NRA

America’s cultural zeitgeist and the emerging Don Corleone of public health

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

This has been one of the wildest weeks exposing the extremes of America’s cultural zeitgeist I can remember. What could be more American than gay marriage moving to the mainstream of American life and semi-automatic weapons readily available at a Walmart  near you, right?

Need a weapon of war to feel safe? Just drive to the nearest Walmart near you and select from their popular product lines.
Need a weapon of war to feel safe? Just drive to the nearest Walmart near you and select from their popular product lines.

On one hand, you have the U.S. Supreme Court hearing two landmarks cases, one on the legality of a voter approved ban on same sex marriage and another on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which aligns hundreds of federal benefits to promote that only a man can legally marry a woman.

Meanwhile, a full-court press was taking place in Congress to advance legislation that would require criminal background checks on all gun purchases and that would close the so-called gun-show loophole, which allows for up to 40% of all firearms sales to evade any scrutiny at all. However, efforts to include Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s amendment to restrict the sale of semiautomatic, military style assault rifles —the kind used to slaughter 26 civilians at Newtown—were dashed when Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on March 20, pulled it from the current gun legislation in the U.S. Senate. GOP members of Congress are already promising to filibuster the bill.

Will Ferrell, actor, comedian, and cultural clairvoyant, seemed to sum up the obvious best.
Will Ferrell, actor, comedian, and cultural clairvoyant, seemed to sum up the obvious best.

Will Ferrell’s now much repeated tweet seemed to put the pulse of the nation best: “I feel so blessed that the government protects my wife and me from the dangers of gay marriage so we can safely go buy some assault weapons.”

And, as we have so often seen in our country, sometimes tasteless, but also very popular, comedians can best summarize the seemingly craziness of political reality, where serious-minded commentators fall flat. Perhaps only through comedy can we see the absolutely surreality of our current reality.

Bloomberg takes on the NRA: no quarter asked, and none given

This week also saw the launch of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $12 million campaign in 10 states to promote federal gun legislation, through his national coalition of big city mayors called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “I don’t think there’s ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn’t eventually understood and done the right thing,” said the multi-billionaire leader of a national political movement to restrict the proliferation of weapons that claim more than 31,000 lives annually.

Bloomberg’s newly created super PAC, Independence USA PAC, infused millions in the last federal election cycle, helping elect four of seven candidates who promoted legislation to reduce gun violence in the United States, a major public health threat that only now is getting the attention of public health  officials nationally after years of self-imposed silence.

Wayne LaPierre went head to head with Michael Bloomberg on the talk shows.
Wayne LaPierre went head to head with Michael Bloomberg on the talk shows.

Likely fearing the emergence of a national political movement, the National Rifle association (NRA) launched a counter-strike against Bloomberg’s media campaign. NRA head Wayne LaPierre sparred with Bloomberg on Meet the Press on March 24, framing Bloomberg as a plutocratic, public health-minded uber-nanny who threatened America’s freedoms, including the alleged right to own guns and the right to eat unhealthy food:

“And he can’t spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public,” said LaPierre, the national face for the most powerful gun industry lobby.”They don’t want him in their restaurants, they don’t want him in their homes. They don’t want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don’t want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can’t buy America.”

Which multi-billionaire do you want to champion public health, Gates or Bloomberg?

Bloomberg’s efforts to limit the size of sugary drinks in New York City was recently struck down by the courts. But Bloomberg remains determined to preserve his emerging national status as the Don Corleone of public health.

From pushing upstream interventions to tackle obesity to funding multiple efforts to reframe the national dialogue on guns and America, Bloomberg appears to be everywhere at once these days. In many ways, the bolder, tougher, more confrontational face for public health and the national voice for legislative action on clear public health threats is the 71-year-old Boston native.

By force of will and deep pockets, Bloomberg is emerging as a rival brand for plutocratic public health warrior to reigning champion Bill Gates, whose Microsoft-based wealth helped fund the biggest non-governmental player in public health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With $34 billion in assets it is the largest openly run private foundation on the planet.

Which Don Corleone do you want to promote public health, Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg?
Which Don Corleone do you want to promote public health, Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg?

