Philip Van Cleave is a tireless campaigner for gun rights. The President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League who doesn’t miss a trick. Van Cleave recently read an article at washingtontimes.com article about Obama’s Surgeon General nominee: Dr. Vivek Murthy. All the Presidents’ Men have tipped the Harvard Medical School faculty member and Affordable Care Act booster for the post despite/because of his affiliation to Doctors for America (formerly Doctors for Obama). DFA is financially sustained by the Center for American Progress, the self-professed “independent nonpartisan group” that is neither. Contributors include Quest Diagnostics, Health Care Service Corp., Eli Lilly and Co., and CVS Caremark. Yada yada yada. Same as it ever was. Anyway, Van Cleave noticed the very last sentence of the article, which reads . . .
Last fall, as lawmakers debated gun control legislation, Dr. Murthy shared his thoughts on Twitter: “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.”
You may remember this plan of attack on Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms: “gun violence” as a “public health crisis” that demands federal intervention. Recently, the doyennes of disarmament have been refining that message, using mental health concerns as the thin end of the wedge to prohibit law-abiding Americans from owning firearms.
Dr. Murthy’s Tweet is deeply foreboding, castigating politicians for being “scared” of the NRA. It implies that he isn’t—and then claims gun control is an issue that falls squarely under medical jurisdiction. As Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy could do much to further the cause of civilian disarmament. But that’s not his only pro-gun control Tweet. On the 21st of April he expressed his tacit support for an anti-gun onslaught.
Working our way backwards chronologically, Dr. Murthy threw the weight of his one of his paymasters (Doctors for America) behind gun safety control, post-Newtown. Twice. And took the shot against the NRA posted at the top of this article.
Given that Dr. Murthy is not what you’d call a regular Tweeter (587 Tweets) we can only assume that gun control is near and dear to his heart. As it is to ours. Which is why the NRA and your Senator must oppose this nomination. Should you agree I highly recommend you advise them of your views.
Too bad they don’t seem to be as troubled by the idea of having to treat more defenseless innocents after they help to bring about gun bans.
Isn’t that the point though? More money to line their pockets.
I think the doc needs a prostate exam. With a mosin bayonet.
No, the 18″ blade bayonets from the Winchester shotgun of WWI.
This is the kind of ignorant bullshit comment that makes us all look bad. Stop wishing harm on others, it just makes you look like an asshole. When you post on a gun site, such as this, you are acting as a representative of the gun community at large. Anti’s will look at comments like that and use it as more evidence that gun owners are all violent oafs who wish and do harm to people who disagree with us, and use that as a justification to keep guns away from us.
So next time you have a stupid ass thought like that, just keep it to yourself, so it doesn’t make the rest of us look bad.
The anti’s don’t need justification and they don’t have any. They’re coming for your guns no matter how well behaved you are. If you’re afraid that talking about a bayonet is going to tip our gun rights over you need a pair of depends.
Just “talking about a bayonet” won’t do much harm, although probably would be more appropriate at TTAK, but threatening to dig someone’s guts out with one is quite another thing.
Taunting someone for being “afraid” is the kind of thing that gun control bullies like to do. Own your behavior and act like an adult, instead of lashing out at people who legitimately criticize your childish comments.
In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year. So true comments will not stop the communist (liberal) from making up shit about us. Maybe you all should read the federalist papers and see what the 2nd amendment was for. They thought that anyone that wanted to disarm you was your enemy and should be killed immediately. So doing the Valid The Impaler thing is right on. Stop trying to be the nice guy. Nice guys finish last or in this case DEAD! Do you know how to win a fight your lousing? Bite there balls off.
It’s not the antis we have to worry about. The only thing that will ever change their mind is a gun savings their life or the lives of a close loved one. Sometimes that doesn’t even do it. We have to be worried about the noncommitted in the middle. Ian is right to bring up this point. If you show caveman like violent tendencies, that is not going to change the mind of an anti or a pro gun person. Those kinds of things can only change the mind of someone who is not yet in the debate. We don’t want to make MORE antigun people. If you want to keep your guns, stop the crazy talk and actually get involved. Make a difference, not an anti
Unfortunately my senator is Feinstein, who is as anti-gun as they get. She’ll happily vote for the most anti-gun assignements while allegedly “keeping my thoughts in mind.” Obamacare is a failed social construct, so I am less concerned with health care civilian disarmament proponents. Still, we need to fight for rights on all fronts. It is fortunate that many people are no longer respecting doctors as much as they have in the past, since science has become much more political and many doctors have shown that their “professional opinions” are for sale to the highest bidder.
Medical malpractice kills 18x more people every year than all firearms.
