GOP Congressman clueless about Surgeon General

[ponderingturtle]

Don't count as what? Disease? Quite correct, they don't.

Crimes of course. And as such they don't matter.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No. You can assert this all you like, but all it actually is a smear against gun owners so you can hold anything the NRA does against all gun owners. It's dishonest and you should stop.

Funny Zig says the same thing and you ignore him.

You need to define 'votes the way the NRA wants'. Besides that, even if gun owners do vote for the people the NRA wants them to, doesn't mean they did because the NRA wants them to. Offer a better alternative. Gun control groups have not done that so far and the only places that get things like meaningful background checks are places that don't mind a whole lot of other stuff gun owners don't want thrown in and are not productive.

This is like when conservatives argue that people don't want to work because the government makes it too easy to not work, and deny that companies don't offer incentive to work. Gun owners aren't all spoken for by the NRA, gun control groups have simply not offered them enough reason to support them. That might make it appear that they all support the NRA, but that's not true.

Stop giving the NRA such good ammo. If you're going to damn gun owners as supporting the NRA anyway, then don't be surprised when some of them actually do start supporting them. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. You upset that 'gun owners don't stand up to the NRA'? I'm upset that gun control advocates don't stand up to the bad bills and unproductive crap the most powerful gun control groups advance. There is enough room in the middle that smearing people as being spoken for by the NRA or gun ban groups is disingenuous.

It's ok they make their own ammo. I thought most serious gun owners did after all.

Any universal background check law would be torn apart and gun owners who claim to support it would be against it. It is easy to take the specifics and spin them into something that will make gun owners against it. How do you implement these checks, who can do them and how do you pay for them. How do you keep appropriate records, or destroy all records as is way more popular with gun owners.

The specifics of any bill that makes universal background checks would give them plenty to build a campaign around that would mobilize gun owners like you. So you support them by voting how they want you to despite your disagreement with them.

 

[Mudcat]

Homicide is not a disease. It is a crime.

Don't count as what? Disease? Quite correct, they don't.

I'm not sure if I can quite agree with either of these two posts. A case could be made that most crimes and suicides, and maybe even some accidents, are committed by people with mental illnesses. By preventing research into the possible link between gun deaths and disease, like the NRA has done, I believe that it is effectively impossible to treat the causes without resorting to bans.

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm not sure if I can quite agree with either of these two posts. A case could be made that most crimes and suicides, and maybe even some accidents, are committed by people with mental illnesses. By preventing research into the possible link between gun deaths and disease, like the NRA has done, I believe that it is effectively impossible to treat the causes without resorting to bans.

This is nonsense. To the extent that gun violence is a mental health issue (and most gun violence in the US is drug and gang related - is that the purview of the surgeon general too?), those mental health issues are going to manifest more broadly than only gun violence. So why would you focus only on guns? Why not simply study mental health and violence of all types?

Oh, and do you have a source for the claim that the NRA has prevented any kind of research?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Why are gun owners threatened by having a surgeon general that acknowledge that guns kill people?

 

[tyr_13]

Funny Zig says the same thing and you ignore him.

No he does not say the same thing. He says that their position on this is popular. If I'm missed somewhere where he said that the NRA speaks for gun owners, and that gun owners who don't agree have no voice, I'm sorry and my criticisms apply no matter who said it.

It's ok they make their own ammo. I thought most serious gun owners did after all.

Any universal background check law would be torn apart and gun owners who claim to support it would be against it. It is easy to take the specifics and spin them into something that will make gun owners against it. How do you implement these checks, who can do them and how do you pay for them. How do you keep appropriate records, or destroy all records as is way more popular with gun owners.

The specifics of any bill that makes universal background checks would give them plenty to build a campaign around that would mobilize gun owners like you. So you support them by voting how they want you to despite your disagreement with them.

But that's not how it has played out. Good background check bills get pulled or dropped without comment (by politicians who are not supported by or supportive of the NRA), while crap that adds bans based on the angle of a handle get put forth. It's not that the NRA doesn't try to spin things negatively, they do, but that it's just as easy to spin opposition to any given detail as 'supporting the NRA' or being against 'all gun control'. I don't even require a perfect bill with everything I want, just without sufficiently stupid provisions that make it either unenforceable or overly burdensome.

