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Michael Bloomberg (courtesy ammoland.com)

The NRA-ILA writes [via AmmoLand.com] Michael Bloomberg probably realizes he has only so many years left to spread around his enormous fortune to inflate his ego and manipulate every sphere of human activity. So it was this week that the New York City billionaire came up with a cool $300 million for the School of Public Health that bears his name at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Demonstrating the ex-mayor’s typical hubris, “the Bloomberg American Health Initiative” seeks to increase life expectancy of people in the U.S. by tackling five issues from a “public health” perspective. Squarely in the crosshairs of the effort is the private ownership of firearms.

Citing “public health” to assail the things they don’t like is a long-standing tactic of nanny-staters in general and gun control proponents in particular. A Baltimore Sun article describing the initiative gushes that it could “transform responses to public health challenges.”

The “guns as disease” rhetoric is nothing new, however. It was official policy during the Bill Clinton administration, with tax-payer funded research producing shoddy advocacy efforts to promote the idea that gun control was a public health imperative, akin to mandatory immunizations or clean drinking water.

That led Congress in 1996 to impose a funding limitation to prevent the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from engaging in efforts to “advocate or promote gun control.” The measure, while more specific, is akin to common restraints against using public funds for the purpose of political lobbying.

Nevertheless, gun control advocates have falsely claimed that the funding restriction is a ban on “research” into the causes and possible responses to firearm-related crime in the U.S.

Ironically exposing that lie, Barack Obama in 2013 issued an official directive to the CDC to “conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.” This, despite the fact that the funding freeze continues to remain in effect. He has also repeatedly called on Congress to appropriate $10 million to fund the CDC’s efforts (an effort Congress has wisely refused, considering how notoriously politicized the Executive Branch has been under Obama’s watch).

Bloomberg’s gift this week is 30 times larger than Obama’s funding request. And while that money will not be solely devoted to “gun violence research,” it is likely the single-largest investment in gun control in the history of the United States and will undoubtedly release a torrent of new gun control advocacy posing as dispassionate “research.”

But don’t take our word for it. Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Bloomberg School, decried as “indefensible” the “system” in America “designed to facilitate gun commerce ….”

While insisting throughout that same editorial that America’s gun debate is being deliberately miscast by NRA as an either-or proposition, he fails to acknowledge any of the benefits associated with firearms (or even that they could have benefits). Nor does he mention that America nationwide is enjoying historically low rates of violent crime, with more firearms in private hands than in any time during the nation’s history.

Simply put, he – and all his colleagues researching “gun violence” as a “public health” issue – see their role first and foremost as justifying restrictive gun control by whatever means they can concoct. To them, lawful commerce in firearms in the main vector in the spread of a fatal disease, which means that anything that suppresses that commerce must be “healthy.”

Of course, the tens of millions of Americans who own guns simply don’t see it that way. NRA will continue to work against Bloomberg’s efforts to cast our Second Amendment in such terms and trust the American public to understand the difference.

About the NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For more information, please visit: www.nra.org. Be sure to follow the NRA on Facebook at NRA on Facebook and Twitter @NRA.

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34 COMMENTS

  1. Ironically, the CDC found that 80% of gun homicides in 2010 and 2011 were gang related meaning the criminal civilians accounted for only 20% of gun homicides. So the CDC actually helped the cause of gun rights which I am sure caused Obama no small case of heartburn and why he’s never used the study he so loudly demanded.

    • Indeed. The report CDC report backfired on several key findings. My favorite one:

      “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

      http://www.gunsandammo.com/politics/cdc-gun-research-backfires-on-obama/

    • Maybe he should go roaming through Chitcago, DC, and Baltimore sprinkling that 300 mil among the ones responsible for the majority of murders in this country….. He might have better luck with that….

  2. If he really wanted to help humanity that money could have gone to cancer research or cardiovascular disease research. But liberals don’t really care about lives obviously. Never have and never will.

    • That’s the kind of brainwashing Eric Holder’s all about. He gives this his seal of approval.

      Seriously though, maybe the hoplophobes should have their heads checked in a 5 hour evaluation.

