NRA opposition may sink Obama's surgeon general nominee (LA Times)

[petronius]

WASHINGTON — Intense opposition from the National Rifle Assn. has all but doomed prospects for President Obama's nominee for surgeon general, officials said Saturday as pro-gun Senate Democrats peeled away from the White House on a volatile issue in an election year.

--- Snip ---

Democratic leaders in the Senate have begun surveying senators to determine whether there is enough support to save the troubled nomination. Few Republicans are expected to back Murthy, and as many as eight Democrats also could be opposed.

--- Snip ---

Murthy testified last month at his confirmation hearing that he did not intend to use the surgeon general's office as a bully pulpit for gun control. At the time, he was criticized primarily by Republican senators for having co-founded a doctors organization that backed Obama.

Murthy has expressed a desire to tighten restrictions on who can buy guns and how they can be purchased. Supporters say that most Americans support those views and that they are mainstream, not radical.

--- Snip ---

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-surgeon-general-20140316,0,6108613.story

Dr. Murthy is the President and Co-Founder of Doctors for America; their statements and petitions which are causing the opposition are here...


Edit to add - Dr. Murthy did get at least one question about gun control during his confirmation hearing:

--- Snip ---

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) forced Dr. Murthy's statement on gun control when he referred to the physician's gun-control tweets, including one that said, "Tired of politicians playing politics w/guns b/c they're scared of NRA. Guns are a healthcare issue."

--- Snip ---

"Americans have a First Amendment right to advocate the Second Amendment," said Alexander. "To what extent do you intend to use the Surgeon General's bully pulpit for gun control?"

"I do not intend to use the Surgeon General's office as a bully pulpit for gun control," replied Dr. Murthy. "That is not going to be my priority. My priority and focus is going to be on obesity prevention."

"If given the opportunity to serve as Surgeon General…I recognize that the role is not to be a legislator or a judge. The role is to be a public health educator and to bring the nation together about our most pressing healthcare challenges. At this point, obesity is the defining public health challenge of our time."

--- Snip ---

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820202

[2banon]

1. How in the hell would the Surgeon General have impact on the 2nd amendment?

NRA is full of fucking paranoid bat shit crazy dangerous lunatics. they need to be locked up in a mental ward. hmm...

[villager]

2. And the bat shit crazy lunatics always successfully bully the worthless Blue Dog "Democrats"

...on these issues.

How completely appalling and disgusting Washington is. As are the gun salivators.

[pablo_marmol]

13. Let's see........listen to the "bat shit crazy"* liberal criminologists like

James Wright, Peter Rossi (RIP) and Gary Kleck, to name just three, or some anonymous person on the internet.

Hmmmm.......think I'm going to go with the criminologists.

How completely appalling and disgusting that their honest and valuable work has been suppressed and distorted by medical advocacy groups who cry foul when the crap that they peddle is identified for what it is.

*in fact, highly credentialed and respected

[gejohnston]

3. If I were to guess,

fund shill studies that would never be peer reviewed, and the ones that are would be ripped to shreds in criminology journals like the CDC "studies" in the 1990s.

[2banon]

4. sorry, not following..

how would shill studies for Center of Disease Control relate to NRA?

[gejohnston]

5. In the 1990s the CDC

was banned from lobbying for stricter gun laws and funding studies that many criminologists called invalid. James Wright told congress that they were as scientific as NRA propaganda. The NIJ, however, continued to get funding for gun violence studies.

Like I said, that's my guess. Personally, I think 36 is about 30 years too young for such a post. His duties will include managing the National Health Service Commissioned Corps among other things. He completed his residency in internal medicine only eight years ago and has no background in public health even thought he would be managing public health. That should disqualify him more than anything else.

[2banon]

10. He's only 36? sheesh..

wonder if he's a relative of a big funder..(?)

[Token Republican]

7. Here's why

The surgeon general is an important position, and normally well qualified individuals are appointed to it.

Vivek Murthy is 36 years old. According to Wikipedia, he completed his residency in Internal Medicine in 2006 from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

That means he's been a doctor for a little less than eight years. He was a strong supporter of the ACA.

Murthy is on record as claiming that gun control is a health care issue and supports a reinstatement of the federal assault weapon's ban, presumably as a heath care matter.

President Obama is on record that he'd press for gun control by alternative means.

Some people actually think that the Surgeon General should be used to advance health care problems and not be used as a back door route to help enact gun control laws. While it might be the case that his views on guns are unrelated to his nomination, the simple fact that he is under qualified undermines that argument.

