising the Mosaic sanitary code. Indeed, sanitation and cleanliness are vital components of Christian law, often reflecting itself in a love of all things clean. Where Smith may have missed the mark, however, is in how this system ought to be properly implemented with the Western system of law. In a speech, Smith recounted the work of his associate, Dorman B. Eaton, while they worked to secure sanitation reforms in New York City.
“Mr. Eaton explained the theory of modern health legislation as illustrated by the English laws, and contended that a thoroughly organized and efficient board of health must have extraordinary powers, and must not be subordinated to any other branch of the civil service, not even to the courts. What it declared to be a nuisance – dangerous to life and detrimental to health – no one should call in question. When it ordered a nuisance to be abated within a given fixed time no mandate should avail to stay its action or the enforcement of its decree.
A board of health, in his opinion, should make its own laws, execute its own laws, and sit in judgment on its own acts. It must be an imperium in imperio.”
Stephen Smith, “The City That Was” – 1911
Even in its original form, public health was intended to transcend the legislative and judicial systems. It was founded on the idea that society’s health should be an efficient executive decision. Fast-forward to COVID-19 and the tyranny of public health becomes fully unmasked. In every single state, governors made unprecedented demands in the name of public health. But COVID wasn’t the catalyst for this tyranny; it was merely the fruit of a rotten tree. A modern understanding of medicine had been growing in the background, looking to encompass every facet of life. Leftists found out long ago that as long as you could get a few doctors on board, anything could be done in the name of health. Gun violence of all types (self-defense, accidental, homicidal, suicidal…) was lumped into matters of “health.” Careful distinctions between legislation and judicial decisions no longer applied when someone was willing to label guns a “public health crisis.”
Besides the Second Amendment hurdle, gun control activists typically have a difficult case to make: they must convince Americans to abandon the foundations of Western law and civilization itself. It is a daunting task, to be sure, but it is a much simpler job if the average person would kill themselves in the name of health.
Sources:
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- 2“Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention” – 1979, https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584932X92
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- 4You can see an incomplete list of statements from medical organizations here: https://safetennesseeproject.org/medical-organizations-policy-statements-related-to-firearms-and-firearm-laws/
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- 6In 2021, suicide accounted for 54% of gun deaths vs 43% by homicide – https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
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