Multi-billionaire Gates carefully has chosen non-confrontational public health initiatives that many limited-government and conservative minded leaders can champion, such as poverty reduction programs, education programs, and promoting technological efforts such as genetically modified crops.  Bloomberg’s approach is a much more in-your-face, New York style. He has proven very effective on the bully pulpit by staking out public positions and articulating views that few in the field of public health or even elected office have championed since the assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 as part of a major cops bill under the Clinton White House.

One thing is clear. Leadership, in the wake of repeated gun-fueled tragedies, like the Sandyhook Elementary School mass murders, is making a difference. And for a change, it appears that the NRA’s seeming unshakable momentum to promote the ever-expanding sales of firearms and legislation that allows for the deadly use of force has been called into check.

This also has rippled down to the public health departments, which are now showing greater resolve and passing measures calling firearms-related deaths a threat to public health and totally preventable. Maybe Bloomberg’s moxie is rubbing off. Such symbolic efforts by public health departments clearly are not a true fix, but they are a long-awaited and long-overdue baby step forward.

How research on gun violence is muffled, and who refuses to shut up

Rudy Owens1 Comment

On the first day in the new year, I read one of what will become thousands of similar stories that will be published this year in the United States about how firearms were involved in completely senseless and preventable violence.

To understand why we have so many shootings, one may wish to buy this book: Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes by Kyle Cassidy. Go to http://www.armedamerica.org/. The cover photo provides a shockingly good insight into the national crisis over gun related violence.
To understand why the United States has so many shootings, one may wish to buy this book, Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes, by Kyle Cassidy. Go to http://www.armedamerica.org/. This book cover photo offers one perspective on the national crisis over the nation’s gun-related violence.

In this particular instance, a 54-year-old woman reportedly shot a  24-year-old man in the thigh over a dispute that he was shooting fireworks at her property in rural Lake Stevens, Wash. No, I am not making this up.

While no one died in this New Year’s eve confrontation, the story barely received three paragraphs of news coverage, as it lacked the dramatic horror that the media exploit when mass homicides occur involving often-legally purchased weapons. There were no dead children or mentally deranged men in military gear loaded with weaponry. Were this story to occur in Canada, or say Japan, it would have received much different coverage.

While we may assume this seemingly “bland” shooting will be counted in national data, that is not guaranteed. It likely could be ignored.

In response to uncertainty over national data, Slate Magazine, on Jan. 1, 2013,  published a story called How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?. The article alleges guns statistics are “surprisingly hard to come by.” Slate claims it will track the toll of gun related killings with an an anonymous publisher with the Twitter feed @GunsDeath to create an interactive tracking feature. The articles asks readers  who know about gun deaths in their community that are not counted on its interactive map  to tweet @GunDeaths with a citation, and it will be added to the feed.

brady center stat count
The Brady Center keeps a daily tab on gun violence–go to the right corner of the center’s home page for the shooting count, based on CDC data.

The Brady Center, the best known nonprofit that is working to pass legislative fixes to issues such as the sale of semi-automatic weapons and closing loopholes that allow for guns sales without background checks, uses data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (2008-09 estimates). It then makes an estimate of the number of killings a day that may not correspond to the most recent trends. The source data is captured by the CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, reported and accessible through the web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System.

A lesson in how to silence public health researchers, and yes it is about the money

Slate’s professed shock at the lack of poor tracking of gun-related fatalities should actually surprise no one who has monitored the muzzling of research on gun-related violence since the 1990s by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the gun industry’s lobby, and its allies in Congress.

According to a newly published article by Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann and Dr. Frederick P. Rivara (both of whom have MPH degrees), in the Dec. 21, 2012, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, gun research at research universities that is funded by the federal government has been systematically quieted by pro-gun forces since a ban was enacted on the CDC in 1996, mainly through budget language. Pulling funding, in effect, silenced the nation’s public health agency on a critical public health issue.

The budget language, which remains in effect today, stated “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” While it is not clear why individual CDC officials or even highly paid medical and public health professionals have not more publicly risked their professional standing to challenge this language, the authors of the study note, “Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up. Even today, 17 years after this legislative action, the CDC’s website lacks specific links to information about preventing firearm-related violence.”