[2banon]

9. I see.. that explains it well, thanks

I suppose by that, injuries and fatalities by gun shot wounds support his argument. Interesting pov, and now I can see why the NRA is up in arms over his nomination.

[gejohnston]

11. Not really

since it is gang and criminology issue, for the most part, not a public health issue. The vote should be 100-0 against confirming him simply because he isn't qualified for the job. He finished his residency for internal medicine less than eight years ago, and has no background or education in public health and no management experience. If he were to get that experience and come back in 30 years, I might support him. It is like taking a rookie patrolman and making them FBI director. As surgeon general, you are given rank of rear admiral and are in charge of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

this is the guy he would replacing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Lushniak

This is the nominee's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Murthy

[CreekDog]

16. it's not

you guys all sing the same song.

you want to say that most murders are just gang violence (wink wink).

they aren't.

[gejohnston]

17. there is no wink wink

since "gangs" also mean motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels, who are are as white bread as the Tea Party (or Occupy for that matter.)
most murders in the US are people with criminal records killing each other. How about reading some FBI statistics, and some criminology books written by criminologists instead of relying on nonsense from lazy and incompetent "journalists" and dim bulb pundits.
The problem the US, and most other countries, that much of our public policy is a product of ignorance, hysteria, cowardice and lies
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/vc_majorthefts/gangs

[CreekDog]

18. how about not suppressing and discouraging research on guns and gun violence

do you actually want the rest of us to read research that the NRA wouldn't approve of?

of course not.

[gejohnston]

19. That is also a lie

There has never been a ban on research, if anyone actually took the time to look at the law instead of reading Brady press releases. The law prohibits advocacy. The claim that a law bans all gun violence research is every bit as dishonest as MDA being a grassroots organization.
The ban was created after Author Kellerman got busted for a shill study and wouldn't release his data for peer review. None of those studies were peer reviewed and could not be replicated, meaning CDC was pissing away money on junk science. Research has been done and continues to be done by DoJ. Those results appear in peer reviewed criminology journals, and their data released to any researcher that asks. Brady et al don't happen to like the results.
Some quotes by real scientists on public health literature on guns:
University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan:"advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact."

criminologist Lawrence Southwick comparing public health gun studies to NRA propaganda: "Generally the level of analysis done on each side is of a low quality. The papers published in the medical literature (which are uniformly anti-gun) are particularly poor science."
Politics have no place in science.
So, please spare me of that ridiculous canard.

[Cha]

6. Too bad there's so many scared shits of the NRA ASSHOLES.

[Eleanors38]

8. Too bad there are politically tone-deaf prohibitionists feeding the NRA fodder mill...

We can go round & round about the highly-questionable, politically-charged studies supporting gun control/prohibition. But it still amazes me that in this day and age, someone can enunciate gun-control positions like the ones cited, and expect to blithely waltz into office as if everyone is in joyous harmony.

No wonder the NRA is a powerful monster: It is well-fed by highly educated, yet studiously ignorant, advocates of unpopular outlooks.

Surely you see this.

[pablo_marmol]

12. Very well stated, E38

No wonder the NRA is a powerful monster: It is well-fed by highly educated, yet studiously ignorant, advocates of unpopular outlooks.

I personally would rework this sentence thusly:

No wonder the NRA is a powerful monster: It is well-fed by highly educated, yet studiously ignorant, advocates of unpopular outlooks and policies which while well-intentioned are misguided - and thus doomed to failure.

EDITED TO ADD: If you haven't put serious study into the gun restriction issue, you'll never understand how excruciatingly dishonest the medical advocacy groups have been, and hence will never appreciate the fact that gun owners have good reason to have a problem with this nomination.

[Eleanors38]

15. Some speculation here on the "academic history" of gun control...

Up through the last millineum, a wide consensus that gun control is a "good thing" was widely assumed. Then along came Michael A. Bellesiles' Arming America (Knopf, 2000). This "history" of how guns were promoted by the federal government post-Civil War was described as "brilliant," "classic work of significant scholarship," "exposing myth," "eye-opener," "NRA's worst nightmare." The book won history's most prestigious award, the Bancroft Prize. Almost immediately, the collection of "dramatic historical truths" blew up.

Critics quickly pointed out factual errors, miss-readings, miss-quotings, even fabrications or non-existent data (perhaps the best summation of the poor work of Bellesiles was done by Clayton Cramer in his Armed America (Nelson Current, 2006). Within 3 yrs, Bellesiles was "asked" to resign his tenured professorship at Emory University, the Bancroft Prize was revoked, and Knopf recalled the book. (I have a copy, replete with a gold Bancroft Prize medallion on the fly!)

