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Home » News » News » U.S. Surgeon General Declares Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis
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U.S. Surgeon General Declares Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis

Seamus OthotBy Seamus OthotJune 26, 2024Updated:June 26, 20249 Comments3 Mins Read
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U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy announced on Tuesday that he has officially declared firearm violence a “public health crisis” and has issued an advisory detailing a recommended “public health approach” for dealing with gun violence.

[RELATED: Maine ‘Gun Safety’ Coalition Oversees Negligent Firearm Discharge at Gun-Giveback…]

“Today, for the first time in the history of our office, I am issuing a Surgeon General’s Advisory on firearm violence,” said Murthy, “Firearm violence is a public health crisis. Our failure to address it is a moral crisis. To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage and urgency that this moment demands.”

NEW: Today, for the first time in the history of our office, I am issuing a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Firearm Violence. Firearm violence is a public health crisis in America that poses a serious threat to the health and well-being of our country. https://t.co/bNS7xDa96X 1/10 pic.twitter.com/1w43IMMpxA

— Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) June 25, 2024

Murthy claims that 54 percent of U.S. adults have been in some way affected by a “firearm-related incident,” either directly or through a relative.

These incidents include 21 percent of surveyed adults who claimed that they were directly threatened by a firearm, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

The surgeon general also claimed that firearm deaths have risen dramatically among people under 20, with a sharp uptick from 2019 to 2020.

According to the surgeon general’s data, firearms have become the leading cause of death among people under 20, exceeding vehicle related deaths.

Murthy noted that firearm deaths are disproportionately high among blacks and minorities, but did not mention anything about the nature of those wielding the firearms.

The guidelines also highlighted the 79 percent of U.S. adults who allegedly experience stress from the possibility of a mass shooting, and a staggering 33 percent claim that they have avoided going to certain places or events out of fear of a potential shooting.

In the surgeon general’s advisory, he calls for a “public health” approach to preventing gun violence.

“During an emergency, like that of firearm violence in the U.S., a public health approach requires combining the best available scientific evidence with scientific judgment and expertise to take life‑saving action quickly. This involves simultaneously implementing promising prevention strategies and policies, continuing to gather more evidence, and iterating to improve interventions,” said the advisory.

The advisory suggested that the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) approach to firearm violence could be similar to past efforts to reduce smoking, and driving related deaths, both of which required extensive government involvement and regulation.

Unlike smoking or driving, however, the 2nd Amendment explicitly grants Americans a right to own firearms.

The guidelines also call for a slew of policy changes commonly pushed by gun control activists, including a legal requirement that firearms be stored unloaded and separate from ammunition.

The CDC also called for universal background checks, licensing requirements for anyone seeking to buy a firearm, increased age minimums for firearm purchases, and a mandatory waiting period, such as the 72-hour waiting period introduced in Maine in the most recent legislative session.

They also advocated for a ban on “assault weapons” and magazines with round capacities over 10, policies which were pushed by gun-control advocates in Maine following the October shooting in Lewiston.

Although the CDC, which is comprised of unelected officials, does not have the legal authority to implement policies or curtail rights, they have recently been permitted to determine significant policies.

Under both the Trump and Biden Administrations, the CDC’s COVID guidelines were used to drastically reduce the rights of all Americans, and shut down the entire country for months, setting a disturbing precedent of the unelected organization being empowered to unilaterally remove rights from the American people.

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Seamus Othot

Seamus Othot is a reporter for The Maine Wire. He grew up in New Hampshire, and graduated from The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, where he was able to spend his time reading the great works of Western Civilization. He can be reached at seamus@themainewire.com

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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="28914 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=28914">9 Comments

  1. Wilson on June 26, 2024 1:55 PM

    It’s nigg3r violence wif guns, get it right jeet!

  2. Oldenoughtoknowbetter on June 26, 2024 3:49 PM

    It’s not “gun violence”. It’s illegal gun violence. Every thug out there has an illegal firearm and the feds only care about chasing people who obey the laws and Republicans. We have 2 gigantic bureaucracies, the FBI and the ATF who don’t appear to be interested in solving this problem. The question is why?

  3. Bryan on June 26, 2024 4:08 PM

    “Today, for the SECOND time in the history of our Republic, WE THE PEOPLE are issuing an Advisory on Governmental violence,” said the Patriots, “Governmental violence is a public health crisis. Our failure to address it is a moral crisis. To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage and urgency that this moment demands.”

  4. Jill Herendeen on June 27, 2024 6:26 AM

    “Gun violence” = citizen disarmament, at least until the gov’t has disarmed itself.

  5. Jill Herendeen on June 27, 2024 6:44 AM

    Actually, the CDC’s COVID guidelines ONLY curtailed the freedoms of Americans who didn’t happen to work for the CDC, FDA, NIH, & other (unelected) federal agencies which EXEMPTED their employees from having to get clot-shots, as well as those who HAD to work for a living at other businesses which demanded that their employees get those clot-shots, which had ONLY been “authorized” for emergency use, which was an oblique way of saying that nobody could (legally) force anyone to get those clot-shots because coercion was illegal under rules of Emergency Use Authorization. The direct result is that mortality of working-age Americans, ages 18-64, LEAPT 40% during the 3rd & 4th quarters of 2021 than it ever had been, even during the alleged “pandemic”. Edward Dowd tells us in his book, CAUSE UNKNOWN: THE EPIDEMIC OF SUDDEN DEATHS IN 2021 AND 2022, that a 10% spike in excess mortality is a 1-in-200-year event; a 40% increase is literally earth-shaking. Meanwhile, as over 220 health agencies (including the Maine HHS) have admitted, nobody yet has actually isolated a COVID virus from anyone who was sick from allegedly that virus. Using COVID tyranny as an excuse for anything decent is a precedent anyone sane would want to avoid, IMHO.

  6. Jill Herendeen on June 27, 2024 7:10 AM

    IMHO, the best action to take is to get rid of all the unelected agencies.

  7. James Andrews on June 27, 2024 8:19 AM

    Screw them. Our rights have nothing to do with “public health”. If anything, guns save lives.

  8. R,Champ on June 27, 2024 9:38 AM

    I would think Vivek would be more concerned with kids being physically mutilated through the encouragement of supporting the mental illness of transgenderism.

    What do guns have to do with public health? Why not a warning on knives, cars, crossing the street etc or even all the processed junk food that people are becoming obese on? This is only looking to tighten the screw on gun control. It’s adding one more talking point leading to reinforce the eventual confiscation of our privately owned guns.

    Does anyone think that Vivek Murthy being a Soros fellowship recipient has anything to do with this ammunition that the surgeon general is adding to the gun control/eventual seizure crowd?

  9. Judge Smells on June 27, 2024 10:32 AM

    Disarm the government departments if you’re so worried about guns. Every Government bureaucracy has it’s own “police force” —

    The Department of Education buys 100K rounds of ammo every year — who are they planning to shoot?

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