Does Replacing The Surgeon General Mean Open Season on Gun Control?

The latest public anti-health move by our fearful “leader”, the removal of the Surgeon General, is a quintessential example about how money and lobbying can negatively influence public health. From Zika-funding, to healthcare reform, to e-cigarette legislation, to vaccine mandates, and now gun violence, I think every American, regardless of your party, should be livid that political support means more than our health.

Although there’s no clear statement about why Donald Trump asked Dr. Vivek Murthy to step down as surgeon general last week, common belief is that it stemmed from Dr. Murthy’s stance on gun-control. It’s alarming to me, but not surprising, that gun control has become such a highly politicized topic. But regardless of your stance on owning AR-15’s and concealed hand-guns, we should mutually asks: are we just not supposed to talk about gun violence? The NRA has deep enough pockets to at least push for this approach. 

Almost 5 years later, analyze this tweet and tell me it isn’t true (I have 30.3 million reasons to believe it is).

Let’s play a numbers’ game!

On average day, 93 Americans are killed by guns.

There are nearly 12,000 Gun Homicides each year in the US.

Seven children and teens are killed, each day, by a handgun.

Background checks have stopped nearly 3-million prohibited folks from obtaining guns.

America’s gun homicide rate is 25 times that of other developed nations (Their healthcare plans likely aren’t such a partisan mess either).

Here’s a statistic on terrorism, which occupies way more political discussion: