By Thomas E. Gift, MD
In the current Journal of the American Medical Association article with an accompanying editorial, various researchers express their happiness with the resumption of federal funding for the Center for Disease control to look at violence, including “gun violence” (because “guns kill people”).
They feel good about the lessening “chill” of the Dickey Amendment’s prohibition against research used “to advocate for or promote gun control.” Many readers will recall that in 1996 the Dickey Amendment was passed in order to stand in the way of Americans’ tax dollars being used to attack their civil rights, and specifically the right to keep and bear arms. One JAMA commentator, Mark Rosenberg, was CDC Director in the 1990’s, who wanted guns to be seen as “dirty, deadly—and [to be] banned.”
Looking for a moment at the blue sky, at least one of the commentators quoted, who has also published research on reducing violence, notes the desirability of seeking approaches to changing interpersonal behavior in a way that will result in less interpersonal violence.
People who harbor different views, including the idea that the right to keep and bear arms is a protected civil right, can all be supportive of behavioral change that results in a more civil and less belligerent society. DRGO has referenced studies suggesting that there are psychological or psychosocial interventions that do indeed cut down on interpersonal violence—such research showing positive findings is likely to spur more of the same sort.
Glancing again at the blue sky, several sources quoted in the JAMA article refer to newly proposed funding to support harm reduction, violence prevention, reducing suicides and minimizing unintentional injuries from firearms, goals that DRGO and gun owners can also support. Described favorably are efforts to have firearms dealers, gun ranges and others temporarily (and voluntarily) hold the weapons of individuals who are suicidal, although not mentioned are laws in many places that do not allow family and friends to play this role.
Turning from the blue sky to the threatening dark clouds, the name “Wintemute” appears. This physician has a long history of churning out writings that attack and attempt to belittle the Second Amendment. At one point in the JAMA piece he notes his support for garnering information on risk factors for becoming involved in violence, which seems commendable, but then the mask is dropped and he’s on to restrictions on the purchase of guns. Referenced in a favorable way in the JAMA article is the Gun Violence Archive. [This organization is not a friend of the right to keep and bear arms, and structures its data keeping to support restrictions on firearm ownership.
Also referenced as a resource is Giffords. This organization comprises activist, legal and PAC entities, inspired by former federal Representative Gabby Giffords near-assassination. It was formerly known as the Legal Community Against Violence and as the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The actual focus of the group is not reflected in either its past or current formal names. They’re seeking the benefit of camouflage, one presumes, as they push to restrict Second Amendment rights. It is known to many Second Amendment supporters as the “Giffords Gang.”
The front page of the August 31 Wall Street Journal includes an article describing a plan hatched by the Department of Health and Human Services to “treat climate change as a public health issue”. This may well indicate the Administration’s intent to label its political goals as public health matters, including gun restrictions. There is also a possibility that this tactic could elicit more support for Second Amendment rights by manifesting how it intends to manipulate policy justifications in this way.
In the JAMA piece, one commentator deplores the tendency of voters to make decisions based on values rather than science. A moment’s thought reveals the shortcomings of such a pure science-focused view.
We favor parents’ caring for their children, freedoms based on the Bill of Rights, and all manner of things we deem worthwhile and dear — not because of science, but rather based on values. Let’s hope voters will see how this science-trumps-everything tactic is either a rhetorical trick or a profoundly perverted perspective…the perspective of those who would create Frankensteinian monsters.
Thomas E. Gift, MD is a child and adolescent psychiatrist practicing in Rochester, New York, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical School, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
I’m pretty sure that quack doctors have killed or maimed as many people in the world as guns have.
Maybe we need a report on this subject.
But that’s akin to asking Congress to pass TERM LIMIT legislation for themselves & the Senate.
Approximately 120K people per year loose their lives through “medical misadventure” , so to answer your question yes doctors kill more people per year in the US than die from gun shots wounds.
Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ,
Another peer-reviewed study, reported in The Lancet, put the number of deaths from medical mistakes in USA at about 500,000 annually, compared to about 10,000 homicides by gun annually (and 20,000 suicides). We really need to start calling these deaths by medical mistakes “doctor violence”. Every time doctors bring up so-called “gun violence”, ask them, “What about doctor violence? Doctor violence kills ten times as many people every year!”
A news story I saw on TV yesterday about a shooting in NY City used the words “gun violence” four times in just sixty seconds to try to manipulate public opinion against guns. Imagine if every time a patient died from a medical mistake (which happens a THOUSAND times every day!), the news used the word “doctor violence” four times — Americans would be calling for a ban on doctors. Not that I think doctors should be banned, but I hope you get the point — labeling all deaths as “violence” from an inanimate object is pure propaganda to try to push an anti-gun agenda.