A fact that must be thrown in the face of every medical professional who supports civilian disarmament. Seeing as it’s Christmas Eve, the quote “Physician, heal thyself” seems appropriate.
Nice, but the physician can do something else with himself for my part…”i futue te ipsi”, if you will.
Correct me if im wrong but the dems removed the the gops abillity to block presidential nominations they ised the nuclear option
That particular rule change was somewhat narrow in scope and I think it only applied to federal (not supreme) court justices.
But I don’t want it blocked, I want him voted down…
I hate these people….
I am sick and tired of them calling Gun control, Gun safety.
in 2012 there were 98,000 deaths and 280,000 maimed due to medical malpractice. Seems that they need to clean their own house. If homicide by firearms is an epidemic, how would they describe medical malpractice deaths? The Apocalypse?
It is too bad this doctor lack critical thinking skills and is unable to look objectively at data. If he did, he would see that ownership of firearms is not the problem and that tens of millions of peaceful people will not be committing any violent acts with their weapons unless it is in self defense.
The CDC study pointed this out, didn’t it?
The AI should understand that this guy does NOT represent American doctors at large. Groups like “Doctors for Obama” are very much a minority in the medical profession. I’d even call it a “fringe” group.
Phillip is a good guy. We in Virginia are very lucky to have him.
Doctor malpractice and mistakes kill in excess of a quarter million Americans every year according to the CDC.
Seriously, where is the real threat to safety in America today?
Seriously? Washington DC, of course.
Human life is fragile. Mistakes are made. Nothing regarding medicine is absolute.
{My wife of 31 years died in part by a ‘mistake.’}
The CDC has become a political arm of the Left!
Government regulation is driving jobs away and keeping doctors from saving lives. Government IS THE PROBLEM!
grow some balls and try to take them doc and see what happens?
As someone who does metrics for a living, I know numbers can always tell at least two stories. For example, the 80% suicide success rate witwith guns vs the 2% success rate of other methods. Just taking this number at face value, it could mean two things. One is the implication he wishes to make, which is guns make suicide attempts deadlier. The following implication is restrictions on guns would reduce successful suicides.
The other thing it could mean is people who are most determined to end their lives choose the most effective method available, which in our society is a gun. In that case, if guns were restricted, those people would simply choose the next most effective method, and the number of successful suicides would be minimally affected.
I suspect it’s the latter. There are other societies, such as Japan, where there is almost no access to guns, yet the suicide rate is much higher than ours. A lack of guns isn’t stopping suicidal Japanese from completing the act.
The data on suicide and guns is pretty solid and I’m surprised people still debate the connection.
Data show that suicide is often an impulsive act and that people who fail at such an attempt rarely leave the hospital and find the nearest bridge to jump off of or bus to jump in front of. They most often regret their decision and make an effort to turn things around.
Guns are far more effective as a tool for suicide than other means, so any measures that reduce access to guns to the depressed, sick, and suicidal, may not reduce the number of overall suicide attempts, but it will reduce the number of successful suicides by pushing people towards less lethal techniques. This is a good thing.
“But Japan!” is the usual rejoinder… a country with tight gun control laws and a high suicide rate. the problem with this comparison is that attitudes towards suicide vary widely from country to country (unlike, say, murder, which just about every person and every culture finds repugnant). It’s very much a cultural issue. So the suicide rate in Japan has no place in a discussion about suicide and guns in America.
Interesting. Do you have a reference we could look at?
“Guns are far more effective as a tool for suicide than other means, so any measures that reduce access to guns to the depressed, sick, and suicidal, ”
Right. Which is not the government’s job, in fact, quite the opposite. If somebody’s not safe to be
let out onto the streets a full-on free citizen, then he should have an attendant or something.
The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.
Nordic, please elaborate as to HOW culture is a confounding factor?
In Japan – suicide is apparently seen as culturally acceptable?
In the US – we are always looking for a quick fix, entitlement, etc – an easy way out – and suicide, unfortunately is the easy way out in the viewpoint of these people.
What is the confounder again?
But it’s not only Japan. Cuba and Belgium have higher rates; so does China, France and South Korea. The world’s highest suicide rate: Greenland, not exactly corporate HQ for Gander Mountain. The other foregoing countries aren’t exactly champions of private firearms ownership either, nor can you chalk it all up to esoteric (to us) Asian sentiments of honor and face. Suicide can obviously very a lot across cultures, and within them. Firearms are a source of violent death in far too much of the American black community — and access to firearms, legally or illegally, does not seem to be a particular challenge. Nevertheless, the black suicide rate is about half the white rate. Murders with firearms, the picture is reversed and then some.