That so many universal background check bills have failed is not, in and of itself, evidence that the NRA speaks for all gun owners or that gun owners support the NRA. It is consistent with several other possibilities and combinations of possibilities.

Stop it with the smear. I do not support the NRA. I have written and campaigned to repeal the SAFE Act here in New York, besides the universal background check provisions. You do not get to tell me what I support or how the NRA controls me. I do not accept or reject anything based on what the NRA says about it. If they happen to agree with me or disagree, I do not care because I come to conclusions on any given piece completely separately from what they do. What you are doing is the same as saying, 'you support the terrorists if you oppose the Patriot Act'.

 

[tyr_13]

This is nonsense. To the extent that gun violence is a mental health issue (and most gun violence in the US is drug and gang related - is that the purview of the surgeon general too?), those mental health issues are going to manifest more broadly than only gun violence. So why would you focus only on guns? Why not simply study mental health and violence of all types?

Oh, and do you have a source for the claim that the NRA has prevented any kind of research?

Here is one article that has many helpful links.

It would help to figure out how mental health issues effect gun violence, best practices to address this, the most at risks groups, possible avenues of further research, and the like. Much of this is about violence in general, but stats on gun violence are going to have to be part of that. As long as that aspect of inquiry is denied, the overall picture will suffer.

 

[Mudcat]

This is nonsense. To the extent that gun violence is a mental health issue (and most gun violence in the US is drug and gang related - is that the purview of the surgeon general too?), those mental health issues are going to manifest more broadly than only gun violence. So why would you focus only on guns? Why not simply study mental health and violence of all types?

This might surprise you but not all symptoms of crime and violence share the same source. Drug and gang violence, for example, is partly result of the ill-advised war on drugs and along with a number of socioeconomic problems facing certain elements of society.

And as stated before, the solution to these problems aren't gun bans. Stand in the way of solving these problems and that is where it'll ultimately lead to. Which would you prefer?

Oh, and do you have a source for the claim that the NRA has prevented any kind of research?

Here, take your pick.

 

[Ziggurat]

Here is one article that has many helpful links.

So they kept the CDC from pursuing the issue. Given that the CDC seems like a poor choice for gun crime statistics, I find it hard to get upset about that. Doesn't the FBI collect gun crime statistics?

It would help to figure out how mental health issues effect gun violence, best practices to address this, the most at risks groups, possible avenues of further research, and the like.

Mental health issues should be the purview of the National Institute of Mental Health, not the CDC.

 

[Mudcat]

If the CDC aren't the best people to be researching the matter than what are you afraid of? Not like they would be able to convince you that your viewpoint is wrong even if they were to find solid evidence that you are wrong.

 

[theprestige]

If Senate confirmation is going to mean anything, they need to actually vote on all nominations in a timely manner.

If the separate and equal authority of the Legislative branch is going to mean anything, they need to be able to vote on nominations at their own convenience, not the convenience of the Executive branch.

 

[Tatyana]

Still waiting for doctors to start yabbering about much larger killers, like heavy-handed socialism slowing down the economy in the exact same way corrupt nations with massive kickback problems do, and technology lagging years, then decades, behind where it should be. Like interest compounding the wrong way, this outweighs everything else, "lifesaving-wise-wise".

Hell, I'm still open to the actual idea that the second amendment is working as intended -- providing a final check on the government, which, if it falls into dictatorship, will also end up killing far more (both directly and indirectly as above) than with.

*coughs*

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...s-on-brink-of-cure-for-paralysis-9807010.html

 

[Ziggurat]

If the CDC aren't the best people to be researching the matter than what are you afraid of? Not like they would be able to convince you that your viewpoint is wrong even if they were to find solid evidence that you are wrong.

You seem to be confused about what I have said. I have taken no position in this thread on gun rights. The only position I've taken is that gun rights advocacy is more popular with the electorate than gun restriction advocacy. And I'm not afraid of the CDC studying guns, I'm just not getting the vapors because they were blocked from doing so, since (again) they aren't the logical choice for the task. If you want the issue studied so badly, why aren't you advocating for such studies under a more appropriate department?