  3. “Michael Bloomberg probably realizes he has only so many years left to spread around his enormous fortune…”

    I’m confident Bloomie will keep the Demanding Mothers and the Joyce Foundation in his will when it gets to probate…

  4. Is any part of that funding going to research on the causes and prevention of gangs? How about illegal immigration as a health hazard?

    Sometimes I crack myself up.

  5. As long as the douchebag is spending his OWN money on such obvious crap, I have no problem. It’s when he wants to spend MY money on completely useless lies that I get stupid. He will get exactly the results which he pays for, and they will be recognized as such, and then he can decide whether to do the exact same thing again, for another $300 mil.
    Rinse and repeat. But spending taxpayer money for predetermined results is the height of corruption, I give you big bucks and you repeat what I tell you to.

  6. It seems like this money would be better spent on feeding the poor or something. But that doesn’t advance an agenda an centralize power…

    • Or better yet, spent on arming the poor. So they have a fairer chance to stand up the kind of totalitarian tyrants guys like Bloomberg fancy saddling them with.

  7. How about the $300 million be used to keep convicted felons in prison, rather than Obama’s preference for just turning loose criminals, even violent criminals, on society.

  8. Does the phrase “POS egomaniacal_______________________” any other words you can fit here. Is there any other then perfect description of a man who could do so much good for others. But chooses to believe his example is the only way for people to live.
    What a waste of possibilities this man is.
    Very few out there I can say I wish it was, instead of is………I guess you could always add Hildabeast too.

  9. 1.) Yes-! Ex Mayor. King Bloomborg does indeed looks a lot like “Dr. COCKTOE from the old Sylvester Stallone’s science fiction movie The Demolition Man !”

    2.) The 3rd Reich , and the Nazi Democratic National Socialist party did this Melding of authoritarian government, and public health and look what that produced !

    3.) NYC is still reeling from the past Big Gulp/Slurpy/Transfat ban !

  10. This is someone who thinks they have more money than god and that entitles them to play around as such. Screw him, I hope there’s a special spot in hell for such authoritarians.

  11. Remember the number, everyone; throw it in the face of any douche stupid enough to say the NRA is ‘buying off’ anyone in this country.

  12. How is it that Maine – a state that recently passed constitutional carry – is now in the fight for its 2A life against background checks for private sales and TRANSFERS (ie lending)?

    That douchecanoe right there.

  13. My freedom and liberty is not for sale at any price, and woe unto to anyone who is foolish enough to think he/she/it can buy such legislation down here. Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis, Mikey.

    Tom

  14. I can’t wait to watch this man go broke failing to have the impact he wishes. I only wish the look on his face one day when he realizes that the failure is permanent and no more time is left could be livestreamed.

  15. Bloomberg reminds me of the old billionaire, Palmer, in the TV show the Strain. Desperate to ensure his legacy and live forever, he would destroy the world. A true Narcissist.

  16. Researcher #1: What do you mean we can’t publish this???

    Researcher #2: Well don’t you know? Bloomberg has historically been anti-gun.

    Researcher #1: I see.

    Researcher #2: So he just spent a lot of money on this research. And if he doesn’t like our findings – he obviously isn’t going to spend more money to continue research.

    Researcher #1: I got it. If we want to keep our jobs and continue to receive funding, we need to make sure he likes the results.

    Researcher #2: Exactly.

  17. This announcement serves as ammunition to invoke the Alinsky technique of personifying the “enemy” and vilifying him. One billionaire is corrupting an otherwise prestigious health organization using 1/3 of a billion dollars to undermine a Constitutional right. Is this really a good idea? Would we tolerate it if directed against the freedoms of speech? Women’s suffrage? 18-year-olds’ suffrage?
    We PotG ought to recognize what we are up against and recognize that its incumbent upon us to dig deeply into our pockets for $10 – $100 to defend ourselves.
    Yet, our tactics need not be his. We can accomplish far more by winning-over voters and youngsters who will vote in decades to come. Neither Bloomberg nor the Joyce Foundation can buy votes; they can only buy attendees at Moms’ rallies. How’s that working out for those guys?

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