U.S. surgeon general declares gun violence a public health crisis

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 290 points –
U.S. surgeon general declares gun violence a public health crisis
cbsnews.com
45

Took long enough.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-nra-blocking-obamas-surgeon-general-nominee/

Obama wanted to do this, but the NRA blocked his choice for Surgeon General.

I don't think people realize how far the NRA has gone to block ANY legislation that will reduce gun sales. We have bad gun laws not because of the lack of effort from government, but specifically how much effort the NRA has put in to stop it.

They went bankrupt funding progun policy.

This is one of my favorite stories.

The ATF completely screwed up the raid on the Branch Davidian Church in Waco back in 1993. It was indenfesnable and a lot of people started saying that the Agency should be abolished and its responsibilities moved to the FBI.

"Small government" GOPs blocked any mention of the idea, because they were worried about having the FBI looking into gun crimes.

Do you have a source for that? That would be a very interesting read.

Talk to anyone who was old enough to vote for Clinton.

It wasn't a big dramatic floor fight in Congress. People started talking about doing away with the ATF, and the idea seemed to be gaining momentum, and then it just...vanished.

Also they backed banning open carry here in California because the scarry Black Panthers. Bunch of racists cowards, also wallow in piss Ronald Reagan ya fucking profligate.

Okay, so almost two mass shootings per day is the line at which a US official is willing to speak out against gun violence.

Good to know.

I would have said one mass shooting a week is really pushing it, but that's why they're the surgeon general.

Line in the sand: roughly two mass shootings everyday.

I read a headline yesterday that a toddler has been injured by firearms every day for the last two years in the US. But abortion is the problem. As an 80s kid, no disrespect, but guns are gay.

I thought the headline was that there was a toddler shooting someone every two weeks. Although from what I read, that headline was a bit incorrect.

The toddler on toddler violence in the US is out of control!

toddler has injured themselves with a firearm every day for the last two years

Should really take the gun away from that dude and teach him the difference between plural and singular 🤔

Only two? We passed 2 a few years back. I've seen 8 but if the average isn't 4 I'll be surprised.

Yup, the average for US mass shootings, as in multiple victims of gun violence from a single shooting, in 2024 up to June is 1.5 per day, or about one mass shooting in the US every 16 hours.

You might be thinking of regular shootings, where only one person is injured, which is way more common and includes suicides and accidents.

Waiting for the right to panic about stats they have been trying to hide for 30 years. Or they will force a recall vote to remove the Surgeon General.

They’ll just put surgeon general’s warnings on public schools.

I'm here thinking: "but gunshots are not a disease? Wait, gunshots ARE treated at hospitals, and probably take a lot more resources to treat than, say, a fever. So it does fall within his purview in my uninformed opinion."

And then I thought "But why are people shooting each other? Maybe he should have declared a mental health crisis?"

So to conclude, I think it would be more productive to treat the mental health issue, and gun crimes should reduce. Of course, reducing the number and availability of guns would help too, but seems a harder problem to tackle.

This is actually the main policy stance of the Liberal Gun Club. That we're spending all this time regulating guns and ignoring/underaddressing the root causes like mental health issues, domestic violence, toxic masculinity, income inequality, poverty, etc.

Not to say that guns shouldn't be regulated to some extent, but with the way mental health is in America I'm pretty sure we'd just see a spike in knife and baseball bat crime and suicide by hanging if we somehow magically got rid of guns.

https://theliberalgunclub.com/about-us/root-cause-mitigation-2/

there's mentally ill people in every country but only in america do they have easy access to firearms with hardly any red tape.

Most countries have a functional mental health system. The US does not. We fail on both accounts.

Canada says "High". we don't have a functional mental health solution and it's only gotten worse. And while we do have gun crime, it's nowhere near the same as our southern neighbour because of our gun restrictions and we don't Fetishize gun culture.

Mental health IS part of the problem. But the insane culture around owning firearms in the US directly leads to the prevalence of gun crime.

Didnt we already go down this path, and it was found that it was already covered by multiple other agencies, and the Surgeon General had no jurisdiction?

Congress effectively barred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from funding gun violence research. It wasn’t until 2019 that Congress ended the two-decade freeze with $25 million in annual funding.

The Surgeon General doesn't have jurisdiction to declare a public health crisis? Seems like exactly their jurisdiction. It's not like they're trying to pass or enforce any laws. Plus those other agencies are clearly derelict of duty, so I'm all for the any functional agencies doing whatever they can to force positive change on this troglodytic tire fire of a nation.

Not on crimes, no.

They didn't say there's a public health crisis "on crimes," they said there's a public health crisis of gun violence, which is obviously very accurate. I'm not sure if you're aware, but when it comes to public health, guns can actually only have a negative impact. That's how they're designed.

So is inflation an epidemic too? How about climate change? It all affects health! We should let the SG pass any law he wants!

Again, they didn't pass a law, they're not a legislative body.

But you bring up a good point, climate change is a public health crisis. I'd actually be worried if the Surgeon General wasn't worried about it. Inflation's just a symptom of capitalism though, you gotta get to the root of the problem if you want real change.

So is inflation an epidemic too?

Yes.... Not the point you're trying to make I guess.

We should let the SG pass any law he wants!

SG isn't passing any laws. They are making a statement.

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