Rivara and Kellermann further state that the language restricting such research was expanded after a 2009 study that was federally funded, this time by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, if a gun increases or reduces the risk of firearm assault. Congress, in 2011, during the Obama administration and amid the Tea Party insurgency of 2010, “extended the restrictive language it had previously applied to the CDC to all Department of Health and Human Services agencies, including the National Institutes of Health.”

The two authors highlight other efforts taking place national to stifle medical professionals from speaking out, such as Florida’s law (HB 155), which put health care practitioners at risk of penalties, including the loss of their licenses, “‘if they discuss or record information about firearm safety that a medical board later determines was not ‘relevant’ or was ‘unnecessarily harassing.'”

How silencing plays out at research universities, quietly and likely without intent

This blog has reported that the silence within the research community can be found at major public health research programs, such as the University of Washington School of Public Health, which  I attended from 2010 to 2012. I was unable to find any faculty actively teaching future public health leaders–my classmates–about firearms safety research or gun violence in the school’s public health curricula.

It should be noted Dr. Rivara is an adjunct faculty member of the UW School of Public Health, and Dr. Kellermann and he are also graduates of the same school (for their MPH degrees). Dr. Kellerman was in fact my graduation commencement speaker, and proved to be a passionate scientist and advocate to all of us. However, my review of courses did not reveal any classes focussing on gun violence as a public health issue; this does not mean Dr. Rivara and other faculty did not cover this topic in their classes. (It should also be noted that a keyword search for “guns” on the UW SPH web site today, Jan. 2, 2013, yielded only three pages, one focussing on Dr. Rivara and another focussing on Dr. Kellerman.)

During my studies there, I repeatedly raised this anomaly to my professors and during seminars in front of as many faculty as possible–often to the point of becoming an annoyance to those who had heard me ask the same questions repeatedly. But short of actually sitting in on faculty strategy sessions or having any survey data, it is impossible for me to know the reasons why my former school choose not to include this topic in its curricula. There were and remain classes on issues that do receive federal funding: tobacco cessation, obesity and nutrition, maternal and child health, and much more. All are worthy topics, but these were the winners, guns was a loser.

My guess remains it was purely a matter of funding, or lack of funding, and the intense internal pressure on junior faculty to pursue research dollars highly coveted by all departments that were not tied to this pariah topic. Thus the silencing of research continued, without any alarm bells raised from a larger community of researchers, who should be the most active and who should have been leaders, locally and nationally. That is how it works.

Dr. Rivara’s primary role is as a faculty member at the UW School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. To his credit, he has shown continued national leadership on gun violence. He and Dr. Kellerman deserve great praise for their lifelong service and work on this topic. Hopefully their article also will shame and embarrass their distinguished academic peers–locally and nationally–into either creating endowed teaching positions or a campaign drive to fund research that can shed light on this national public health crisis that has seized the nation’s attention since the massacre of 20 children and six faculty in a public school in Newtown, Conn. in December. MPH students also can lobby for change too, despite the hazards of confronting faculty who grade and often employ them as assistants.

Given that many faculty at these institutions can earn salaries well above $200,000 annually, some may be reluctant to jeopardize their professional careers or positions in the name of public-minded research on a topic that is at the center of one of the nation’s greatest moral debates since the Civil Rights movement and perhaps since the violent ending of slavery during the Civil War.

Gun researchers who have not been silenced by budget threats

Researchers not blocked by the ban on the CDC and NIH have shown that a prized policy goal of the NRA and gun makers, expanding “standing your ground laws,” have lead to more homicides.Researchers have found that states with a stand your ground law record more homicides than states without such laws.

Data from the study by Hoestra and Cheng, as published on the NPR.org web site (Jan. 2, 2013).
Data from the study by Hoekstra and Cheng, as published on the NPR.org web site (Jan. 2, 2013).

Two economics researchers at Texas A&M University, Mark Hoekstra and Cheng Cheng, found that the laws “do not deter burglary, robbery, or aggravated assault. In contrast, they lead to a statistically significant 8 percent net increase in the number of reported murders and non-negligent manslaughters.” The findings run counter to the argument of the primary proponent of such legislation, the NRA.

On average, there are about 500-700 more homicides a year among the 23 states with stand your ground laws because of these laws: “One possibility for the increase in homicide is that perhaps [in cases where] there would have been a fistfight … now, because of stand your ground laws, it’s possible that those escalate into something much more violent and lethal,” says Hoekstra.

The Newtown massacre and musings on guns, morality, and public health

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

The brutal massacre of 20 young children and six public school employees in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, brought to mind one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history, President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. On March 4, 1865, well into the fifth year of the bloodiest U.S. conflict, to resolve the criminal institution of slavery, Lincoln evoked unusually strong biblical and moral language that he normally avoided.

This FaceBook Post generated comments that said, this is why this country is so great and also why it is is so “f’d up” (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=314047015290064&set=o.113895238664965&type=1&theater)
This facebook post generated comments that said, this is why this country is so great and also why it is so “f’d up” (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=314047015290064&set=o.113895238664965&type=1&theater)

He first stated that the continuing expansion of slavery was the goal of the South. “All knew that [slavery] was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union … .” Then Lincoln, in language well understood by his countrymen, further noted the sins and injustice of slavery had brought the wrath of an Old Testament God upon the nation: “Fondly do we hope–fervently do we pray–that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

A moral issue?

In short, Lincoln held his country morally accountable for that “peculiar institution.” He used moral language, much the way Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a century later, used similar language to address the injustices of discrimination and racism in the Jim Crow South and throughout the country. Such language by elected officials, however, has been mostly absent from the national debate over firearms violence that is involved in the death of more than 11,000 U.S. residents annually (homicides alone).

But the debate over the regulation or expansion of guns and automatic weaponry on the open market may have turned a page with Newtown shooter Adam Lanza’s killing spree. He used at least three guns (Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9 mm handguns and a Bushmaster .223-caliber) that were first obtained legally. He stole all of them from his well-to-do mother after killing her.

This Bushmaster .223, as of Dec. 16, was being advertised for sale on the Internet.
This Bushmaster .223, as of Dec. 16, was being advertised for sale on the Internet.

The availability of such lethal weaponry is far from an aberration. The Bushmaster .223 can easily be purchased now. Here’s one ad I found on Dec. 16; the weapon is described as intended for military combat.

In response to this mass murder of mostly kids, Peter Drier, professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College, posted a piece on Dec. 15, on the Alternet web site titled “The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre Has Blood on His Hands: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has a 62-page list of mass shootings in America since 2005. It is Wayne LaPierre’s resume.” Drier asserts that “the long list of killings is due in large measure to the political influence of the [National Rifle Association] NRA—and the campaign finance system that allows the gun lobby to exercise so much power.” In short, the NRA, the gun industry it lobbies for,  the NRA’s alleged 4 million members, and officials in elected office are all morally accountable for downstream effects of firearms proliferation.

Who is morally accountable for mass gun shootings like Newtown's? Just the shooter or weapons industry promoters like NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre,
Who is morally accountable for mass gun shootings like Newtown’s? Just the shooter or weapons industry promoters like NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

The NRA’s influence

The NRA, of course, alleges that the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights gives individual Americans the right to possess guns, even combat weapons designed for the mass killing of people. The NRA also, in my opinion, falsely alleges that regulating gun sales and ownership is an attack on our constitutional freedoms–even our “civil rights.” Such language is devoid of both logic and rationality, and absent any moral foundation. I continue to find “literalist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, which also legitimized slavery for decades, as irrelevant to the complexities of a public health crisis that weapons-related violence has become in this country.

But, the NRA is more than a gun lobby. Its annual budget exceeds more than $250 million. It donates generously to political campaigns. It runs a non-profit foundation that boasts having raised $160 million. It runs a multimedia operation to promote its extremist views. It is, at the state level, aggressively promoting gun rights such as “stand your ground” laws. In the U.S. Senate, John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced a measure that would force all states that issue concealed carry permits to recognize the permits from other states. More importantly, the NRA promotes both the culture of weapons proliferation and a social media ecosystem that enables extremist views to proliferate, both inside its ecosystem and in the blogosphere, where many NRA talking points pepper the comments section of news stories on gun violence.

