The lame duck Congress has approved Dr. Vivek Murthy’s nomination to be Surgeon General of the United States. This despite the fact that Murthy co-founded the strictly partisan Doctors for Obama (now Doctors for America). And the fact that Dr. Murthy is as anti-gun as they come. After Newtown, he publicly supported a federal ban on “assault weapons” and actively campaigned for the doomed federal universal background check bill. Most importantly, he considers “gun violence” a “public health issue.” This is a problem because . . .
The new Surgeon General will be one of the anti-gun mainstream media’s go-to guys for gun control support. When an infant dies via a negligent discharge, when firearms-related suicides hit the headlines, when the idea of psychological testing for gun possession or concealed carry permits rears its ugly head, when a spree killer’s mental health takes center stage, Murthy will be ready, willing and able to provide the “medical” angle. Arguing for government intervention as a respected authority figure.
Not amongst The People of the Gun, obviously. But make no mistake: low information voters will be swayed by the “nation’s top doc” presenting his case for gun control. Equally, the civilian disarmament industrial complex will be emboldened by their guy’s ascension to the Surgeon General’s job. Aside from enabling a “we beat the NRA” meme, Murthy will use his bully pulpit to help secure federal funding for inherently biased “gun violence” research. Not to mention Murthy’s money-in-the-bank appearances at glittering anti-gun events.
Murthy’s rise to prominence highlights a glaring deficiency on the pro-gun side: the distinct lack of a media-friendly spokesperson. Murthy joins Mothers Demand Action for Gun Sense in America jefe Shannon Watts as the acceptable face of anti-firearms fascism. He’ll be pitted against the anti-statist pro-gun position occupied by . . . who? Ted Nugent? Well Ted is an NRA board member and the NRA is the anti-gun media’s bête noire. How about Tom Selleck? Anyone? Bueller?
The NRA’s a 500-pound pro-gun gorilla that’s only obvious by its near complete absence from the public square. The gun rights group’s longstanding policy of refusing to respond to attacks or publicly comment on firearms-related issues and events until things have “settled down” – and maybe not even then – is a huge, ongoing mistake. It’s left the friends of firearms freedom without a voice and leaves the pro-gun side vulnerable to attacks by fork-tongued firearms foes like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
In the video here, Maddow, a gun owner, repeats a ridiculous assertion made in a lawsuit filed by families affected by the Sandy Hook spree killing: Bushmaster should have known that selling AR-15’s to the general public posed an “unreasonable and egregious risk” because of “the civilian population’s poor track record of safely securing weapons.” That’s exactly the kind of inane assertion that the NRA should be slapping down on her show. That and the bit of the lawsuit that names the NRA as a defendant, as Maddow reveals. Oh wait. It doesn’t.
Click here to read the filing, which vilifies Bushmaster for making the gun that Adam Lanza used to slaughter 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It’s full of the same bogus anti-AR arguments and unsupported claims (e.g., “more than half of American households with firearms do not store them securely”) used to defend the “assault rifle” ban enacted in Connecticut and elsewhere.
Here’s the bit that caught my eye: “There is no evidence that semi-automatic rifles are commonly used for, or necessary for, legitimate self-defense by law-abiding citizens.” So, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms commonly used for, or necessary for, legitimate self-defense by law-abiding citizens shall not be infringed.” Like that?
The Newtown families behind this doomed lawsuit timed their filing to coincide with the second anniversary of the Sandy Hook slaughter. Ironically, the lawsuit labelling AR-15s as surplus to civilian self-defense also coincided with the Taliban’s attack yesterday on a Pakistani school that left 132 children dead. The obvious correlation: both attacks involved unopposed murderers killing children. The frightening corollary: anyone who thinks “it couldn’t happen here” now knows it can. The key difference: scale.
Not only is such an attack on an American school possible, it’s inevitable. And when it happens, men with AR-15s will end it. There are those of us who believe that the men (and women) who do so should be armed people working in the school at the time of the attack. That arming — and yes, training — teachers will limit casualties. And while they should have handguns on their person, ideally, school officials should have quick access to an AR-15 rifle. For the same reasons that other Americans have quick access to an AR-15 rifle: to mount a robust and efficient defense of innocent life.
