The story on The Blaze about gun violence as a social healthcare issue is extremely naive.
(The Blaze/AP) — Is a gun like a virus, tobacco or alcohol? According to “public health experts,“ who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a ”social disease,” it is.
What we need, they say, is a “public health approach” to the problem.
Dr. Garen Wintemute of University of California, Davis claims it is no longer enough to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting. Dr. Stephen Hargarten, who treated victims of the Sikh temple shootings at the emergency department he heads in Milwaukee, feels the same way.
“What I’m struggling with is, is this the new social norm?” he asked, before asserting: “This is what we’re going to have to live with if we have more personal access to firearms.”
He continued: “We have a public health issue to discuss. Do we wait for the next outbreak or is there something we can do to prevent it?”
About 260 million to 300 million firearms are owned by civilians in the United States; about one-third of American homes have one. Last year, 55 percent of Americans said gun laws should either remain the same or become more lenient.
There are some very serious issues with this man’s thinking. If we are going to look at it like a Disease, we need to look at the Vectors. What is causing this to spread? Because it does indeed seem like these shooting sprees are happening more often. If we are not allowed to look at the Shooter/Lunatic/Criminal as the source of the issue, then let’s look at this issue like we’ve examined other “Social Diseases” such as Smoking. It’s not fault of Tobacco, it’s just a leaf. And a firearm is nothing more than a tool. So again, social, not the object. Okay, with Cigarettes, the social vector was damn near every movie and tv show and advertising showed us that it was Cool to Smoke and Cool People Smoked, so if you wanted to be cool… you smoked. So they started limiting smoking in Films and such. That was a Social response. But that’s not happening with Gun Violence. In fact, just the opposite is happening.
When someone goes nuts and starts a shooting spree, the more public and dramatic the better. The news agencies cover the story in every direction and angle and we see the shooter’s face damn near everywhere. We know their names, where they lived, and we give them what they want… Fame. If we want to limit exposure and the glorification of committing a shooting spree… we need to turn our backs on the Shooters. Don’t make the shooters famous. Don’t say their names. Don’t show their pictures. Report the story, fine, but don’t go about it to make the criminal a pop-star. They need to be forgotten.
Access to firearms is not a correlation to gun violence. Where I live – we have probably the highest per capita of gun ownership as any place in the nation. I live outside of a small town. We have a number of gun stores. 2 of the top ten of gun stores in the state, with the one I’m working at… last time I looked, we were 4th in the state. We’re also 3 hours from Population. One estimation is that we have on average 18 firearms per home. We have a lot of guns out here. Shooting sprees have not happened here. Shooting sprees don’t happen at gun shows either. Having guns doesn’t mean we’re going to have blood in the streets.
Another Social Issue that we have that allows these shooting sprees to propagate is the fallacy of “Gun Free Zones”. Most of these shootings happen in Gun Free Zones. Where good honest Victims are unable to defend themselves. At the Theater in Colorado. At the cafeteria in Ft. Hood. At the campus of Virginia Tech. The lack of guns in these gun free zones was a contributing factor here. Notice in each that the shootings only stopped when the guys with the guns showed up.
Guns Save Lives. Like Parachutes, Helmets, and Seatbelts. If we are going to cure this social issue… we need to make it cool to for people to Carry and get Training.
Training is the key here. Just like all other social issues – Education is the Solution. Learn to use your guns and have them with you. Have one on you.
Amen Ogre
You really nailed this one. Like most things it becomes in how we present it. We’ve allowed ourselves to be portrayed as the gun toting nut jobs for far too long. Media glorifies two groups, when it comes to guns. Criminals or government are the only acceptable parties to carry weapons. Everyone else is portrayed as being above touching a weapon and therefore are the scared mass of victims. We need to find a way for the common man to be viewed as powerful in his own right. My first CCW teacher, in Oregon, was a cop. He related that he had been pulled out of the fire by his own students on several occasions. We do an excellent job of putting these stories where it will fuel the faithful. Gun rags, NRA publications, training videos. We need to be mainstream. Regular Joe saving innocent people and working with police at the scene. Not a P.I. not an ex-special forces, an overweight dad of three that drives a bus for a living. Portray normal people as their own hero’s and more will act that way. Not everyone has to be Bruce Wayne to make a difference.
Good luck getting that into the major news outlets. It happens, on a regular basis, but they won’t pick up the story.
Maybe they’ll mention that “John Smith caught the mugger and held him until police arrived,” but they won’t mention that the mugger complied with his command to stop attacking that old lady because Mr. Smith was armed, nor that he was “held” at gunpoint. They won’t /lie/, if they can avoid it. They’ll just omit certain details.
hmm seeing as how negative campaigning seems to work so well for others perhaps we should throw together a few comercials on why its the peoples fault these things happen if you arent armed lol I mean after all where is the incentive not to rob or kill if you cannot protect yourself right, your just a sitting duck asking for it . It may sound silly put out like this but that is exactly how criminals think easy pickins, but somehow I doubt this kind of sentiment would work . we could use some new westerns on tv showing how cool target shooting can be. 🙂 perhaps more creative targets would be cool . ok rambling again mabey I should look into ADHD a little more lol
I think that pistol shooting is a life-saving skill, like CPR and the Heimlich. It should be treated as such.
” a “public health approach” to the problem.” ….hmmmm…. gee, gun control if used in the context of reducing driving fatalities that they used, more restrictions on the “problem”. And then there is the entire “gun ownership = disease pattern” part that wanted to make me puke right there. That way of thinking is some hardcore, elitist crap right there.
You nailed this one, I just found this the other night and was waiting to formulate a response, you got it…just going to link this on my blog
Good job as always George…
Thank you, brother.
Let’s see…alcohol was a public health problem and tied to criminal activity in the early 20th century, so much so that proabition was added to the Constitution. What happened with that? Well criminal exploitation exploded and violence rose to a new level and the government finally realized that it couldn’t be stopped no matter how much money and resources were thrown at it. So what happened? Proabition was repealed in the Constitution some years later.
My thoughts are that if gun ownership becomes illegal similar to what alcohol was in the 20’s I forsee a new level of criminal activity and violence BUT I don’t forsee any repealing of the law making firearms illegal. Once we lose our firearms rights I don’t believe we would ever get them back.