A Health Care Issue?

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Loyalist Dave

Loyalist Dave

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An all night arts festival was shut down after gunfire errupted at 02:45 hours over the weekend. Twenty-two people were injured including seventeen who were treated for gunshot wounds. Four of those wounded were listed in critical condition, including a thirteen-year-old boy. One thousand people were attending the all-night event at the time the shooting started. Prior to the shooting, numerous fights had broken out in the time period leading up to the gunfire. Police believe several neighborhood gangs had converged on the festival in seach of each other. It was the gang members who opened fire on each other with innocent by-standers around them, even though uniformed police were at the event and visible. Immediately after the shooting stopped, an attempted carjacking occurred in a nearby alley.

Numerous handguns and other weapons were confiscated by the police.

One of the confiscated handguns was found to have a magazine with more ammunition in it than is allowed under New Jersey law.

Jahaij Wells, 33, was killed, and had been paroled from prison in February on a homicide conviction.

Amir Armstrong, 23, another gang member was listed in stable condition and is charged with weapons offenses.

Mayor Eric E. Jackson said the crimes cannot be "..., discarded as just random violence; this is a public health issue."


headslap.gif

So Mr. Mayor you're going to have doctors and nurses work on ending the violence?


LD
 
Pretty standard line in the anti-gun world. If you count "gun violence" as a disease, then guns are like the vectors. It is standard epidemiology to try to get rid of the vectors (e.g., mosquito control to reduce malaria).

Of course, this is a patently ridiculous analogy. Nobody is trying to get malaria, or even pass it along. The epidemiologists have tools built for dealing with stuff that nobody wants - few people are working directly against the epidemiologists on purpose. Yet criminal assailants have free will. They are trying to be violent (and succeeding). The idea that there are a bunch of insights to be gained from public health analysis when it comes to crime generally, or gun-involved crime in particular, is imbecilic. But it is now standard thinking among the anti-gun people in America. Many are actually surprised to hear that anyone disagrees that public health/epidemiology models are useful.

As a related note, you can pretty well predict whether a peer-reviewed article about gun control will find gun control to be sensible based on whether the author has a "public health" background or a criminology background.
 
The American Medical Association has tried to make gun control a health care issue since at least back in the 1990s.

The other plea that's frequently made is "the children." "The children" plea is used to promote all sorts of stupidity.

I believe that Hollywood with their stupidity and the violence and immorality in their products are healthcare issues that should be shut down.
 
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