It has been two weeks since U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory on what he declares to be the latest “public health crisis” in America.
An “Advisory” issued by the Surgeon General is supposed to be employed when, in the learned opinion of that official, the American people must be made aware that they face an urgent public health issue, in other words, an “emergency.”
Unlike his predecessors, who employed the bully pulpit of their office to crusade against arguably public health-related issues such as smoking and AIDS, Murthy’s June 25th “Surgeon General’s Advisory” has nothing to do with any reasoned or common sense definition of health. It does, however, have everything to do with politics; in this case, the one policy issue liberals invariably turn to as a way to rally their base — gun control.
Murthy dutifully declares “firearm violence” the latest and most urgent “public health crisis” facing our country; not heart failure, not cancer, not obesity, but guns. In doing this, he cheapens the role and responsibility of the nation’s preeminent public health official.
Much of the mainstream media was breathless in drawing attention to the Surgeon General’s call to action against the scourge of violence committed by individuals misusing firearms. CNN, for example, lauded Murthy at length for joining the gun control hallelujah chorus. MyChesCo called it a “Landmark Step.”
The partisan, political perspective unsurprisingly reflected in CNN’s article praising Murthy’s gun-control missive was obvious in the video placed atop the opinion piece – a photograph not of the Surgeon General but a video of President Biden.
There has been little public discourse spawned by the firearms violence advisory since its unveiling in June, for the simple reason it offers nothing new. Rather, it repeats the same talking points gun control advocates have urged for years — too many guns in America and the need for more laws restricting their availability and possession.
Despite the document’s veneer of approaching the “generational” public health crisis of gun violence, it is nothing more than the same, tired recitation of control measures pressed by the gun control movement for decades — including banning “assault weapons,” instituting “universal background checks” and mandating firearms lock boxes. Nothing, incidentally, about stronger and more effective enforcement of laws on the books against the criminal misuse of firearms.
The report employs a sleight-of-hand used by political advocates on all sides of any issue — using statistics to bolster their argument. At one point early in his discourse, Murthy declares that some 60 percent of adults “worry ‘sometimes’” about “firearm violence.” Wow – learning that a majority of people at some point in their lives “worry” about firearm violence really moves the public health debate forward. Perhaps equally insightful is Murthy’s unveiling to us that “[a]ttempting suicide by firearm is almost always an irreversible act.”
Suicide and “mass shootings” (to which Murthy also devotes significant attention) certainly are matters deserving of our attention and of taking steps to reduce, but placing such tragic events under the jurisdiction of the Surgeon General as the basis on which to advocate a political gun-control agenda adds nothing of positive note.
Perhaps hidden somewhere in the bureaucratic gobbledygook found throughout the Surgeon General’s Advisory, including his call for something he refers to as “behavioral threat assessment and management (BATM) teams,” one might discover meaningful solutions to firearm-related crimes (of which there in fact are far too many in contemporary American society). But my careful read of the 39-page report revealed none.
Not surprisingly, Murthy concludes his advisory by likening the war against firearm violence in this third decade of the 21st Century to those launched by his predecessors decades earlier against cigarettes and in support of safer automobiles; in other words, treat firearms as just another “consumer product” that can be restricted by regulations and laws.
Unsaid, of course, in making such a comparison, is the fact that nowhere in the Constitution are there to be found explicit prohibitions on government restricting cigarette smoking or forcing automobiles to be made safer. There is, of course, such a limitation against government infringing the right to “keep and bear arms,” which may account for the Surgeon General’s advisory failure to mention the Second Amendment in his report, even as a footnote.
Bob Barr currently serves as President of the National Rifle Association. He represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
With days and weeks filled with law practice, political goings on, serving as President of the National Rifle Association, and other issues relating thereto, I find myself, like many of my colleagues, with little time for matters of the mind. I was, therefore, extremely grateful to a friend who last week invited me to a celebration in New York City for the unveiling of one of the most beautiful works of religious art I have ever seen – the Ark of the Covenant constructed as close as humanly possible to its biblical criteria and dimensions.
Being able to view up close this astonishingly beautiful and gold-laden artifact was itself worth the visit to the Big Apple. It was, however, the speakers that made the evening event truly valuable.
Many of the presenters, including a number of Rabbis and biblical scholars, amongst who was Christian Coalition founder and current chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Ralph Reed, were (at least in my experience) more inspiring and thought-provoking than any presentation or essay by a political leader in the modern era (with the possible exception of several speeches by Ronald Reagan, including his second inaugural address describing the “American Sound”).
It was truly invigorating to step back from politics and controversies of the day and cogitate for those few hours on matters of import that far transcend such current events in importance to each of us as individuals as well as to our country. The closest in oratorical proximity to politics that figured into last Wednesday evening’s celebration came in the form of thanksgiving to the United States of America, especially in its support for the creation of the State of Israel 76 years ago; support that has continued every year since then to the present, and particularly the bold decision by President Trump to ignore naysayers and doomsayers in his Administration and move the American embassy from Tel Aviv where it always had been, to Jerusalem.
More broadly and historically meaningfully, speakers offered heartfelt praise for the United States, primarily because of the uniqueness of our having been founded as a country in which civil power resides ultimately in the people. Indeed, as per the recipe for self-governance set out in our founding documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — the American people possess the power to change not only the participants in government, but the government structure itself if it is deemed to have failed in fulfilling its core mission to protect individual liberty.
Such positions were enunciated clearly and proudly by Rabbi after Rabbi, and seconded by a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and by Ralph Reed, whose 15-minute presentation illustrated why he remains, nearly three decades after founding the Christian Coalition in 1995, a highly sought after speaker at major events across the political and religious spectra.
As noted correctly by more than one speaker at this event, our Founders drew on their knowledge of civic, political, and government history in fashioning the tripartite and representative-based system under which the United States now operates, yet which too few of our countrymen fully comprehend. One of those early systems of civic and political engagement understood by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, among others, was that of the Israelites is seeking their freedom from Egyptian despots, and establishing the norms whereby citizens could, and should, govern themselves according to ethical and moral standards established by their Creator.
That both the United States of America and Israel today — many centuries after the Jews carried the Ark of the Covenant into battles to preserve their freedom, and a mere 233 years since our Bill of Rights was ratified — remain true to that moral heritage is a continuing testament to the virtues espoused by our Founding fathers and to one of their mentors, Moses. Lest We forget.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
I recently returned from the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) 153rd annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, an event at which hundreds of retailers and manufacturers of firearms, firearms accessories, archery equipment and camping gear set up shop and attracted more than 72,000 visitors, including many families with children of all ages. As was the case at every NRA annual meeting I have attended since becoming a Board member in 1998, the overarching theme was safe and responsible use and ownership of firearms.
On Monday, May 20th, immediately following the annual meeting and exhibit hall, I was elected by the 76-member Board of Directors to serve as NRA President for the 2024-25 year. I accepted this honor at a time of great challenge and opportunity for the NRA and its more than four million dues-paying members — also recognizing that every year is one of challenge and opportunity for the NRA.
The fact is, when it comes to defending the Second Amendment (and indeed, all the rights guaranteed to us by our Bill of Rights), our opponents never sleep, and a win one day is guaranteed to be followed by another challenge the next. Thus it has been since the founding of our great nation.
Thankfully for freedom-loving and law-abiding citizens, just as our adversaries never sleep, neither does the NRA in confronting challenges in the legislative, legal and regulatory arenas. And, since the turn of this century, those challenges have come also from the United Nations and other international organizations.
Here at home, the recent prosecution of former President Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg illustrates the manner by which our heretofore “blind” criminal justice system has been employed as a cudgel to attack political opponents. The NRA was similarly targeted by New York’s state Attorney General Letitia James, who promised as a candidate in 2018 to go after the NRA, which she considered a “terrorist organization.” Ever since then, she has used the power of her office to wage a multi-year war against the NRA.
With the support of millions of NRA members and a team of crack lawyers, the Association has proactively and successfully withstood such legal challenges, even as we have managed to advance gun rights, self-defense laws and hunting opportunities in states across the country.
The NRA has led the way for passage of constitutional carry – the gold standard in self-defense laws outside the home — in 29 states. Perhaps surprising to some observers, most of those states passed constitutional carry since 2018, when the organized campaign to put the NRA out of business began in earnest in the New York courts.
Whether through landmark Supreme Court cases or strategic litigation at the state level, the NRA has consistently demonstrated its commitment to upholding the Second Amendment as a fundamental civil liberty. The NRA shepherded two major Supreme Court cases just in the last three years: the consequential 2022 Bruen decision and the very recent, seminal NRA v. Vullo First Amendment decision that showed clearly New York’s attacks against the NRA were indeed politically motivated.
