public health model - The War on Guns

A Clean Bill of Health?

Jay Bhattacharya, prominent physician and economist, nominated by Trump for NIH director [More]

The influential NIH is a big proponent of “A Public Health Approach to Reducing Firearm Violence,” a favorite tactic of rabid gun prohibitionists.

The (anti-gun) New England Journal of Medicine concludes “Handgun ownership is associated with a greatly elevated and enduring risk of suicide by firearm,” and in its end “Notes” thanks “Jay Bhattacharya, Philip Cook, John Donohue, Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, Daniel Ho, and Michelle Mello for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.”

Is he the same Jay Bhattacharya, and if he is, will Senate advise and consent hearings find out what comments he provided and how they will affect/inform the policies and public advocacy he will direct if confirmed to this position?

Have Donald Trump and those who advanced his name considered it, and the implications/potential for this appointee exploiting the position in contradiction to campaign promises made to gun owners?

All I can do is ask.

Infectious AND Antidemocratic!

Guns, in other words, are not just threats to public health; they are threats, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes, to the “strong civic culture and a public sphere conducive to social trust and altruism” that healthy democracies require. [More]

He starts with a faulty premise and goes downhill from there.

Aaron Zelman had a term for such as Metzl and Ben-Ghiat.

[Via Jess]

Incompetent ‘Contagious Disease’ Diagnosis for Guns a Prescription for Tyranny

So, if someone else does it you can catch it? What’s the agent of transmission, and how does it enter the body? Can we vaccinate against it? [More]

If what they say is true, shouldn’t we all be wearing face diapers or something?

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About “The Only Ones”

So named from a comment by DEA agent Lee Paige, who told a classroom full of kids he was “the only one” qualified to be armed and then promptly shot himself in the foot, the purpose of this feature has never been to bash cops. The only reason I do this is to amass a credible body of evidence to present when those who would deny our right to keep and bear arms use the argument that only government enforcers are professional and trained enough to do so safely and responsibly. And it’s also used to illustrate when those of official status, rank, or privilege, both in law enforcement and in some other government position, get special breaks not available to we commoners, particularly (but not exclusively) when they’re involved in gun-related incidents.