Using a public health lens to debate gun violence

In addition to embracing moral language, the national debate should also use a public health lens and the widely available data at all times to bury the completely false NRA propaganda that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” For example, the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Injury Control Research Center examined peer-reviewed research and reported three main findings that point to the association between gun proliferation and homicides, including in the United States:

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide.
2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.
3. Across states, more guns = more homicide.

A public health approach involves looking at the data, having a population focus (rather than focusing on the motives of a mentally disturbed killer), examining the policies and systems that enable guns to continue impacting the public’s health, and focusing on forces that develop dangerous personal behaviors—even the embracing of ideas that promote harmful activities such as owning guns. The conservative-leaning Seattle Times, which has not called for any legislative action to address firearms violence this past week (following two mass killings), pulled together some data from public sources on Dec. 15, regarding mass murders involving firearms (my comments in italics):

  • Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
  • Eleven of the 20 worst mass shootings in the past 50 years took place in the United States.
  • Of the 12 deadliest shootings in the United States, six have happened from 2007 onward.
  • America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be. (See the graph below.)
  • The South is the most violent region in the United States.
  • Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall. (However, we have more than 300 million guns in the U.S.–a staggering figure.)
  • States with stricter gun-control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
  • Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular. (This fact  overlooks how campaign funding impacts local and national races.)
  • But particular policies to control guns often are.
  • Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
Duke University sociology professor Kieran Healy complied OECD data on violence in developed countries (excluding Estonia and Mexico) and concluded “America is a violent country.” Such data points to both a pathology toward violence and how aassults in the U.S. end up with lethal consequences (his data does not distinguish cause of death from say guns to knives.) Go to: http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent-country/
Duke University sociology professor Kieran Healy compiled OECD data on violence in developed countries (excluding Estonia and Mexico) and concluded “America is a violent country.” Such data points to both a pathology toward violence and how assaults in the U.S. end up with lethal consequences (his data do not distinguish cause of death from say guns to knives). Go to: http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent-country/

A 2003 study by EG Richardson and D Hemenway  (called “Homicide, suicide, and unintentional firearm fatality: comparing the United States with other high-income countries, 2003”) found that he United States has “far higher rates of firearm deaths-firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and unintentional firearm deaths compared with other high-income countries” and that the “United States is an outlier in terms of our overall homicide rate.”

Referencing this study, the Brady Campaign concludes that “the United States has more firearms per capita than the other countries, more handguns per capita, and has the most permissive gun control laws of all the countries.” The Brady Campaign further notes that “of the 23 countries studied, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States; 86% of women killed by firearms were U.S. women, and 87% of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.”

More blood from the sword … for the lash?

What remains to be seen is if the preponderance of data and the moral outrage that may have been generated by the Newtown shootings will create change.

President Obama, the day of the shootings, held a press conference and said, “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” Gun control advocate and billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dismissed such talk immediately:  “Not enough,” Bloomberg said. “We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership — not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today.” To date Obama has not used his office to promote any national legislation or even national dialogue on gun policy.

One thing is certain: there will be more mass murders in the United States involving legally obtained and legally sold firearms. And I am left paraphrasing Lincoln and wondering: how much more blood from such gun-related killings will have to be spilled to atone for our nation’s continued shortcomings to control what other developed nations have managed to do, and do for decades?

Bloomberg spends millions on candidates supporting firearms legislation

Rudy OwensLeave a comment
Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Baca, of California’s 43rd Congressional District, lost in a race for the redrawn 35th Congressional District to fellow Democrat, state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, thanks mostly to funding by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC focussing on gun control issues.

During the November general elections, few candidates running for national office chose to stake out policy positions advocating for legislation attempting to address the proliferation of firearms and the public health risks they pose to the country. But a few did, and their sugar daddy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, chose to invest some of his small fortune in a handful of political races that put the long-smothered issue into the national spotlight.

One six-term congressional veteran, U.S. Rep. Joe Baca from southern California, lost thanks to campaign spending by the Independence USA PAC, created by Bloomberg late in the fall campaign. According to a Nov. 23, 2012, story on the race by National Public Radio (NPR), Bloomberg’s PAC was looking for “the right race and the right set of circumstances.”