Not that Americans need to justify their right to keep and bear whatever arms they see fit to the government. In the same sense that they don’t have to receive government permission to smoke cigarettes, eat fatty foods or drink jumbo-sized sugary soft drinks. Whether we’re talking about the Surgeon General, a media maven or a Taliban jihadi, anyone who wants the power to prohibit the public from pursuing happiness in accordance with their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected rights is their enemy. Think I’m wrong? Sue me.
Our healthcare system needs attention, leave our guns alone. It seems that the suicide rate for health care workers is more than double the norm, and depending on who you believe, anywhere from 100,000 up to possibly half a million! deaths a year are attributable to medical errors, negligence or other actions by medical professionals! The mental health community has a near zero ability to predict which patients will become violent or suicidal, by their own admission! Let them clean their own house first! We don’t need doctors telling us who can and who can’t have guns and how we need to handle them!
We POTG need to keep making the point that its about the person, not the gun.
Stop getting wound up over bullet buttons, mag limits, technical details, because you are playing the anti’s game…sure, we need to fix those bad laws, but first we need to reset the discussion, on root causes.
And specifically in cases of mass shootings, make the point that its always about crazy, and
ask, why don’t gun-grabbers and politicians deal with THAT much more difficult problem?
Take the fight to the progtards, where focus on the real problem can do some good, where reasonable people on the right and left agree, and ignore the extremists, who in contrast in their diistractions from the truth, will be more obvious in their hidden motivations, domination thru disarmament of free citizens.
Here is a great article by Clayton Cramer, on mental health. Lots of history and talking points to educate others.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/12/13/mentally-ill-have-been-left-to-fend-for-themselves.html
PS: for those unfamiliar, note that Cramer is a famous historian who has written on gun rights, since exposing Bellesiles fraud in Arming America.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Cramer
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Cramer
Why do we even have a surgeon general? I mean really, what’s the point?
He is in charge of leading the United States’ XII Surgical Brigade, which is only called upon in the gravest of circumstances, and is composed of the entire body of the nation’s doctors, nurses, EMT, paramedics, and other medical personnel. In peacetime, it’s a largely ceremonial function that weighs in on medical issues just for the heck of it.
And for putting stickers on the sides of cigarette cartons.
“Stickers”, my ass. Its printed on the packaging itself.
Didn’t the courts decide if an AR15 is suitable to own under the 2nd amendment back in the 1930’s? Something about a sawed-off shotgun NOT being applicable to use for a military or militia? Ok, so what is? I would think an AR15 is exactly the type of firearm protected by the 2nd.
If you were to take a very literal view of the militia clause in the Second Amendment then the only long gun that would be protected would be a select fire AR because that is what the regular military uses.
…or smooth bore muskets as some might interpret.
Can I get a cannon?
The Volokh Conspiracy’s Eugene Volokh dissects this lawsuit’s arguments on their site today. It was an interesting read though most of us on this site probably know most of the legal issues that make it absurd. Here’s a link http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/feed/
Don’t be put off by the Washington Post.
Or by the comments. There’s a fair number of pro-2A types in there, but once the usual WaPo subscribers get rolling, you’ll have to suppress the gag reflex.
we have already exerted more energy on the topic of Surgeon General, than the combine influence they have had over the last 150 years. let those knots outta your patties & go after some real windmills! Mixed metaphor notice!!
murthy, murthy me. i hope he focuses his attention on his pet obesity concerns. and i don’t mean his plump ewe. (ewww…)
America has no appetite for more gun control now. The hack won’t get much (if anything) done. Unless the admin is willing use blatantly illegal and horribly unpopular executive actions.
Oh, wait…
Tell that to the citizens of Washington state.
Fair enough. I actually do fear the money of wealthy statists like Bloomberg/Gates/Allen etc. more than I do Murthy’s blather. That can do real damage in places where statism has already gained the upper hand.
Murthy will be a ready, steady authoritarian mouthpiece for Bloomberg and his kind, while quietly taking performance consideration for services rendered. And the anti-gun legacy media will eagerly gobble up everything he says and regurgitate it for all the low information sheeple who read or watch their liberal programing blather. Women, with their emotion oriented view of things, will be especially affected. Women and men who aren’t invested in guns or attuned to diminishing freedoms won’t care.