Riddle: Why do doctors complain about “gun violence”?
Because doctors kill 500,000 people per year, and they’re jealous of any competition. Doctors think of murders and suicides as “practicing medicine without a license!”
Make no mistake about it the sneaky busy bodies are concerned only about the guns of the law abiding. If they were concerned about criminals they would have said the criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, etc.
Most all criminals have one thing in common…Their heads are packed full of demoCrap.
Just as anti-gun zealots repeatedly quote and inflate firearms-related death and injury statistics while minimizing righteous and just firearm-use numbers, certain pro-gun, ah, ‘aficionados’ repeatedly quote the negative statistics regarding medical-error-caused deaths and injuries while simply dismissing all of the lives prolonged and saved by medical successes, numbers which dwarf by several orders of magnitude all of the mistakes.
This isn’t a winning argument. Let it go.
John in AK,
I disagree.
Let us assume a reasonable estimate that medical errors are the direct cause of death for 300,000 people every year in the United States. That very reasonable estimate is about 10 times higher than all deaths (including suicides) resulting from gunshot wounds and about 30 times higher than all deaths resulting from gunshot wounds in criminal attacks.
If an entity is truly interested in reducing untimely deaths, that entity should apply their resources to the largest cause of untimely deaths before working on lesser causes. Furthermore, given that the entity in this case is the medical field and their errors cause more untimely deaths that criminals with firearms, they have a moral and righteous obligation to clean up their own area before going after other areas.
It isn’t about guns. It’s about the right of crime victims to use force to defend themselves. If I have a gun, I can shoot a home invader from across the room. I can also give him a last warning to leave the house before I open fire. Without a gun, I can smash his skull with a baseball bat as he comes through the door. No warning this time because I no longer have the advantage of distance. If someone criticizes you for willingness to use your gun in self defense, ask him he would object to your using a baseball bat instead. I’ll bet he won’t like that either.
Well, actually some of them will like it that you used a baseball bat instead of a gun. At least they will say they like it. That’s part of the anti-gun methodology “group think pattern”, that self-defense violence is OK as long as a gun isn’t used.
I ran into an anti-gun person in December 2000 a few days before Christmas. This guy was yelling his complaints about me being armed trying to shame me out of the store. I just happen to have been open carrying that day, I conceal carry about 90% of the time though. One of his rants was “no one is hurting you, no one is going to hurt you, you don’t need a gun. You’re going to kill someone here if you don’t leave now. Get some pepper spray and carry that instead of a gun, at least you won’t kill anyone.”
After he finished his rants he went to complain to the manager. Anyway, the manager noted his complaint but told him he could not continue scaring the customers and causing a disturbance and asked him to pay for his stuff and leave the store. The manager knew me, been shopping there for over 20 years and we share the same improvised firing range area. So the guy is frustrated, pays for his stuff, and leaves the store and I finish my shopping. I pay for my stuff about 20 minutes later and leave the store and outside in the parking lot there are the police and paramedics and they are putting this guy in the back of the ambulance.
When he left the store with his purchases three guys attacked him and stabbed him while taking his stuff and robbing him. He’s alive, but you can see hes been stabbed a few times but does not look life threatening – in the arms ’cause put his arms up in defense. He sees me as I stand there looking at him, I just kind of smile a little and told him “when you get patched up ask the manager to contact me and I’ll give you a good deal on a gun.” I sold him one of my Glock’s two weeks later and he carries it everywhere he goes now.
Wonderful neighborhood that people get jumped walking out of the grocery store.
were you buying items to help fabricate this sturry?
Doctors have already demonstrated the willingness to kill patients for profit.
Or to make the afternoon tee off.
Doctors are responsible for around 250,000 deaths a year due to malpractice, so doctors are a lot more dangerous that guns. Let’s ban access to doctors . BTW, guns are responsible for stopping violent crimes 400,000 to 3,000,000 crimes a year. How many crimes does the CDC or JAMA stop? (I didn’t think so)
I think my gunm has a fever, it Center’s around the beach and barrel. It must have a Disease.
Maybe a cooling bath of WD40 will Control it.
Don’t do it marsupial – That WD-40 will gumn up your gunm.