According to the NPR Story, the first thing Bloomberg’s new super PAC wanted was a clear contrast between the candidates on an issue of real concern, such as guns, and Baca, a Blue Dog Democrat, previously had gotten high ratings from the National Rifle Association (NRA). Columnist Dan Bernstein, with The Press-Enterprise newspaper in the “Inland Empire” area east of Los Angeles, said, “There’s probably one man in America, in this campaign, who cared about gun control. And it’s Mayor Bloomberg.”

For reasons still not clear to me, NPR’s report focussed on how super PACs can defeat local candidates, but ignored the bigger issue of why Bloomberg joined the fray–to address the issue of gun violence in the country. NPR continues to be a media outlet that fails to report national statistics on firearms violence, namely easily accessible public health data on murders and suicides linked to guns.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City is a billionaire who has staked out policy interventions to promote public health, targeting obesity/nutrition and firearms.

Bloomberg’s super PAC made late entry in key races

When Bloomberg made his announcement on Oct. 17, 2012, he stated, “It’s critically important that we have elected officials in Washington, Albany, and around the nation who are willing to work across party lines to achieve real results. I’ve always believed in the need for more independent leadership, and this new effort will support candidates and causes that will help protect Americans from the scourge of gun violence, improve our schools, and advance our freedoms.”

Bloomberg’s decision had an immediate and symbolic impact. The Press Enterprise newspaper noted that Baca lost his re-election bid to a come-from-behind finish by state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, thanks mostly to a last-minute cash infusion from Bloomberg’s PAC. Baca also reportedly blamed Bloomberg’s spending for his loss in the race for the redrawn 35th Congressional District.

Bloomberg’s super PAC came late in the race. The Washington Post only reported the PAC’s existence the day Bloomberg made it public, and all just three weeks before the Nov. 6, general elections. A New York Times blog had initially reported that Bloomberg’s top issues were abortion and gun control before the super PAC was made public.

Bloomberg’s actions were entirely consistent with his statement following the horrific mass murder in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012, when a gunman wounded 59 civilians and killed 12 others at a theater. Bloomberg, after the shooting and the media spectacle that ensued, lambasted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama for failing to mention the issue of how unrestricted firearms was a major factor in such mass murders of U.S. citizens.

“Soothing words are nice,” said Bloomberg, “But maybe it’s time the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country.” Both candidates failed to discuss any serious policy approach to stemming gun-related violence in the United States, notably during the three presidential debates.

As this blog has reported before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of firearm homicides in 2010 in the United States was 11,493, while the role of firearms in suicides was nearly twice that rate, or 18,735 persons. All told firearms were linked to 30,228 deaths annually at last count–a fact that Democrats have decided to avoid as they put together their national coalition that includes many center and right of center candidates in the U.S. House of Representatives the U.S. Senate.

Bloomberg’s super PAC picked Pennsylvania race winner

Bloomberg’s PAC also supported Pennsylvania Attorney General Democratic candidate, Kathleen Kane. An ad paid by the super PAC said: “Kathleen Kane: close the [Florida] loophole and keep guns out of the wrong hands. Track stolen guns to choke of supply to criminals. Background checks for all gun sales.” (See the ad here.)

Independence USA, Michael Bloomberg’s new super PAC, ran this issue ad supporting candidate Kathleen Kane prior to the Nov. 6, 2012 election.

Kane, in a rare move for a Democrat running for a state or higher office, publicly came out in favor of legislation favoring firearms control. She said she wanted to close the so-called “Florida loophole,” which lets someone denied a concealed-carry gun permit in Pennsylvania to get one in another state and then transfer that permit to Pennsylvania. Kane went on to win her race handily.

While Kane is a rarity, few if no politicians have the pockets of Bloomberg, an independent who can spend $10 million to $15 million of his own fortune on an issue that has seen no legitimate political discourse at the state or federal level for years, thanks mainly to the work of the NRA, the gun industry lobby.

All told, Bloomberg’s spending was directed at seven races nationally, of which his picks won four races, costing the billionaire roughly $8 million. Public health advocates who champion addressing firearms violence in the country likely will be following how Bloomberg’s super PAC will continue to wade into strategic races and confront the silence over firearms violence, which has become the acceptable new normal in political discourse by both major parties.

