- The Washington Times - Friday, May 5, 2023

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra reportedly called gun violence, in the aftermath of an Atlanta shooting, a “public health crisis” — a label the left has been trying to affix for some time so as to sidestep the Constitution and put the Second Amendment in the hands of medical bureaucrats to control.

‘Cause they did such a great job with COVID mitigation. Right?

“[W]e learned the tragic news that Amy St. Pierre, an HHS colleague at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the victim of a senseless shooting in Atlanta,” Becerra said in a statement reported by The Hill.

Police arrested a suspect in the shooting that left St. Pierre dead and four others injured.

And Becerra then added this, as The Hill reported: “We are still trying to process this heart-breaking news. But there is no escaping that gun violence is tearing the American family apart and has become a public health crisis.”

A mental health crisis — yes.

A spiritual crisis — yes.

But public health is a very politicized term that was used by the government — that is used by the government — to declare the sort of emergencies that give the government the necessary justification to seize individual liberties. The coronavirus was declared a public health emergency by both federal and state health officials, after which Big Pharma was given a streamlined pass to produce experimental vaccines under an emergency-use authorization that President Joe Biden and his band of merry medical bureaucrats then forced into the arms of American citizens, bypassing that old-time gold standard of “my body, my choice” by citing “public health emergency.”

Now apply the same scenario to the Second Amendment.

If government bureaucrats are allowed to spin gun violence as a public health crisis — a public health emergency — then these same government bureaucrats have the “in” they need to take mitigation steps to stop the health crisis from spreading. How to stop gun violence from spreading? Here come the doctors with their handy-dandy solutions. Solution Number One: Get rid of guns.

After all, that’s how viruses are fought.

Viruses aren’t afforded special protection status, based on ideas that they’re God-given rights, under the authority of the individual to decide whether or not to possess. Viruses are declared enemies and as such, targeted for eradication.

This is why the left wants oh so badly to reshape the narrative of the gun control movement into one that makes the Second Amendment a matter for health — for mental health, yes, but then ultimately, for public health. Public health is a collective consideration and if there’s one thing that fits a communist mindset, it’s the collective — not the individual.

“New research presented in tackling gun violence as a public health epidemic,” UCLA Health wrote in February, about a “symposium held by UCLA Fielding School of Public Health” that “highlights new research to support policy solutions.”

Yep. Bank on this: Those “policy solutions” for the “public health epidemic” called gun violence is always, always, always rooted in stripping legal firearms carriers of their rights to carry.

From the American Public Health Association’s website: “Gun violence is a leading cause of premature death in the U.S. … APHA recognizes a comprehensive public health approach to addressing this growing crisis [as] necessary.”

That Xavier Becerra was an attorney and politician — not a doctor, not a medical professional — before he became Biden’s chief of Health and Human Services is more than significant, particularly when his far-left leanings are factored into the equation. He served on the House Progressive Caucus; need more be said of his socialist-communist beliefs?

Gun violence in America can be attributed to many things — broken homes, fatherless families, morally adrift culture, the removal of God from schools and the public stage, empty church pews and especially, a horrific increase in the number of prescribed behavior-modification meds to youth. Once again, Big Pharma rears its ugly head; it’s these pills that carry side effects that warn of violent tendencies, violent thoughts, suicidal behaviors and the like.

Gun violence can also be attributed to the Democrats’ opening of borders to thug elements; the Democrat Party’s widespread call for justice system reform that coddles the criminal and dismisses the victim as unimportant; and to Democrats’ ongoing attack on police and support of antifa, Black Lives Matter and other organizations that call for defunding of police and dismantling of police departments.

But gun violence as a public health crisis?

That’s the Democrats’ way of watering the Second Amendment to the point of stripping gun rights from lawful citizens.

Leftists always seek to control the narrative so as to disguise their strategies to move America away from individualism and toward collectivism. Their end game is godlessness and total government control. To achieve this state, they must make citizens forget that America was founded on the principle of God-given rights.

This is the ultimate war in America: the struggle to keep what was given by God — the struggle to preserve God-given liberty. Leftists — liars — like Becerra must to be allowed to win.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE  or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Please read our comment policy before commenting.