Nothing like a prestigious new (pre-ordained) study from some governmental or learned institution for the antis to use to ‘prove’ themselves right. The media will be there at every turn to trumpet their message.
Control the message, brainwash the viewers, change cultural mores and capture votes. That’s exactly what was done in Washington State.
And where’s our rebuttal spokesman or woman? Hah! The liberal media will never acknowledge one or give one purchase on the airwaves. They control who gets heard, and how any pro-gun spokesman’s message is presented and vewed.
It’s up to all of us individually and collectively to politically and legally protest and resist this steam rolling we are being subject to. Yet our truly grassroots efforts may well be cut down by the moneyed, statist anti-gun richly funded goliath conglomerate of Obama, Bloomberg, and all their various beholden mouthpieces both in and out of government.
I’ve been an ER/Trauma nurse longer tan this kid’s been alive. I’ll put my experience up against his fancy title anytime. But judging by his body language he’s not open to learning anything from an old dog.
His body language in that particular photo projects the image of an authoritarian, closed minded, intolerant, elitist SOB.
@Paul-
Just as Sotomayor tries to portray herself as “a wise Latina woman”, on SCOTUS, this guy Murthy is going to try to portray himself as a “wise Indian guru of medicine”. Just watch.
To Robert Farago-
Wayne LaPierre has always been the counterpoint to the gungrabbers, especially after episodes involving mass shootings like Sandy Hook. He’s been getting support from Ted Nugent among others, but we need more prominent voices. That was a role that Chuck Heston superbly filled, and that void is still felt. I’d like to see NRA board member and NASCAR team owner Richard Childress become more openly involved.
This kid is a hack. He looks like he’s moments away from offering me the chance to be my own boss, and make thousands selling the highest quality supplements from the comfort of my own home. Burn fat while you watch tv!
Correction. The killer’s mental health state rarely takes center stage. That would be a step in the right direction.
My opinion is that the gun control debate will become louder in the Main Stream Media and low information crowd due to the new SG. Murthy will take on the role of a puppet to perform a part of the show that is liberal media, in the theater owned by the progressive agenda. He will be used to speak the “factual”/scientific/research/medical voice to intentionally fan the flames of the fear of guns. The talking points will shift from “assault and high cap” to ALL guns.
The main TV and radio shows will never bring on a guest that will present facts and FBI statistics. Their guests toe the line. There will never be a “discussion” that they claim to want to have.
Our side argues facts. This is the true, right thing to do. But it fails in the war for the hearts and minds of the average American. Our side needs a pro-gun superstar. Someone sexy; somebody that the average American secretly desires to be like. Our side needs a superstar that the MSM will consider having as a guest simply because it will grab attention and viewers. It might not actually be Colion, but we need a Colion-type that we all get behind.
When the low information crowd begins to think “Gunz iz bad cause the brown guy in the white coat said so,” we need a dog in the fight that they will recognize by face and name.
Robert, while I agree 100% that we need a spokesperson with the ultimate in charisma, how will he or she get time on the heavily biased MSM? As Yogi Berra said, if the fans don’t want to come to the ballpark there’s no way your going to stop them.
Gun control is dead at the federal level for the next two years.
Agree, Murthy will just be another stupid prop for the liberal media.
That’s not the point.
These moneyed and elitist antis are working to effect long term cultural perceptions in order to diminish resistance to firearms confiscation over the long term. Putting large numbers supposedly knowledgeable, purportedly well meaning officious mouthpieces in positions of notoriety, power and trust is part of the conditioning effort needed to achieve their ultimate goals; cultural acquiescence to gun confiscation from most citizens.
That could be gradually accomplished by expanding prohibited ownership categories, grandfathering confiscation through transfer restrictions, seizures for health-safety-welfare during calamities, or whatever other excuse the antis and their statist cousins can come up with.
It’s not what they can do to us in the short term, it’s the long term they are trying to affect.