And when you look at some of the first people to call the police, hire their own body guards and own guns themselves it is the people who complain the loudest about those of us who own firearms to hunt, target shoot, and for self defense. If you haven’t noticed by now the hypocriscy of the Left is staggering. All one has to do is look at two things in particular. How is it we have all these Covid 19 rules and illegals have none and how many rule makers have been rule breakers themselves. How is it Blue City riots went on for months and neither the Politicians who permitted them nor 99.9 percent of the rioters even got charged for their crimes. Yet, the January 6th Debacle which was probably a setup by Pelosi by not securing the Capitol properly has had dramatic law enforcement and court involvement with those who demonstrated. Just sayin folks we need to stop being nice with these folks and call them out each and every time they do something wrong which is daily. Also, fight back and don’t take any nonsense from them or they will continue to bully you until they have total control.
anyone held beyond 48hrs without being charged should get a big payout.
but conditions of release involve total brainwash.
Physician heal thyself and follow the only science you know: political science posing as medical science. When you use the words gun and violence with no other words between them you have entered an alternate reality that credits an inanimate object with transcendence (self awareness). Kind of like the movie “Rubber” I have never encountered a gun with a soul but most people have one.
Thanks to coronapaloza everything is going be a healthcare issue now. And we can expect the same scientific rigor we’ve experienced this past 18+ months to be applied to all sorts of topics. All the flip/flopping, all the backtracked promises, all the denials and straight faced lies, all the name calling and scapegoating all the chest thumping and podium heroics.
You know, everything you were always taught makes for good science, data, research and policy. How many boosters are we up to? I guess that depends on who you ask: the CDC, WHO, Pfizer or Biden.
It should be asked why the JAMA is citing a blatant lobbyist organization as an objective source of information.
Far more importantly don’t they have a pandemic or something to deal with?
Lastly, I am going to wait for them to make such recommendations about big sugar or pharma who arguably kill way more people than guns do in the US yearly. It’s highly likely mass shooting deaths could be counted in that set of numbers in many cases. Hey, that’s an idea. Maybe the CDC could investigate the relationship between mass shootings and big phrama. It even involves actual medical problems!
Take your vaccine like you’ve been told….. you are all too scared to stand up…
Either take the vaccine or go hide/live in the “country”.
The public school system is a model for their triumph over you…. make it so bad for you that you don’t want your kids to be there….. then they’ve achieved their goal of destroying you and taking control over you….
I can already imagine all the little troll comments calling me a conspiracy theorist lol
.. it’s not a conspiracy if it’s true…. mouth breather…v
We’re all too scared to stand up? And then you throw insulting comments at others here, as if you’re too good for everyone? Wut da hekk?
Just last night, for the very first time in my life, I raised my voice at a close older relative I’ve known and have personally interacted with for three and a half decades. He chose to vaxx, and I said I fully support his right to choose what he feels is best for him. But he wouldn’t accept my own decision to refuse the mRNA genetic cocktail jab, and kept pestering me to logically explain why I somehow knew better than the Government (he’s a classic sheeple). After more than a half hour of politely fending off his prodding with my own debating skills, he went the desperate route and started the sentence of “If everyone else is jumping off a bridge, would you jump…”
I raised my voice, told him I will not take any jab unless/until I’m satisfied that adequate testing has been conducted, and walked out of the restaurant to my car.
My employer has well over 100 employees, so if CA presses Biden’s mandate while it’s challenged in court and I’m required to jab or take weekly tests to retain my job, I’ll take the tests and willingly wear a yellow Star of David to make a political point for all to see.
I will not take the jab. I know many in my personal circle who will not take the jab. One day when you grow up, you’ll understand.
HAZ.
Weekly testing may not be an option. My company did a meeting before President Biden did his vaccine mandate. Evetyone was told to either get vaccinated or face termination. Employees have until the end of the year to at least get the first shot. A lot of large employers are doing the same thing.
“After more than a half hour of politely fending off his prodding with my own debating skills, he went the desperate route and started the sentence of “If everyone else is jumping off a bridge, would you jump…”
“Everybody else is taking the vax. Which of us is the jumper here?”
What’s wrong with living in the “country”? Fresh air, neighbors you know, not crowded, everyone has firearms, food prices and taxes are low. Around, depends on which stats you look at, 80mil that have not got the non-vaccine. Not an insignificant number and hence Creepy Joe’s frustration. I don’t see that number changing.
Let the administration bring out the whip I say. It will only serve to wake more people up to the tyranny the Federal Gov has become.
Let the administration bring out the whip I say
And remember THEIR patience is wearing thin….
I’m all for science and data over values and feelings. I’m a social sciences instructor. I have all the data that supports the value of the Second Amendment and why I feel safer with legal access to my firearms. Most of that data comes from government data, like the CDC. Honestly delivered real numbers prove that WE are in the right.
