Posted on 08/03/2017 8:21:05 AM PDT by rktman
At a hearing Tuesday for five of President Trump’s nominees at the Department of Health and Human Services, a long contentious issue briefly flared: the public health threat posed by gun violence.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked Dr. Jerome Adams, Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, what the surgeon general can do to stem gun violence. It was a notable moment because Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general, saw his confirmation delayed for a year because of his support for gun-control laws.
In response, Adams, the Indiana health commissioner, sought to separate gun violence from guns themselves.
“Guns and gun owners aren’t inherently a public health problem, but the violence that results absolutely is,” he said, likening the difference to car crashes being a public health issue, even if cars themselves are not.
Adams, who said he is a gun owner, also noted that he regularly helps treat gunshot victims at Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis and raised the issue of suicides caused by guns.
The exchange was short, as Murphy ran out of time for his questions, but Adams’s response did not sit well with the senator. “It’s a little bit deeper than the problem you suggested,” Murphy said, citing evidence of an association between the availability of guns and the likelihood of a crime being committed with a gun.
Still, the hearing overall was mostly cordial, with the nominees and senators discussing how they can address the opioid crisis, a lack of mental health treatment, and emergency preparedness. Democratic senators also used the hearing to get the nominees to push back on some statements from Trump and other administration officials related to vaccines and medication-assisted treatment that were not based on evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at statnews.com ...
Why does anyone think that the opinions of allopaths vis-a-vis guns have any weight whatsoever? What business is it of doctors. Medical Imperialism.
Nobody blames the auto manufacturers for drunk driving deaths or deaths caused by poor weather, but damn it, they’ll blame firearms for anybody killed by one.
There shouldn’t even be a Surgeon General.
He was placed between a rock and a hard place here. Asked by a Democrat he tried to reply in a manner most tolerable to a Democrat. Just playing the political game he’s forced to play. As if he can really have any impact on gun laws.
Was he asked about muslim violence?
Well, there is that. ;-)
“....sought to separate gun violence from guns themselves.”
The goal is to separate guns themselves from their lawful owners.
Obviously Senator Murphy needs to spend more time in Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven. If he did he would see that gun violence is a cultural problem first and a public health problem secondarily. But for the senator to wrap his head around this cultural problem would mean admitting that it was his party that created it.
Ditto
Disappointed Dr Joel Wallach wasn’t nominated. That would have been major MAGA with far-reaching implications for education, healthcare, and eliminating Big Pharma. He would have needed a Secret Service detail.
Chicago had another bloody harvest over the weekend, so Bob the pharmacist in Ames, Iowa must give up his modern sporting rifle.
We don’t have a gun problem. We have a gang & thug problem. But we can’t say that because it’s ... racist.
Why does DT keep picking these weak ineffectual neo-rino typed. Every pick needs to be a pit bull anxious to rip apiece out of the likes of Sen Stolen BValor.
Hmmm. You thinkin’ DJT should have picked someone that would have told murphy that guns ain’t the issue and to quit trying to make it the issue. ;-)
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