The NRA should hire an actual doctor to replace WLP. It would force the media to cover it from a doc VS doc angle, and that would REALLY infuriate these little twits. It would be so beautiful to watch a person who actually PRACTICED medicine take his whole argument apart piece by piece, then encourage people to take NRA approved firearms safety courses. The sight of their stupid faces twitching with rage as their secret weapon was belittled and embarrassed by his better would make my life complete.
Rachel Maddow is just a fudd.
Who watches Mr Madow’s show? Gun owners are such a diverse group we don’t need a spokesperson, although the NRA could use a good one. The NRA is helping the gun culture and that’s what we need most. In an America where 10% of gun owners belong to the NRA plus a state affiliate and where 1% of gun owners regularly open carry, we would see permitless carry and the repeal of GCA 68 very quickly and NFA 34 soon enough.
I don’t know why Newtown parents are suing Bushmaster. They should sue the makers of the “no guns” sticker on the door. That’s the negligently designed piece of equipment that failed in the attack.
they could always hire someone like me. Chicago native, working as a public defender for over 10 years, educated, diverse cultural awareness, NRA and Illinois Concealed Carry Instructor, capable of speaking to large audiences, able to think on my feet, and am told i’m reasonably likeable. no weird history of wackadoo statements, and no lamebrain ideas or thoughts that could be turned into tropes for the opposition.
They may want someone who knows how to capitalize the beginning of a sentence.
i resemble that remark.
And Dirk…
🙂
I read through that lawsuit yesterday, and its authors were so incredibly ignorant about guns that it was comical. Their argument was basically ‘AR-15’s are so deadly because of their muzzle velocity of 4,000 fps (lol); some study showed you only need 2 rounds to defend yourself with; the Supreme Court said handguns are the best home defense weapons because they are smaller than rifles; civilians are inherently irresponsible and foolish and do not even know what a gun is capable of doing.’ They even threw in a quote from a 1983 issue of G&A to drive the point home that only swat teams or the military could possibly need a rifle designed after 1900.
After General McCrystal’s claim that an AR -15 is too powerful for civilian use I put together a bag of brass containing a 5.56, 243, 308, 30-06 and a 300 winmag. I ask antigunners to identify the too powerful for civillian use AR 15 round and they invariably pick either the 30-06 or 300 winmag because they are so big. When I show them the 5.56 the get that surprised look on their face.
That is a great take on an old idea.
You should do it with loaded rounds (if able); 5.56 will look even whimpier with those little varmint bullets compared to 30-cal and mag rifle rounds.
I always thought it would be a good idea to put together a display of all the hunting rifle rounds in the US, starting with the lowly .22 and running up to one of the large African dangerous game rounds, to show people that by comparison, the .223 is rather puny. People simply don’t understand that the .300 WinMag is a far more powerful round than the .223, and that the most popular hunting round in the US, the 30-06, was developed for use in war, and was used in at least three major conflicts by US military forces. And that when all is said and done, more people in this country are killed with .22LRs than all the other rifle rounds put together. Since all firearms are deadly, it simply makes no logical sense to point to one relatively anemic round and claim that only police and military should be allowed its use.
Good idea, but who can spare a 22lr for your display?
So did the families of Jeffery dahlmer’s victims sue the manufacturers of knives and freezers?
No? Huh, funny that.
Guns will be a public health issue only if and when the government or the general public decides to ignore my natural rights and deprive me of my life or liberty. It genuinely disheartens me that so many humans heed whatever anyone with an impressive title, fancy suit or uniform says with no regard to said person’s actual qualifications or the validity of their arguments. Obama has appointed a paid shill to advance his agenda and no one will call his authority into question.. because he has a fancy title and wears a white coat.
On the bright side, this means I can finally release my “Improve Your Health With Beer And Cigars” video series. I AM a professionally certified carpet cleaner, after all…
“… the distinct lack of a media-friendly spokesperson…. who?”
Larry Potterfield. I’ve never seen another human on TV that can make me feel at ease like Larry when he talks. I’d love to see him on a screaming-head talk show.
I wouldn’t have voted to confirm this pre-teen, no-accomplishments hack to be so much as Surgeon Second Lieutenant.
Medically-caused deaths are the third leading killer in America, and Murthy is most worried about guns? Oh what a schmuck he is.
True, but he’s likely not a schmuck. Big step up for him, he’d be a fool to deny the position.