The Vullo decision, by a unanimous Court, assures that organizations of whatever political stripe or mission are shielded from government officials abusing their regulatory powers to silence those it regulates because it disagrees with their viewpoint.
As I assume the presidency of America’s oldest civil liberties champion, I am reminded that the right to keep and bear arms remains always under threat by those in power seeking more of it by depriving the citizenry of vital individual freedoms.
When I was first sworn into the 104th Congress in January 1995, our Second Amendment rights were under direct assault by then-President Bill Clinton’s gun-control agenda, which had been supported by the previous Congress under Democrat rule. Now, one generation later, another Democrat president is using the power of that office to weaken those same rights through executive actions wielded both directly and indirectly.
When it comes to the Second Amendment, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Will wonders never cease? The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reportedly is considering moving marijuana from the most highly restricted class of “Controlled Substances” – Schedule I – where it has resided for more than half a century, to the far-less restrictive category as a Schedule III drug.
This reclassification, if actually implemented, truly would represent a sea change in federal drug policy, which since 1970 has been defined by the Nixon-era Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, of which the Controlled Substances Act is found at Title II.
As with much federal regulatory power, Uncle Sam’s control over drugs, including “controlled substances” and all manner of prescription medications, is implied – deriving from numerous laws passed by the Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as legitimate under the so-called “commerce power” found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Despite the otherwise clear limiting language in that Section of the Constitution that congressional power to legislate extends only to “commerce” between states, ever since President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in the 1930s, all three branches of the federal government have eagerly gobbled up powers clearly never dreamed of by those who wrote and ratified that document.
The final bulwark against this deluge was essentially destroyed in 1942, when the High Court found constitutional under the Commerce Clause, the federal government’s power to regulate the price of wheat grown by a farmer in Ohio (Roscoe Filburn) even though none of his product was used or sold beyond the borders of the Buckeye State.
The tortured reasoning that underpinned the Supreme Court’s decision in Wickard v. Filburn, provided a bright green light for virtually every Congress and president since then to reach into every nook and cranny of life in America without fear of being circumscribed by the courts.
In 1970 this overreach found a home in federal drug policy and with marijuana being classified as among the most dangerous drugs in the country (right up there with heroin, LSD, and MDMA or ecstasy).
Congress justified this regulatory overreach by “finding” that since some, if not most marijuana, travels in interstate commerce, it is easier to lump it all together and consider it all in the context of “commerce” between the states.
So much for the idea of a federal government of limited and defined powers.
In a California case six decades after farmer Filburn found himself in Uncle Sam’s crosshairs, Angel Raich was the victim of similar regulatory abuse. Ms. Raich used small amounts of marijuana provided free of charge for her medicinal use by local caregivers – all fully compliant with that state’s “Compassionate Use Act of 1996.”
That exercise of freedom did not sit well with Alberto Gonzalez, at the time serving as U.S. Attorney General, whose Justice Department swooped in to stop Ms. Raich notwithstanding that she acted in full compliance with California law, and despite there being nary the slightest hint of “commerce” of any sort. A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices allowed the DEA to confiscate the small amounts of medicinal marijuana obtained by Ms. Raich and prevent her from obtaining more.
The notorious Gonzalez v. Raich decision remains the law of the land, although in recent years the feds as a practical matter have largely backed away from prosecuting cases involving medicinal marijuana if in compliance with various state laws.
Despite this policy decision not to strictly enforce federal marijuana laws in states where medicinal use is lawful, marijuana remains a prohibited Schedule I drug with no acceptable medical use.
That may change in the coming months if reports are accurate that, on April 30th, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent the White House a formal proposal to move marijuana and its essential ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinols, to Schedule III, a move that under the Controlled Substances Act the attorney general can make without congressional approval.
Such a move, long championed by libertarians and many medical groups, would be welcomed not only by marijuana users, but also by businesses involved in the marijuana trade. As a Schedule III product, marijuana-related businesses could not only engage in transactions with banks and credit card companies without fear of legal retribution, but they could lawfully claim a wide variety of tax benefits now denied them because of marijuana’s high classification.
This historic policy change will be a boon to marijuana users and businesses. Whether it bodes well for our social culture is another question altogether.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.