Leadership likely will remain with big city mayors, who as managers overseeing jurisdictions that carry out day to day criminal justice activities, see all facets of firearms violence most closely. The Brady Center also will continue to lobby for legislative changes to address the proliferation of firearms in the United States, as well.

The Brady Center featured this image on its web site to advocate for firearms policy reform here: http://bradycenter.com/advocates/women.

A massacre in Colorado and public health’s chilling silence to gun violence

Rudy Owens3 Comments

Like many people in the United States and around the world, I was horrified by the news on July 20, of yet another mass murder in the United States involving firearms. We still do not know as I write this post the motives of the alleged suspect, a 24-year-old medical student named James Holmes. Nor do we know yet how he acquired the multiple firearms—a semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, according to initial reports—used to kill 12 people and leave 59 wounded. Press reports quote police officials saying he bought his firearms legally along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. We do know that neither President Barack Obama or GOP presumptive contender Gov. Mitt Romney uttered the word “gun” in their public comments the day after the mass murders.

Alleged mass murderer James Holmes in a photo published by many media sources.

For his part, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who does not have to worry about his political career even if he is voted out of office and who can afford to defy special interest groups because of his great personal wealth, was quick to criticize both presidential candidates for failing to put forward plans to address gun violence, which is a concern of many elected officials in any sized city. “Soothing words are nice,” said Bloomberg, “But maybe it’s time the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country.”

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote on July 21: “Gun control has so completely disappeared from debate that John Rosenthal, founder of the Newton-based Stop Handgun Violence, told me this week before the Aurora shootings: ‘I’ve never seen more spineless cowardice and lack of national leadership. Can you imagine the outrage if instead, 83 Americans a day died from hamburgers?’ Instead the conservative Supreme Court struck down urban handgun bans. Last year saw record gun sales in America, based on FBI background checks, as the gun lobby whips up utterly false fears about Obama taking people’s guns away.”

Such mass killings like we saw in Aurora, Co., now occur with alarming frequency in the United State. Where I live, Seattle, we have experienced a wave of mass shootings during the last two months, the most lethal at a University District area restaurant called Café Racer and elsewhere in the city on May 30, that left six dead, including the alleged gunman.

From a purely statistical perspective, firearm violence is a national health issue, if not a crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of firearm homicides in 2010 in the United States was a whopping 11,493, or 3.7 deaths per 100,000. And the role of firearms in suicides was nearly twice that rate. The CDC for 2010 attributes firearms in the suicides of 18,735 persons in the country, or a rate of 6.1 per 100,000. All told firearms are linked to 30,228 deaths annually at last count. This is a truly staggering figure, and one that should have the entire medical and public health community demanding that moral and political leaders in this country develop a broad array of interventions to reduce these numbers, the way we mobilize yearly to dress in pink and run against breast cancer or embrace other campaigns designed to save lives and promote health. By contrast, Japan counted 11 homicides related to firearms in 2008, or a rate of 0.0 per 100,000 in epidemiological terms.

So why is the medical and public health community silent? Well, the answer is simple. It is about politics and money. Specifically, it is about the lack of federal money. And of course those who should be out front on this issue, including heads of hospitals and medical associations as well as faculty and heads of health sciences universities, are not demonstrating the needed moral courage to speak truth to the supporters of the NRA, business interests, and political groups, who exploit American fears about government and who seek to maintain the status quo politically through fear-mongering. That job is mainly falling to journalists and citizens groups mostly, as well as victims of crimes and their families.

The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University reported in February 2012 that the gun industry’s main lobbying arm, the National Rifle Association (NRA), has “systematically suppressed data about gun violence and the impact it has on Americans’ lives.” The  CDC in the early 1990s was releasing studies that found that guns in the home presented a greater danger to the occupants than potential home invaders. In response the NRA helped to prevent the funding of research on firearms’ death and injury. As a result, reports the foundation, the CDC appropriations bill the last 15 years has contained this language: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”  And this year, the NRA successfully added a similar amendment to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appropriations language.

