Micheal Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety tweeted on April 30 that President Donald Trump’s decision to remove Vivek Murthy from the position of Surgeon General was an attack on gun safety.
Everytown linked to an April 25 Salon column to make their case; a column which claimed that the Black Lives Matter movement–coupled with Murthy’s position that guns should be regulated as a healthcare matter–were about to make real strides in securing gun control.
The Everytown tweet:
President Trump's firing of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is an attack on gun violence research https://t.co/2uGuYDcv22
— Everytown (@Everytown) April 30, 2017
The Salon article to which Everytown linked claimed there was “a fledging movement in the world of trauma surgery to revive ’90s-era research efforts investigating the root causes of gun violence” which was snuffed out by Murthy’s removal. Salon suggested that Murthy’s presence as Surgeon General allowed researchers and doctors to study contributors ranging “from systematic racism to overly lax gun laws.”
Salon added:
Even though the topic is highly politicized, there was reason for doctors to believe that a series of mass shootings, renewed debate over firearm laws and the Black Lives Matter movement had helped create a social environment ripe for an increase of medical research attention to the causes of gun violence and possible methods of preventing it.
Salon lamented that “Donald Trump… requested Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s resignation” just as the gun controllers were getting their hopes up. And they noted that Trump’s action was “a move widely seen to be a sign of Trump’s hostility toward any discussion of gun violence as a public health issue.”
Salon did not mention the death and bloodshed which mark two of the most gun-controlled cities in America–Baltimore and Chicago–nor did they mention that both of those cities are, and have been, Democrat-run for decades. In other words, the murders occurring in those two cities cannot be blamed on “overly lax gun laws” and if racism in leadership is to blame, Everytown will have to investigate Democrats to get to the bottom of it.
On May 1 Breitbart News reported that “assault weapons” ban, “high capacity” magazine ban, and fingerprinting requirements for handgun buyers adopted by Baltimore in 2013 have not translated into tranquility but mayhem. They witnessed 344 murders in 2015 and 318 murders in 2016. The murder rate is currently rising so fast that the city’s mayor is asking the FBI to step in.
And Chicago is a war zone that witnessed over 1,000 shooting victims between January 1, 2017, and April 25, 2017, alone. With the violent summer months coming, this means Chicago is on track for another year of 4,000 or more shooting victims.
The examples of Baltimore and Chicago stand as testaments to remind us that gun control is not the solution, but it certainly may be part of the problem.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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