What Does the Surgeon General Know About Guns? Part 1.

This past weekend, the residents of Chicago celebrated the July 4th holiday by doing what Americans like to do more than what happens in any other advanced country — 17 people were shot to death and another 82 were wounded, of whom a few more may die instead of being sent home with serious but stable wounds.

In Detroit, a Sunday block party was livened up by two fatal shootings and at least a dozen others hit by gunfire, while a weekend party in Los Angeles was a much more peaceful affair, with only ten people hit by bullets, three of whom didn’t go to the hospital, but instead were transported to the morgue.

Of course, these events have all sparked the usual pronouncements of ‘thoughts and prayers,’ with the Mayor of Chicago going a step further and saying that his city was ‘’in a state of grief.” The Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, is not just a dedicated public servant, but is obviously an emotionally charged poet as well.

Not to be left on the sidelines when it comes to concerns about the impact of gun violence on community welfare and health, the U. S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has just published an Advisory, ‘Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America,’ which you can read right here.