Monday the US Senate approved President Obama’s new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murphy. Apparently we should all breathe a sigh of relief, since the position has gone unfilled since July 2013.
Honestly? How have we coped?
This long-awaited appointment took place “despite opposition from Republicans and some Democrats over [Murphy’s] support for gun control and past statements that gun violence is a public health issue,” reports the Associated Press.
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Let’s take a closer look at that.
It seems like the AP really wants to believe that Dr. Murphy’s position on gun control was a big deal here. Maybe it signals willingness on the part of Republicans to cede some ground on the “gun issue”?
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Republicans can’t simply be trusted. Like the NRA, they have sold out gun owners in the past. That’s why we should all support Gun Owners of America (GOA) instead.
Keep the heat up, fellas.
But it does seem unlikely. A look at the new members of both the House and Senate indicates a strong support for the right to keep and bear arms in the next Congress. GOA-endorsed candidates did very well in the last election, and will be joining their many like-minded colleagues in January.
The president is very unhappy with the way Americans think about guns.
So much so, in fact, that he was moved to comment on the matter last summer. In an interview with Tumblr, President Obama said, “My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage.”
As members of this (stupid?) society, supposedly we should feel shame. The only thing missing was the president’s wagging finger.
The translation of his complaint, of course, is that he was unable to overcome supporters of the Second Amendment.
It’s actually worse than that – or better, if you like seeing the president and his cronies unhappy. Anti-gun media was positively rabid in its attempt to demonize GOA in 2014. Michael Bloomberg ridiculed GOA in a video. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence publicly attacked candidates that received a GOA endorsement. None of it worked.
New York Representative Carolyn Maloney made a fool of herself when she called on the Capitol Hill police to investigate GOA’s Larry Pratt, after he spoke truth to power. Pratt said the purpose of the Second Amendment is to “restrain tyrants.” Maloney must have felt the shoe fit. A few months later anti-gun groups tried to make a big deal out of the fact that Senate candidate Joni Ernst had once said the same thing. Ernst went on to win – big – in Iowa.
GOA helped reveal the truth behind Obama’s “Fast and Furious” project, and shut down an attempt by the ATF to create an illegal gun registry; Operation Choke Point, a strong-arm tactic of the federal government to dry up bank credit for gun manufacturers and dealers, was shot down in Congress.
In its most recent newsletter, The Gun Owners, GOA reports that “outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder lamented the several victories that gun owners had achieved over the past two years.” Holder told The Hill that the issue “weighs heavily” on his mind.
Even Hollywood seems stacked against the president’s agenda. In October, actor Brad Pitt said he has been a gun owner his whole life. (Back in 2012, right after the Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shooting, he said “America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA...I feel better having a gun. I really do.”) Chris Pratt, from NBC’s (hilarious) Parks and Recreation, told Esquire in August that he has a ”thirty- or forty-gun arsenal” and that he also bought a gun for his wife.
All this, after six years of the president having control of the bully pulpit, a majority in the Senate (and the House from 2008 to 2010), and a sympathetic media – and still he couldn’t push through a major piece of federal gun-control legislation. On the contrary: He has now lost complete control of Congress for the last two years of his presidency. His agenda was stymied at the state level as well, in Wisconsin, Colorado and New Hampshire.
The issue of gun control has become so toxic that even “some Democrats” were opposed to Dr. Murphy becoming the next Surgeon General, as the AP noted. President Obama didn’t mention the issue when touting Dr. Murphy’s qualifications, instead offering vacuous assurances about how we are now “better positioned to save lives around the world and protect the American people here at home,” and that Murphy “will also help us build on the progress we’ve made combating Ebola, both in our country and at its source.”
The AP claims this is a “rare defeat for the National Rifle Association,” but it’s no such thing. Pro-gun voters have gelded this president and his anti-gun allies. The vote for Dr. Murphy was an easy sop to a lame duck.
Dr. Murphy’s supporters were assuring everyone that he would not use his position to push for gun control. We’ll call that another victory for gun owners.