For all those people who don’t want to vaccinated. How was your last bout of polio or smallpox? I would not be surprised if you never had either.
Smallpox vaccine has been in use since the 1700s and by the time I got it in the 1950s it was probably pretty safe as was the polio vaccine in the 60s… A far cry from this mRNA shit that even the inventor says is worthless crap… ROBERT Malone, the doctor who invented mRNA vaccine technology, has warned the vaccines are “very dangerous” because of an unforeseen cytotoxic (toxic to cells) effect of the spike proteins encoded by the vaccines. Anymore “none-ya” questions?
I’ll let you know how I go. If I stop posting, you will know the Pfizer vaccine is not safe. 2nd shot due in just over a week.
Southern Cross,
The Pfizer and Moderna SARS2 mRNA coctails may very well be “safe” for several weeks or months. What absolutely no one can claim with any authority is whether or not they are “safe” after several years because they have not existed for several years.
Furthermore, no one can even predict whether or not the SARS2 mRNA cocktails will be safe after several years since this is new medical technology which has never passed United States Food & Drug Administration testing before.
My wife had both Pfizer shots back in Dec (required of ALL Nurses in her system) and just received the booster, I opted for the J&J “killed” virus vaccine… I’m NOT an anti-vaxxer, I AM a proponent of personal choice AND responsibility… I personally chose that vaccine because the methodology has proven safe and effective for several hundred years and the mRNA is relatively new and basically unknown over the long run, I can only hope improvements have been made since Mr. Malones discovery and that my wife (or anyone else for that matter) does not encounter problems in the future resulting from this “mandatory” violation of her rights… Anyway good luck with that…
Freedom of choice. But I don’t want anti-vaxxers choice to become my choice.
To me the risks of the vaccine are far outweighed by the risks of COVID.
When people my age and younger have either died or are in ICU and being ventilated I take that as a warning.
MaddMaxx,
I did the exact same thing (J&J virus rather than mRNA cocktail) for the exact same reasons.
The years ahead will reveal if our choice was wise or unwise.
But I don’t want anti-vaxxers choice to become my choice.
Then get your shots (not a guarantee that you won’t still get the WuFlu) and wear your mask(s)… The hospitals are treating just as many vaxxed as they are unvaxxed for the virus… Personal choice means just what it says though apparently that does not extend to to Southern Hemisphere…
The years ahead will reveal if our choice was wise or unwise
I’m at peace with my choice… Used to get regular flu shots every year, stopped a few years back, never have had the flu, hardly ever get a cold… I’m good with it no matter what…
It is known the vaccines don’t stop you getting COVID. But it greatly lessens the possibility of catching it and the chances you’ll end up in hospital.
We’re all taking chances. I’ve made my choice and others are making theirs.
Robert Malone is the inventor of the mRNA vaccine and he is going on record saying that he did give the vaccine to his family but is now regretting it. Malone is saying that his vaccine, the one he created is not working as he intended it too. As the inventor has been studying his vaccine, Malone has noticed something extremely troubling that was not supposed to happen. The vaccine appears to be concentrating in the ovaries and in other major organs. Malone has gone on to say that if he would have known this would have occurred he would have never taken the vaccine or gave it to his family. No one can predict the end result but hey, if it leaves millions of women sterile there won’t be a need for Planned Parenthood… Of course if the vaccine does harm you you’re screwed because there is no recourse as “Big Pharma” has been deemed harmless by the government…
Smallpox and polio vaccines PREVENT infection by smallpox and polio.
They also PREVENT its retransmission (by preventing infection).
COVID “vaccine” doesn’t even do either of those basic things.
Look, nobody is trying to FORCE you not to take the jab, or to buy a gun.
Biden is trying to FORCE us to take it, and take away our guns.
If you don’t understand the difference, you don’t belong on a gun board.
According to a study done by John Hopkins patient safety experts 250,000 people a year in the USA die because of physician incompetence. Gun violence, on the other hand, takes a little less than 40,000 lives with about 25,000 of those being suicides. With this in mind I can understand why physicians are trying to paint guns as the problem when they should instead be looking in the mirror.
How is the medical establishment likely to go about solving gun violence? Let’s look at another recent problem they’ve been tasked with solving (hooray for COVID!) and see if there are any similarities.
Let’s start with the long-established mathematical (scientific!) relationship between the transmission rate of an infectious disease and the threshold number of people who have to either survive the disease or get vaccinated before herd immunity is reached.
