Last week, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky, announced the CDC’s new public-health focus—addressing the Biden Administration’s newly labeled “gun violence public health epidemic.”
Given the CDC’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its unconstitutional eviction moratorium (that the Supreme Court recently struck down) Americans have good reason to be skeptical. Anticipating such skepticism, Dr. Walensky told CNN in an exclusive interview: “My job is to understand and evaluate the problem.”
But that isn’t her job at all.
“I’m not here about gun control,” she assured. “I’m here about preventing gun violence and gun death.”
But those terms are, in and of themselves, part of the gun control agenda. Several things stand out in this piece of soft-totalitarian propaganda.
First and foremost, there is the language of “gun violence.”
“Gun violence” strikes many people as nothing more than the description of a crime—like “mail fraud” or “car theft.” It’s now so common in the media that plenty of Americans say the words without even thinking.
But the term “gun violence” is used to blame guns for crime—to demonize them—and to advance gun control. Outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and NPR have used the phrase tens of thousands of times in what is now clearly a form of deliberate political messaging.
The truth is guns don’t cause crime, and guns don’t commit “violence.”
Acts of violent aggression are choices carried out by human beings who have abandoned all considerations of human life and are intent upon harming people. They alone are responsible for their choices.
The same disturbing dismissal of personal responsibility is at work when the terms “public health” and “epidemic” are used to discuss guns and violence.
In this rhetorical setup, individual acts of violence are not really the issue; what media and gun control activists claim matters is that society is suffering from a “gun violence epidemic.” (Our word “epidemic” is from the Ancient Greek epi and demos—signifying something that has “come upon the whole people.”)
This language of an “epidemic” is meant to make us think about the problem, and thus the “solution,” in collective terms—as if violence was not a choice on the part of individuals but a general condition of public life. They cast it as a universal problem, calling for a universal solution.
Dr. Walensky even makes reference to “40,000 related deaths” and “120,000 serious injuries” every year. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of the “60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.” A data point Dr. Walensky should be intimately familiar with since it comes from the CDC.
Then there is the term “public health.” Who could possibly be opposed to health?
To define “gun violence” as a “public health” issue poisons the well for any possible discussion. It attacks the opponent’s morality by the way the proponent frames the purported problem: I am for addressing the gun violence public health epidemic; my opponent opposes life-saving public health measures.
In addition to serving as an effective rhetorical device, defining a problem as a “public health epidemic” is also a convenient way of securing taxpayer dollars for pseudo-medical studies and bureaucratic projects that waste our money on partisan political advocacy. And, of course, those studies often conveniently come to a conclusion most useful to whatever politician or bureaucrat ordered the study.
In matters of language and in matters of law, what begins with gun control will not end there. In the future, we will see more political questions defined in these kinds of terms—as “epidemic” or “systemic,” and as “public health” issues. It is convenient messaging for utopian-minded social engineers and designed specifically to be appealing to much of the public.
Finally, let’s not forget the amazing tone-deafness of talking about our nation’s spiking homicide rate in the sanitized terms of a “gun violence public health epidemic.”
Tens of thousands of Americans are being murdered. Their friends and family did not lose these loved ones to a “public health epidemic,” but to violent criminals.
Polite, sterile language should not be used to obscure this fact. And that language must be challenged—especially when used by those who would leave us disarmed and defenseless, at the mercy of criminals.
But, from the agency that changed its position on masks more times than can be remembered, and thought it had the authority to prevent evections nationwide under a statute that allows the CDC to fumigate and exterminate pests, what more should we expect?
Now the CDC wants “to understand why [gun violence] happens and what are the things that can make it better.” The CDC has demonstrated that making things better is well outside its reach.
Dr. Walensky claims she wants to involve gun owners in the conversation. Well, Dr. Walensky, I volunteer. Please feel free to reach out at your earliest convenience. I will be happy to discuss the proper role of the CDC in addressing Americans’ natural right to keep and bear arms.
Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the director of Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.
To learn more about the Center to Keep and Bear Arms’ work and support their fight for your natural right to self-defense—from both man and tyranny—visit www.mslegal.org/2A and donate today.
Open letter to the Marsupial,
**Tears Forming**… “Are you somehow magically oblivious to the multiple personal attacks made upon me”
**Eyes Welling Up**…”I’ve been called every name in the book…”
**The Crying Commences** …”slut, idiot, you name it..”
**Full On Whaling**…”and you folks have laid it on me.”
**Loud Shrieking**…”Yet I have refrained from stooping to the sad level of what passes for adult discussion on this forum.”