I personally don’t doubt that firearms make the particular subset of suicide attempts in the US more lethal than they otherwise would be — other things being equal. But the problem, and your downplaying of varying suicide rates between and within cultures points this up, is that it’s very, very hard to hold things equal. By the time any set of measures designed to reduce firearms suicide took full effect how many other factors driving suicides up or down will have kicked in, and how could we reliably dis-aggregate them?
I completely agree, as I’d imagine most people on this board would, that it’s a really bad idea for people with suicidal ideation to get near a gun. The issue is how do we accomplish that? An antique double action revolver is just as effective, for suicide, as a high-cap semi-auto. How do you run a background check for a mental condition subject to medical privacy protections, or that hasn’t been diagnosed?
So while I think there’s a good argument for a vigorous public awareness campaign on this, I don’t see some self-evident set of effective gun-control measures that present themselves.
Please explain how Canada and the UK Manage to have suicide rates very close to the US rate without ready access to guns?
Also explain how, barring the elimination of guns from civilian ownership, anyone contends that guns will not continue to be used in suicides in the US because of new gun control laws?
Yadda yadda same old BS from an Obama supporter.
Like we should expect anything less??
And the same old payoff for services rendered. Nothing new.
Him getting the surgeon general post scares me way more than moms demanding action from illegal mayors.
The public health crisis thing could get a different kind of action from uhbama and his cronies.
Good thing it takes 60 votes to appoint a Federal nominee!
Oh…wait…
I imagine it happened like this:
Vivek’s parents come from a place called “India.” In india, when you get pulled over for a “citation” you don’t pay any office, you pay the police officer himself, who directly inserts that cash into his pocket. Vivek’s parents fled this awful place. A place where no one can defend themselves from criminals or the criminal state. So they fled to a place they thought was better… “England.” Sure, the UK has a “bureaucracy” with endless paperwork and protocol unlike the rudimentary bribing processes of India, but as we have witnessed, the UK enjoys great control over their subjects. Vivek somehow managed to arrive here in the US of A so he could become a physician and enjoy large sums of money for little toil and wreak the full benefits of such a profession more lucrative than the equivalent vocation in any other country on planet earth. Furthermore, now we have Vivek nominated as the Surgeon General bringing with him his opinions of the ideal and cultural aspects of England and India with him…. Great.
Because we want America to be just like England and India.
Who would ever have thought that the “good old days” would be back when the Surgeon General made news by calling for teaching kids masturbation techniques as a public health program? What’s ol’ Joycelyn Elders up to these days, anyway?
I just sent this to my two Senators:
“I urge you to oppose the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy for Surgeon General. Last fall, as lawmakers debated gun control legislation, Dr. Murthy shared his thoughts on Twitter: “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.”
My Natural, Civil and constitutionally protected right to defend myself is NOT a health care issue. If I use Dr. Murthy’s rational, Obesity (clearly a health issue) is caused by spoons and forks and we should act against these implements of human destruction.
Sincerely,
Chris (last name taken out for this posting)
Husband, Father and informed voter.”
Will it make a difference? I don’t know, but it beats staring at my computer screen and b!tching about him.
Doc and nurses for gun control. Yeah, so what? I can beat them 10 to 1 Paramedics against gun control. As far as malpractice – every day I work in EMS, I trust Doctors less and less. Now there’s a profession that needs to get back to basics.
Here’s the next step in government healthcare. : Sir do you have any gun in your house? You do?! Sir the committee has determined that they are dangerous to your health and that your premiums need to be raised by 500% to cover the risk. Sir the committee does have a program, that if you turn in ALL you guns they will Give you a 10% discount. It’s up to you.
2nd step: Sir, you put on your forms that you don’t have any guns? But, the IRS, FEMA, and DHS have copies of your gun registration forms, so the committee will be doing a THOROUGH search of ALL of your property.
I know a lot of gun owners and they are very responsible people. There guns come out of the safe once or twice a year . The first is to sight them in and #2 is to go hunting and hope fully they can get some meat to put on the table and then clean them and put them back in safe until next year. And they do a lot to the for the community or the area they hunt in, It coast a lot money for them to hunt for most of them go out of state to hunt. To hunt in a state like Utah it coast them just $280.00 dollars for there tags and a nether $85 dollars for there license that’s $365.00 for the state and there is food and lodging that is about a nether $1000.00 dollars and there gas it work out to be about $300 to $400 dollars so that around $17 to $18 hundred dollars for the community they hunt in not to bad for just a nine day hunt. Now you take that times 1,500 to 2.000 tags and license that adds up to pretty go amount of money for the state and area they hunt in.
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