You can imagine the consternation in academic circles. IMO, academia has been bitten hard on the subject of gun control, and bitten in that most fatal area of intellectual inquiry, good and verifiable research. What remains is drug-war-style "recent findings" which are given a measure of credibility by an ever-accomodating and shrinking MSM. But I haven't seen the operatic bravos of academia (post-Bellesiles) accompanying other anti-gun screeds.

[jimmy the one]

20. arming america

eleanors: Up through the last millineum, a wide consensus that gun control is a "good thing" was widely assumed. Then along came Michael A. Bellesiles' Arming America (Knopf, 2000). Critics quickly pointed out factual errors, miss-readings, miss-quotings, even fabrications or non-existent data... .. You can imagine the consternation in academic circles. IMO, academia has been bitten hard on the subject of gun control, and bitten in that most fatal area of intellectual inquiry, good and verifiable research.

Bellesiles 'Arming America' was 98% factually accurate, pretty good for a history book which are often loaded with unfactual facts. His subjectivity is the crux of what mainly bothered gunnuts. It was indeed a witchhunt prompted by Michael when he bothered the nra with things they didn't want to accept, things which were most likely true in the subjective sense - guns were indeed scarce in early colonial America & prior to 1800.
As far as a final judgement of bellesiles, read answers to the 5 questions prosecuted, only one issue was deemed falsified, he was admonished for sloppiness & carelessness, but acquitted on 3 of the 5:

Question 1. Did Professor Bellesiles engage in "intentional fabrication or falsification of research data" in connection with probate records from Rutland County, Vermont?
..... Our conclusion is that Bellesisles’ account of the Vermont probate records contain extensive errors in part because they were not in fact collected with the purpose of counting guns.... He appears carelessly to have assumed that his counts were complete, and moved forward with a larger project on the basis of this unsystematic research that appears to have involved dipping into rather than seriously sampling the records. While this certainly constitutes sloppy scholarship, it does not prove a deliberate attempt to mislead, however misleading the result.

Question 2. Did Professor Bellesiles engage in "intentional fabrication or falsification of research data" in connection with probate records from Providence, Rhode Island?
.....Our conclusion is that Professor Bellesiles’ work on the Providence, Rhode Island records does not raise serious problems of fabrication or falsification of research data. The [relevant probate] errors in the first edition of Arming America.. When these
errors were identified, he immediately corrected them.

Question 3. Did Professor Bellesiles engage in "intentional fabrication or falsification of research data" in connection with probate records from the San Francisco Bay area?
....Our conclusion is that we cannot prove that Professor Bellesiles simply invented his California research, but neither do we have confidence that the Contra Costa inventories resolve the problem.....

Question 4. Did Professor Bellesiles engage in "intentional fabrication or falsification of research data" in connection with probate records supporting the figures in Table One to his book, "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture"?

Question 5. Did professor Bellesiles engage in "other serious deviations 'from accepted practices in carrying out or reporting results from research'" with respect to probate records or militia census records by:
(a) Failing to carefully document his findings;
(b) Failing to make available to others his sources, evidence, and data; or
(c) Misrepresenting evidence or the sources of evidence."

In summary, we find on Questions 1 and 2, that despite serious failures of and carelessness in the gathering and presentation of archival records and the use of quantitative analysis, we cannot speak of intentional fabrication or falsification. On Question 3, we find that the strained character of Professor Bellesiles’ explanation raises questions about his veracity with respect to his account of having consulted probate records in San Francisco County. On Question 4, dealing with the construction of the vital Table One, we find evidence of falsification. And on Question 5, which raises the standard of professional historical scholarship, we find that Professor Bellesiles falls short on all three counts.
http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases/Final_Report.pdf ------ pg 17, pg 18

[Eleanors38]

21. You do know what the "veracity" problems were with SF County's records?

They didn't EXIST.

(See: 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires which destroyed the records he claimed to cite. :jester

Perhaps he just needed more or Or perhaps all three?

I think Emory University was more than understanding when they asked him to "resign" his tenured faculty position, and it sounds like the Bancroft Prize committee probably wished they hadn't been punked in such an epic way; I mean, asking for their money back. Some of the comments by those supporting his work seem to suggest they felt a tad bit betrayed. Did you run across those comments?

[beevul]

22. "Bellesiles 'Arming America' was 98% factually accurate"

"Bellesiles 'Arming America' was 98% factually accurate"


That says about all that needs saying, about the person who said it.

[pablo_marmol]

14. Great move as the midterms approach.

Well, actually, not so much.



The "enlightened" members of Congress could learn a great deal from the no-good Blue Dogs on this issue.