The most well-known advocacy group that promotes strict gun regulation, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, was extremely critical of the CDC in 2011 for, in its words, requiring researchers financed by the CDC to give the CDC a “head’s up” when they prepare to publish firearms-related research. The CDC, in turns, shares that information with the NRA as a courtesy. “If the CDC is allowing the NRA to review its studies, it’s a deeply troubling practice,” said Brady Center President Paul Helmke. “To have a government agency open itself and its science to the influence of any interest group, particularly one whose policies undermine the safety of our families and communities, is improper, offensive, and unjustifiable. We need science that we can trust.”

One has to look no further than the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHSS) exhaustive annual report called Health, United States, 2011. It lists the word firearms just nine times, and buries firearms data deep into the report, making that information effectively unimportant in the overall health assessment for the country. Meanwhile the introduction to that report profiles motor vehicle deaths (about 40,000 deaths annually) and does not profile death by firearms (suicide or homicide, which number more than 30,000 annually). One has to wonder how connected the funding ban is to this type of editorial decision by the DHSS and the CDC, which publish this document.

Of course many proponents of very limited gun control disagree firearms-related violence is a “health” issue. One pro gun blog, published by a group called AmmoLand.com, calls those who would choose to address firearms safety “elite gun banners.” (The those being criticized is the CDC.)

Which item does the CDC and many public health research universities consider more of a public health threat, and which receives more research dollars and scholarly attention?

What we are seeing, at least at public health departments through funding mechanisms, is a full-court press on chronic disease linked to unhealthy food like, oh fatty french fries. When it comes to clogged arteries but not loaded semi-automatic weapons, the CDC doles out millions dollars ($103 million at last count) through Community Transformation Grants. It continually baffles me how trained scientists who work in health care flat out follow the money to pursue research grants to get more people to eat fruits and vegetables and stop smoking while keeping mostly silent as people in their communities are gunning themselves down and others.

I never understood this during my studies at the University of Washington School of Public Health, where there is not one course where firearms issues are addressed as a public health priority, at least according to my understanding of the courses offered. I did a quick search on the UW SPH web site on July 21 and found just seven references to firearms, six to guns, and 233 references to obesity. (UW researchers were involved in a joint study published in 2012 about gun storage cabinets in Alaska, but one would expect more given the numbers.) But this is no different than at any publicly funded health research university that relies on large federal grants to sustain its faculty and facilities. Clearly this impacts what future public health leaders are taught. During my two years in my program at the UW SPH, which used problem-based learning and cases that touched on everything from obesity to smoking to HIV/AIDs to homelessness to influenza, our classes never discussed firearms violence as a public health concern. (Note, that changed this year for the class behind me thanks to comments raised by my cohort to faculty for suggesting new topics).

In my frustration today, I even wrote to my member in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Jim McDermott, by clicking the on the topical area of “gun control” to submit my email to his staff. I know from past experience that federal lawmakers never read 99% of such emails, and their replies usually do not address the contents of constituent communications, instead relying on general policy statements that amount to little substance. Still, I felt compelled to express my continued disappointment at the failure of leadership that he and others are demonstrating on this health and policy issue:

“As a public health professional and as your constituent, I am writing today to ask if you can inform your constituents what you and your allies, including in the health community and law enforcement community, are planning to do in terms of a meaningful policy response to address the proliferation of firearms and in terms of providing funding to health professionals to begin to address this issue as a legitimate threat to the health of U.S. citizens? Can you provide any details about how you are working locally with groups seeking to have upstream and federal actions to begin to chip away at the powerful special interest groups that have hijacked the public debate on firearms? Are you seeking to challenge blue dog Democrats or Republicans who continue to communicate talking points that equate the Second Amendment of the Constitution with the sale of personal weapons that in no way correspond to the wording or intent of the Constitution or the intent of the framers of the Constitution? I await your leadership. If there is to be no action, than one wonders why there continues to be cynicism of citizenry about the leaders we elect to Washington to do the people’s business, not the business of special interests that are allowing weapons manufacturers to profit from the misery of innocent citizens wiped out by a completely controllable problem, were there true courage and leadership to face down the attack ads. People can lead, but well, so can the leaders we elect. I await to hear your strong voice.”