**Trying to choke back tears**…”Might I suggest, a more careful reading of the comments I post on this forum.”
**With Righteous Indignation**…”I’m going to call you on that one, please refer me to a specific episode where I “did the name calling first”?”
**To a Roaring Crowd** and **As I Curtsy** Thank You, Thank You! THANK YOU !!
**Accepting Award** I would like to thank all the little creatures who made this moment possible!
And just remember “you folks”, no matter how much I obfuscate, act snarky or like an irritating quarrelsome cantankerous gnat…
…no matter how much I spread fake news and disinformation, act honorless and shameless, and just flat out lie (my favorite)…. I, Miner49er, am the true victim!
Not the real Miner.
But whoever you are…very creative. I didn’t realize it wasn’t the real Miner until the very end. Kudos, good sir.
Meh. One miner makes as much sense as the next.
Apparently that is very much Miner from today only a couple of stories back. In fact Miner posted that rant just under your comments Haz and jwm near the top of the comment section.
Miner49er September 2, 2021 At 09:16
Opossum says:
“dont you think calling people names is a little childish Dacian Miner49er”
So who have I called names, Mr. marsupial?
Are you somehow magically oblivious to the multiple personal attacks made upon me on this forum? I’ve been called every name in the book, slut, idiot, you name it, and you folks have laid it on me.
Yet I have refrained from stooping to the sad level of what passes for adult discussion on this forum.
Might I suggest, a more careful reading of the comments I post on this forum.
“What gets me is you do the name calling first then complain about people calling you names and attacking you”
I’m going to call you on that one, please refer me to a specific episode where I “did the name calling first”
Here; https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/gun-meme-of-the-day-arming-the-taliban-3-edition/
Miner49er,
The glorious thing about freedom is if you dont like it where your at you can always leave.
That’s what I do.
But remember wherever you go there You are.
The Republicans stopped them once before from wasting money studying the “public health” aspects of gun crime. I guess they will have to do it again. Gun crimes are committed by low life, useless, subhuman beings in general, the gun is innocent. Keep locking up losers and the guns will remain in the hands of honest citizens and patriots. I worked and published at CDC. They dislike me for being right wing conservative and I hated them for being Leftist, Communist retards.
Walensky is a political hack. The CDC, like much of the federal government, is being used to justify political “solutions” driven by leftist ideology. Their goal is the elimination of the private ownership of firearms. Walensky will do her part to make that happen.
The entirety of government – local, state, and federal – is now completely unconstrained by Constitutional restrictions.
Of course violent crime is a public health problem.
The issue isn’t with a politician or bureaucrat talking about the public health problem of violent criminal acts. The issue is when they ignore the person doing the act and instead focus on the inanimate object.
There is no such thing as Gun Violence, Knife Violence, Spoon Induced Weight Gain or any other willful, thinking act that can be attributed to a “thing”.
Animal Violence or Human Violence, that’s really it. The objects are not the cause.
Sea Otters have been observed to pick up stones in their furry little hands and use them to crack open shellfish. Should we be talking about Sopping Wet Ocean Stone Violence on our seashores?
No, I’m not kidding, shouldn’t we be taking those sopping wet ocean stones away to protect the shellfish?
Ever watch seagulls opening clams? They pick them up gain a hundred feet or so of altitude, and drop them on big rocks. It’s quite a show, and they rarely miss the target rock. 🙂
I seen a great horned owl take a house cat to high altitude and drop it.
Hell even Dr. Phil is a doctor…of Quackology just like her.
Like having Dr. Jill B. Doing brain surgery.
About as much competency.
How about making criminals actually pay for THEIR choices in life & get off the back of the law abiding citizens!
Gun owners are and have been a very big part of the conversation. If she cared to listen, there has been plenty said.
It’s only a CDC issue because the Democrat left has quite incorrectly labeled it as “gun violence is a health care crisis”. Which it isn’t any such thing. I completely agree that it’s about crime.
If the masks work so well then they should have handed them out to the inmates instead of releasing them back to the population. Letting the animals out of their cages was one of the worst thing they could do.
They have moved to “It’s a Health Issue” and pivoted to the CDC because all other Legal efforts to deny and dismantle the 2nd Amendment have failed. As this one will also.
