One of the more pernicious beliefs within contemporary American politics is there are certain words or phrases that, if uttered by the right person at the right time, can bypass the usual constitutional processes and deliver absolute victory to the speaker. In June, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy offered up a stellar example of this conviction when he issued a 40-page report that he framed with the claim that “gun violence is a public-health crisis in our country and requires a public-health solution.”
Superficially, Murthy’s “One Weird Trick” characterization might sound interesting—or even persuasive. But when one digs in a little further, one can see that it is not only inapt, but is downright sinister. “Gun violence”—which, in practice, involves criminals abusing firearms—simply cannot not be a “public-health issue” in the way that, say, the spread of HIV was in the 1980s. Rather, it is a complex criminal matter that requires a robust response from our legislatures, police and courts, as well as from the general public. To pathologize that issue, as Murthy is trying to do, not only makes that robust response impossible to achieve, but also guarantees that the focus will be placed on the wrong villain: the law-abiding citizens who are not the problem, instead of the criminal class that is.
As a means of doing politics, Murthy’s approach is even worse. As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, when political figures start talking in this manner, they invariably end up insisting dogmatically that that their personal opinions are the equivalent of “science” or “medicine” or “logic,” and that anyone who disagrees with them is thus attacking modernity, per se. But Murthy’s views are not “science;” rather, they are politics of the sort that one would expect to find in every other department of the White House. Indeed, what Murthy repeatedly describes as “a public-health solution” is, in fact, nothing more than the existing laundry list of gun-control proposals that his boss, President Joe Biden (D), has been on record desiring for years.
Murthy wants to pass laws mandating “secure firearms storage,” to implement “universal background checks,” to “ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines,” to limit concealed carry, to expand “red-flag” schemes and more. As a citizen, he is entitled to hold those opinions, but he is not entitled to demand that they be treated as anything other than opinions.
Nor can Murthy be permitted to bypass the American constitutional order in pursuit of his goals. There is no such thing as a “public-health solution” that is distinct from our system of elections, legislatures and judicial review. This is especially true when we are dealing with the U.S. Bill of Rights. Murthy writes that he wishes to “treat firearms like other consumer products.” But firearms are not treated like other consumer products because they are not like other consumer products. Thanks to the Second Amendment and its 45 state-level equivalents, the right to keep and bear firearms is protected in a way that does not apply to toasters or swimming pools or lawnmowers. Uttering the words “public-health solution” does not change this.
Predictably, Murthy’s report is full of mistakes. Most egregiously, he repeats the lie that firearms are the number-one cause of death for children—which is true only if one includes 18- and 19-year-old gang members in the definition. But then he would, because he’s not engaged in medicine, he’s engaged in propaganda.
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