You mean like . . . health care?
Health care involves political and social issues AND medical issues, so it makes sense for the CDC to be involved at some level. If you're going to argue that the study of gun violence involves medical issues, then I think I could easily apply that argument with equal validity to any area of human endeavor, from agricultural to road construction to prostitution to space exploration. An argument so general is nugatory.
Just because it is a political or social issue means that we should not study it?
No, of course not. But deploying medical doctors to study it makes no sense. It would be like hiring Roger Federer to sing and dance and Beyoncé to play tennis.
Odd approach. I thought political and social issues could use a bit of science to inform the discussion. Facts help, except with guns.
Of course facts help. But when you use respected experts in one area to study or opine in an area outside of their expertise, it raises suspicion that the motivation is cynical - that perhaps what you're really doing is trying to use those experts' reputations to burnish pre-determined conclusions.
Right, which is why we can't study gun deaths?
Of course we can study gun deaths. You can, I can, and many people already do. There's nothing medically interesting about gun deaths, however. The physics and medical consequences of bullets traveling through human bodies is already very well understood.
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Like abortion? Or birth control?
How do you think the pro-choice community would react if the President nominated a pro-life surgeon general? How would you feel? Cogitate on that a bit and you might get where the pro-gun people are coming from.
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Science has no credibility in the eyes of the GOP. It can not get lower.
Actually, I think the Democrats are increasingly becoming the anti-science party. They just use science as a buzzword, but they are even more likely to ignore science if it can't be used to advance their social goals. Fodder for another thread though.