 

[TheSapient]

You seem to be confused about what I have said. I have taken no position in this thread on gun rights. The only position I've taken is that gun rights advocacy is more popular with the electorate than gun restriction advocacy. And I'm not afraid of the CDC studying guns, I'm just not getting the vapors because they were blocked from doing so, since (again) they aren't the logical choice for the task. If you want the issue studied so badly, why aren't you advocating for such studies under a more appropriate department?

It isn't just that the CDC can't study gun violence. They are not allowed to use funds to discuss it. Public education is a major component of what both the CDC and the SG do. And that is why the idea that a group like the NRA can determine policy and personnel is so frightening. Maybe the NRA's influence does come from popularity. I don't know. I do know that the content of distributed health related data should not be determined by lobbying might.

And when Congress eliminated all gun related research from the CDC (and later other agencies), they didn't redirect it to these other "more appropriate" agencies you mention. They cut it at the CDC not because the CDC was not the right place to do such research. They cut it there because that is where the research was happening.

 

[varwoche]

Still waiting for doctors to start yabbering about much larger killers, like heavy-handed socialism slowing down the economy in the exact same way corrupt nations with massive kickback problems do, and technology lagging years, then decades, behind where it should be. Like interest compounding the wrong way, this outweighs everything else, "lifesaving-wise-wise".

The amount of sense to be found in this post falls notably short of homeopathic dosage.

 

[Ziggurat]

It isn't just that the CDC can't study gun violence. They are not allowed to use funds to discuss it.

So... still just the CDC. The FBI, for example, can still study it and discuss it all they want.

Public education is a major component of what both the CDC and the SG do.

The CDC should be educating the public about diseases. Gun violence is not a disease. It is a crime.

As for the NRA's role in this, if their power comes from the popularity of their positions (and you admit that you can't argue that this isn't the case), then why are you so upset about that? Isn't that really democracy in action? Are you just upset about the particular outcome in this case? Because I get that, I'm not saying one should believe that the outcome of the democratic process is axiomatically correct, but the problem then is not the NRA, it's the public. And it just brings us back to the old Churchill quote: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

 

[ehcks]

Why are gun owners threatened by having a surgeon general that acknowledge that guns kill people?

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. People should buy more guns so they're safe from the other people.

 

[TheSapient]

So... still just the CDC. The FBI, for example, can still study it and discuss it all they want.

You miss the point. What a happy coincidence you snipped some important words out of my post when your quoted it. The money to do this research and education was not transferred to the FBI. It was the FBI that had the money, it would have been the FBI who was no longer allowed to use it for that research. The NRA isn't concerned about who is doing the research and providing data to the public. They were trying to greatly reduce the amount that was done.

The CDC should be educating the public about diseases. Gun violence is not a disease. It is a crime.

The CDC's mission is to address health threats, not just disease.

As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise.

As for the NRA's role in this, if their power comes from the popularity of their positions (and you admit that you can't argue that this isn't the case), then why are you so upset about that?

Where did I say I was upset about where the NRA's power comes from? I said it was not a justification for keeping accurate data from the public. And, quite frankly, I doubt very much that suppression of science and education is a particularly popular action. I doubt most people know this happened at the CDC, nor the NRA's role in preventing the confirmation of the SG.

 

[Ziggurat]

You miss the point. What a happy coincidence you snipped some important words out of my post when your quoted it. The money to do this research and education was not transferred to the FBI.

And was there an effort on the part of Democrats to do so? I see no evidence.

The CDC's mission is to address health threats, not just disease.

Then it has succumbed to mission creep. Perhaps that's part of the reason for their poor performance in recent months.

 

[fishbob]

If the separate and equal authority of the Legislative branch is going to mean anything, they need to be able to vote on nominations at their own convenience, not the convenience of the Executive branch.

Most jobs require people to get up off their dead lazy backsides and act at times that are not necessarily convenient. The senate does not get a pass on this one. "In a timely manner" does not imply convenience for anybody.