Like this tool is going to be a bigger fool than Minnie “Joycelyn” Elders as Sturgeon Private. Remember her?
Private Murthy, Surgeon General…straight out of M.A.S.H.
Another ‘actor’ in government.
Hilarious if it wasn’t so foreboding for what he’ll be trying to accomplish with the help of the sympathetic media hypocrites.
Don’t we love the irony of a surgeon general claiming guns are a huge problem, when more folks die from preventable medical errors than from gunfire (by several orders of magnitude) each year?
Seriously, last I heard it was roughly 100,000 Americans who die from preventable medical errors (most of which are actually infections from doctors not washing their damn hands), compared to the 30,000 who did every year from gunfire (yes, I know that about half of those are suicides).
In fact, the hospital comparison is actually a pretty apt one for gun ownership, when speaking to the low information types. The antis love to pretend that guns offer no value to society; they focus solely on the negative.
A hundred thousand die in hospitals, while millions are helped, some in a significant way (namely, their lives are saved). While there are certainly risks, we as a society have decided that hospitals do far more good than harm, so we continue to go to them, and why health care professionals get paid so well.
Same story with guns. Are there risks of abuse? Sure, but according to the data, they do far more good than harm.
Just keep reporting the facts, and the how to’s in an educational, entertaining, and accessible wah (internet, youtube, etc).
Its working, as the drop off cliff ratings at MSNBC, the huge riee in citizen support for gun rights in surveys, and steady gun sales prove.
The Obama MisAdministration, the gun-grab activists, and the StateRunMedia and journolistas are forced into making more hysterical claims and tyrannical moves, that are recognized as such, leading to faster denial or reversal.
Just keep punching back twice as hard, with the facts, and a moral argument infused with passion, for a better way, than the proposed progtard law or executive action. And keep track of the elected and appointed officials who wont agree, and put them on notice we will defund and vote them out, and vote in a POTUS who will clean house in 2016.
That is working. we just have 30 years of progtard stupid in the press, academia, and some captive agencies, DOJ, EPA, etc, to root out. It will take time and commitment, but the sea change is underway, and sadly, the unrest overseas and weak economy at home works in favor of the armed for self defense citizen sensibility.
Dont get complacent from some victories, much more to be done.
Keep Calm And Carry On.
Suicide is a public health issue–but that some, even most, suicides use firearms is an irrelevancy.
It’s laughable, in a twisted sense, to anyone familiar with medical death statistics that the Surgeon General would have an ounce of credibility on anything health related, let alone firearms. Aside from that, the quote from this piece that is most eye catching is not the Surgeon General’s, it is TTAG’s, …”Not only is such an attack on an American school possible, it’s inevitable”. Is this a bit of predictive programming Mr. Farago? It’s exactly these type of statements that lend the “conspiracy theorists” some credibility with the content on this site.
Don’t presume to know what was on RF’s mind when he wrote it, but from where I’m sitting such savagery has been part of the human condition as long as there have been humans. Predicting that another nut will kill helpless innocents in the future is much like predicting that another earthquake will occur some time in the future.
I don’t presume to know anything. It is Mr. Farago that is doing some mighty presuming to know. These kind of statements can be viewed as predictive programming.
i do see a firearm restriction coming via the SG and Obama but at most it will last 2 years then get immediately repealed.
Obama already passed several gun restrictions directly and indirectly. The 7n6 ammo ban, the ban on Russian firearms, ban on M1 Garand/Carbines being imported, and Steyr AUG 9mm. conversion kits.
This Obama appointed clown does not have the authority to ban anything. All he can do is spew his BS until tossed out into the street in 2016.
Unless Hilary wins then he will be there for another 10 years or moreso if another Democrat is elected after her.
Congress didn’t confirm him, the Senate did.
Our new SG will likely be more of a pain in our A** than anything else. I know medical doctors who load their own shells, enjoy a good duck-hunt, etc. So I’m skeptical these typically intelligent people won’t fall for the SG’s opinions based on emotion rather than empirical data.
So far as Newtown goes, there are a number of changes which could have improved the survival rate from such an attack. But I wonder if these are addressed or is it too unpopular to employ logic and reason versus manic emotion?