Quote of the day—Vivek Murthy

I got into some trouble for saying gun violence is a public health issue. A little bit of trouble. But you know, I was stating what I think is the obvious, and I think most people in the country understand, which is that far too many people die from gun violence. And in my book, every single death from gun violence is a tragedy because it was preventable. It’s unacceptable.

Vivek Murthy
Former US Surgeon General
June 13, 2016
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy talks Zika, guns, and why he loves ‘Love Actually’
[It’s very telling that he believes it is better that you be murdered, raped, stabbed, beaten, whipped, crushed, impaled, hung, or burned than the perpetrator be killed if you use a gun to defend yourself.

Molṑn labé Murthy.

In other news, President Trump Removes Obama’s Pro-Gun Control Surgeon General and President Trump Just Fired Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy. The NRA And Gun Owners Thank Him.—Joe]

Share

16 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Vivek Murthy

  1. “I got into some trouble for saying gun violence is a public health issue.”

    That is because it was– and still is– an intensely stupid thing to say.

  2. “public health” has been defined, of late, as a sort of umbrella subject covering each and every thing that might impact the health of either the public as an aggregate, or any specific member thereof, directly or indirectly. so, by academic definition, the former surgeon general’s statement was technically correct.

    still, that particular definition tastes to me of ivory blocks, suitable for tower construction. there’s something about it that sits ill on my tongue, something i haven’t quite put my finger on as yet. while that definition is how “public health” is treated nowadays, academically and statistically, it feels to me like an overreach; it stretches itself to cover a lot of things that have nothing to do with “health” in vernacular English, and less to do with healthcare, to the point where most of us would question why the surgeon general should be involved in the first place. i think some people are building themselves a motte-and-bailey doctrine, in an effort to increase their academic influence and budgets.

      • “Regulate interstate commerce” is actually a power assigned to Congress in the constitution, however much that phrase has been abused by the courts and Congress.

        “Public health” does not appear in the Constitution at all, last I checked.

        • Correct, so the Constitutionally correct action would be not just to fire the bum, but to leave the office vacant since it is unconstitutional.

    • The translation of “Public Health”, from Left-Speak to English, is “communism”. Example;
      “We must do everything in our power to promote and ensure ‘Public Health’.”

      Vivek Murthy, then, is being perfectly honest, logical and consistent (once you understand the language of Left-Speak).

      The more important question however is; why do we even have such a thing, in America, as a fucking Surgeon General? There is no room for any such nonsense, in the context of government, in a free society.

  3. Pingback: About that media bias that doesn't exist...

  4. Murthy is a pseudo-science charlatan, as is anyone who says that the definitions of the physical medicine sciences can be broadened to include aberrant behaviors, which ONLY belong in the study of abnormal psychology.

    That said, Murthy is also partly responsible for the decline of American scientific effort, statistically obvious over the past 40 years. Such un-scientific blandishments are grist for the mills of political control of the science Establishment, now almost totally co-opted by the Left. That Establishment first suffered the strictures of the Church, and after that choke-hold was removed, the Socialists, who leave no mental discipline unsullied of their foul dogma.

  5. Criminal violence is not a public health issue, unless the criminals are spreading a disease or using bio/chem/nuke weapons. Criminal violence is best studied by criminologists, not doctors.

    I’d no more trust a doctor to understand how to stop gang behavior in southside Chicago than I’d expect a state DA to know how to treat Ebola.

    • “Z Truth! Of course then under honest principles of scientific investigation, because crime was a public health Issue, its causes were to, which would mean that fatherless homes was a public health issue and mistaken beliefs about men and women were also public health issues, which is about the point that Feminists’ pointy little heads erupt. with loud, incoherent and vile invective.

  6. Vivek Murthy is not a gun enthusiast or a lawyer, so I question his credentials when he opines on anything firearm- or firearm-law-related.

    However, he is a doctor, so let me adjust his statement to reflect his credentials, not to mention increase its accuracy:
    I got into some trouble for saying medical malpractice is a public health issue. A little bit of trouble. But you know, I was stating what I think is the obvious, and I think most people in the country understand, which is that far too many people die from medical malpractice. And in my book, every single death from medical malpractice is a tragedy because it was preventable. It’s unacceptable.

    Facts:
    – So-called “gun deaths” of all colors resulted in ~33,000 American deaths in 2016.
    – Most of those (~21,000) were suicides; the gun homicide number was ~11,000 (and this also includes justified shootings and accidents; murder-by-firearm was closer to ~9,000).
    – Medical malpractice and errors result in the deaths of over 250,000 Americans each year.

    So we can talk about the guns, or we can talk about doctors — like Vivek Murthy — and the carnage their mistakes wreak on the American people, which is a full order of magnitude larger than guns.

    Furthermore, there are fewer than 900,000 doctors actively practicing in America. There are, by conservative estimates, 300 million guns and 100 million gun owners — and both of those are probably low-ball numbers. A question for Dr. Murthy is, how does a population of highly-trained and government-licensed professionals cause the death of 10 times as many Americans as a bunch of largely-untrained Average Joes* at least 100 times their number?

    I won’t hold my breath for a response, but by all justifications — ethical, moral, statistical, legal, etc. — the “guns as a public health issue” has no credibility or relevance.

    ——
    * – No offense to our gracious host, who in my book is Well-Above-Average. 😉

    • If Dr, Murthy is qualified to speak and write on crime, criminally-caused deaths, and guns, I’m a neurosurgeon.
      And I’m sure he doesn’t want me anywhere near his precious cranium with a brace and bit.
      But I’m sure he’s amenable to the idea of all of us taking a vote as to that brace and bit, as he doubtless thinks voting is an acceptable response to his blather about a constitutionally protected right.

  7. There’s no such thing as “gun violence”. There is only people violence.

    • If I’m using the anti-rights lexicon, my cousin was killed by “baseball bat violence” in mostly-gun-free California. He is not any “less dead” because he was bludgeoned instead of shot.

      But I don’t see anyone protesting the MLB or the “sports lobby” — or trying to ban Little League or boot the Dodgers from Los Angeles — over their egregious “support” of “baseball bat violence”.

      “Baseball bat violence” is blamed on criminals, as it should be. So is “knife violence”, “car violence”, “hammer violence”, and every other kind of violence except “gun violence”, which gets blamed on guns and peaceable gun owners.

      How does that make any sense?

      • It makes perfect sense. It’s not criminal activity they want to stop. It’s about taking guns away from peaceable citizens.

  8. I’m furious when they try to shoe horn in “gun violence” into the infectious disease (ID) model of disease transmission. It is NOT an epidemic and those that believe this should be stripped of their license.

Comments are closed.