All her quackery is merely “Job Justification.” It isn’t “Gun Violence”. It is “Defective Citizen Violence.”
The solution is easy. Execute criminals who use guns or any other deadly weapon. It would eliminate recidivism and be a lot less expensive than a lifetime of giving them a lifetime of 3 hots and a cot, medical, and entertainment.
“The solution is easy. Execute criminals who use guns or any other deadly weapon.”
England once got rid their worst by shipping them off to Australia.
Think we can talk Oz into the same deal today?
Maybe Greenland? 😉
Give the perps swimming lessons as you cross the Pacific. And then drop them off on a rainforest beach north of Cairns. Between the saltwater crocodiles, box jellyfish, cassowaries (think raptor with feathers and a don’t give a f**k attitude), and other fauna and flora, few will survive.
With government, it is always about the language; two words where one is sufficient. For instance: “retrograde movement” when “retreat” conveys all that one needs to know.
Crime goes up when you let criminals out early. It’s that simple. Some people want to make this so difficult.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/why-americans-are-buying-guns-virginia-accelerates-release-of-killers-rapists-and-kidnappers/
So you believe rehabilitation works?
Maybe for some.
The only way to prevent criminals from doing anything criminal would be to keep them locked up until they were to old to rob anything .
I’ve known far to many who’ve served 2-9 years and when let back out go right back to doing what they were doing. Some of that is frustration with getting a job, housing, and all that. Some of it is that’s all they know and some of it is they’re just plain mean and no amount of time behind bars will change that.
It is said in China most of the senior strategic planning people are hydraulic engineers, which explains why they are yet to find a problem that isn’t fixed by building another canal. Leftists seem to have a thing for canal building.
A doctor who is an anti-gun zealot in charge of the CDC is going to see every issue, especially criminals, as a medical pandemic to be cured.
The old “to a hammer every problem looks like a nail” analogy…nice. To the statist every problem looks like not enough state.
All my gunms have been vaccinated with oil, no need to worry about catching anything from them.
How Gdamed stupid. The gunm epidemic? has nothing to do with disease.
If anything it would be a mental health issue. And mental health would be the person and not the gunm anyway.
How about the CDC do research on cars named Christene, automobiles kill far more people then gunms.
Ironicatbest how humans accept one form of death over another.
The last time the CDC was involved, Obama commissioned them to show that gun violence was an epidemic. The CDC came back a while later and stated nope, there is no data to show that it is an epidemic. So now this woman comes in and tries to say it is. This woman needs to have her medical license revoked.
Walensky is yet ANOTHER Harvard twit. A pox on tha communist institution.
It’s public knowledge that guns, in and of themselves, cause crime….
This is the same nitwit the entire nonothing US “medical” industry is listening to regarding the chicom flu and the phoney injection.
1. Anything less than a N95 DOES NOTHING USEFUL (the “KN95 is useless chicom crap)
2. The injection is untested and not useful. Cause HUGE unreported (in the US) problems with injectees. You have to go to a freaking GOLF magazine for honest US reporting on the stupid shit.
https://progolfweekly.com/vaccination-wars-hospitalized-patrick-reed-vs-healthy-bryson-dechambeau/
Waiting moderation? Really nanny
Walensky is, like Fauci, a Quack. She also has, like Fauci, Lied to the American People on multiple occasions.
Dr Walinsky, “I’m not here about gun control,” she assured. “I’m here about preventing gun violence and gun death.” If that were a true statement she would be asking ” How do we prevent criminals from getting guns in the first place”. She might learn that weapons are not the problem, it is the criminal and those persons with demonstrated mental and psychological problems who have access to weapons that cause the crimes. So the only health issue she should be addressing is the one concerning mental and psychological issues; so what is she doing about it, the same as every other gun control addict – attack the gun and the millions of persons who own them but do not commit crimes.
Thank you for sharing this. In fact, this is a large and open question on which we probably will not come to a common solution in the near future. But I believe that public health issues are very important, as it is one of the few important aspects affecting our lives, so I think that this should be given top priority.
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“But I believe that public health issues are very important, as it is one of the few important aspects affecting our lives, so I think that this should be given top priority.”
Eventually, every human activity will become a health issue. The good news is that national health problems are the purview of the central government; free healthcare for everyone.
Except those the government finds “deplorable”.