The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is one of the old established university gun control advocacy factories. Its Center for Gun Policy and Research just put out this report, “The Case for Gun Policy Reforms in America.” In assessing the Center’s bias in matters of firearm policy, it’s helpful to note that renowned gun ban advocate and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg got his name attached to the school in 2001 as a major financial donor. According to Wikipedia he has contributed over $100 million to the school. This is apparently just another project in the Mayor’s nationwide campaign to control gun owners well beyond the confines of his city.
The report gives us nothing new. It pushes for more restrictions on gun ownership including raising the legal age to 21, prohibiting alcoholics from owning guns, and ratcheting down on a number of other existing prohibited categories. The authors believe that right to carry laws have increased crime, and they want “assault weapons” banned again. In essence, they deny the documented successes of right to carry laws and ignore the will of the people in relaxing gun control laws over the last two decades.
The authors list in their references the usual career generators of anti-gun rights advocacy science. One of them is Stephen Teret, and here is the footnote to one of his articles referenced in the paper:
Teret SP, Webster DW. Reducing gun deaths in the United States: personalized guns would help – and would be achievable. British Medical Journal 1999:318:1160-1161.
Founding Director Teret and Co-Director Jon Vernick are both lawyers, not doctors or scientists. This fact speaks volumes about the Center’s mission and tactics. The Center advocates for legal sanctions and punishment, not medical advice. Government-deployed force is how they want to control gun owners. The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research is a gun control advocacy shop dressed up as a medical institution and fueled by Michael Bloomberg’s money.
—Timothy Wheeler, MD is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.