Anybody that wants to can look it up; the CDC has information about this, with numbers and graphs of previous pandemics going back 100 years. The CDC also has been tracking the infection rate of COVID since the beginning, so that’s well-known, too.
It’s also worth noting that “herd immunity” isn’t total immunity; it’s a population-level resistance that means individuals don’t tend to get as sick as they did when the disease was new and that it no longer spreads like wildfire everywhere, but in fits and starts and limited outbreaks; and in the case of respiratory viruses like flu, the common cold, and COVID (which you could say is a killer cold), with seasonal swells.
Anyway, based on that mathematical relationship, the number of people who have either had COVID or been vaccinated says that we’ve reached herd immunity already. The much lower death rate of the Delta variant in countries where COVID has already made its rounds points to that conclusion, too.
In other words, COVID is now endemic, like the flu. It was inevitable, and anyone with brains enough to look at how infectious diseases work (no advanced degree required, just reading comprehension and a bit of logic) could have seen that fact from the start.
Whatever the threat it might have seemed when it was a relative unknown, it’s now clear that it can easily be managed with the same common-sense precautions we’ve always used against seasonal respiratory viruses, and with drug-based interventions that have proven quite effective. (Truth is, it always was.)
But…BUT… as with so many things in the pandemic panic, the people whose job it is to know these things — and who should be making plans and calming the public based on that knowledge — have decided to act like they don’t know any of it.
Well, let’s look at the pattern:
– The models that predicted mass deaths were egregiously wrong.
– Reaching COVID-zero is impossible and always was.
– Mass lockdowns are ineffective against respiratory viruses and immensely damaging to individuals, the economy, and the social fabric.
– Masks are also ineffective: 10% transmission reduction at best for n95 respirators, 1-3% for surgical masks, and near zero for cloth masks. Plus, cloth masks pose bacterial infection risks and are hazardous to people with asthma.
– The 100% vaccination goal is impossible and ignores 100 years of established science, yet the medical establishment and most publicly visible scientists are among its loudest cheerleaders.
Conclusion:
Whatever’s driving this bus, it sure as hell isn’t science. (You can draw your own conclusions about what they’re really up to.)
Can you look at that and honestly say that a scientific approach to gun violence is going to go any differently in the hands of all these “experts”?
Bro nobody asked you to write an essay 😂
“beyond my comprehension” would have worked also.
But you got one for free anyway. That’s just how nice I am.
(smile)
Whatever’s driving this bus, it sure as hell isn’t science.
All you have to do is follow the money, it’s a no brainer… 40 new billionaires directly related to the WuFlu and over 2 million newly minted millionaires in the US in 2020 while the country was basically shut down… Hmmmmmmm…
Don’t forget, a lot of millionaires are made by nothing but inflation. They don’t make millionaires like they used to — it used to really mean something.
It’s really “special” though when they got that way from pharmaceutical companies that sold their entire inventories of vaccine to the Federal Government paid for with your tax dollars…. and then given away…
Y’all tripping here I don’t know what you talking about I thought the CDC was all about that Covid 😂
They’re working to change their moniker to “CGC”, got no time for disease anymore.
” . . . I don’t know what you talking about . . . ”
Lamar,
That much was obvious to even the most casual observer. I suspect it is also true of you, regardless of the subject.
Coming on the heels of their immensely successful handling of the COVID crisis.
It’s important to emphasize that the Dickey Amendment DID NOT forbid the CDC from “studying gun violence.” It forbade them from ADVOCATING GUN CONTROL.
During the era of the Dickey Amendment, Obama tasked the NIH/CDC to study gun violence — specifically, the effectiveness of guns for self-defense. It was all 100% compliant with Dickey. It also generated results that embarrassed Obama so much that they got zero airtime… but they’re still available for you to read online.
Politicians jumping for joy about the death of the Dickey Amendment do so because they want CDC to ADVOCATE FOR GUN BANS. There’s no other reason.
And when you give that sort of power to an unelected “health” bureau that thinks it’s a perfectly reasonable exercise of its “medical” authority to tell your tenants that they no longer have to pay you any rent for the indefinite future… well, I don’t have to tell you what the result is going to be.
Gun owners: “Public health” is not the root password to disable your constitutional rights. Do not allow it to be so used, to the point of physical resistance if necessary.
It forbade them from ADVOCATING GUN CONTROL.
After which, they pretty much stopped doing any research on “gun violence.” Tells you a lot about what they’re really after, doesn’t it.
“idea that the right to keep and bear arms is a NATURAL right” fixed it for you.