https://www.kbtx.com/2024/06/25/us-surgeon-general-declares-gun-violence-public-health-emergency/Quote:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. surgeon general on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health crisis, driven by the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country.
The advisory issued by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the nation's top doctor, came as the U.S. grappled with another summer weekend marked by mass shootings that left dozens of people dead or wounded.
"People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe," Murthy told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that's going to put our life at risk."
To drive down gun deaths, Murthy calls on the U.S. to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons.
None of those suggestions can be implemented nationwide without legislation passed by Congress, which typically recoils at gun control measures. Some state legislatures, however, have enacted or may consider some of the surgeon general's proposals.
Murthy said there is "broad agreement" that gun violence is a problem, citing a poll last year that found most Americans worry at least sometimes that a loved one might be injured by a firearm. More than 48,000 Americans died from gun injuries in 2022.
His advisory promises to be controversial and will certainly incense Republican lawmakers, most of whom opposed Murthy's confirmation twice to the job over his statements on gun violence.
Murthy has published warnings about troubling health trends in American life, including social media use and loneliness. He's stayed away from issuing a similar advisory about gun violence since his 2014 confirmation as surgeon general was stalled and nearly derailed by the firearm lobby and Republicans who opposed his past statements about firearms.
Murthy ended up promising the Senate that he did "not intend to use my office as surgeon general as a bully pulpit on gun control."
Given the media ramping up the "daily mass shootings" headlines, no surprise about this. Might even given Biden cover to declare a national emergency over guns and try to enact a bunch of stuff via emergency powers.
The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides, which should not be included in the total. It is to make people think that far more people are being murdered by firearms than actually are.
And he didn't just call for banning automatic weapons (which are basically banned anyway and there are only 2-3 cases of legal ones being used in crimes); he also wants to ban semi-automatic ones as well.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill