The Harvard School of Public Health is a factory for gun control schemes disguised as legitimate public health initiatives. David Hemenway has long been the chief author of their product, and his aversion to guns and gun owners is well known. See my review of his book Private Guns, Public Health. His team’s latest offering of treatments for the disease of gun ownership appear in a journal well known to readers as a vehicle for political content. The Journal of the American Medical Association puts its stamp of approval on the latest round of gun control advocacy masquerading as legitimate science. The authors recommend using the same public health techniques for treating “gun violence” that proved successful in treating tobacco use, automobile accidents, and poisoning. Their forced logic seems ridiculous to gun owners, but their recommendations are anything but a laughing matter:
- “Key or security code locking devices on guns.” The authors consider this comparable to childproof safety packaging. As usual, they have no clue about tactical considerations that require a self-defense firearm to be instantly available. Nor do they care.
- “Reduced magazine clip size; restrictions on rapid-fire assault rifles.” This is supposedly the gun violence equivalent of toxicity reduction, such as reducing the number of pills in a bottle to reduce the risk of poisoning. Could they be talking about lead poisoning?
- “Taxation of guns and ammunition to better represent societal costs and provide funding for gun safety and violence reduction programs.” The authors compare this to a tobacco tax. This is an insult to gun owners on several levels. It assumes, as public health researchers always do, that all gun owners are responsible for “gun violence.” That means you and I are responsible for Sandy Hook, not to mention all armed robberies in the country. And it proposes to tax a natural right that is guaranteed by our Constitution. Further, it completely ignores the massive gun safety programs provided by the NRA and NSSF and many other citizen gun organizations, funded entirely by private donations from gun owners. Not only do the authors not want to credit these organizations, they believe only the government can provide this service.
If anything can motivate gun owners to defend themselves against the coming gun grab, it should be the outrageous arrogance of these ivory tower academicians. They have no experience or understanding of guns, and they have only contempt for gun owners. It’s worth reading the article just to know how these people think, and how they will try to influence politicians in the coming assault on our right to keep and bear arms.
—Timothy Wheeler, MD is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.