Comments

1
Of course guns are hazardous to one's health. They are designed to be hazardous to the health of living creatures that is their sole function. Sure they can be used for target practice but their function is to kill. To claim guns are not a health hazard is quite simply a lie.
2
@1, the logic here isn't really that "their function is to kill". It's that guns cause physical harm. They are a risk factor. Anyone who's been in an emergency room knows this; the constant parade of gunshot wounds. It's exactly the same as seat belts, and even has many of the same libertarian dorks on the other side, screaming that mandatory seat belts are an encroachment on our basic liberties.

The kooks always devolve to a moral stance. That's why you always hear words like "liberty" vs. "slavery", or the ignoramuses who continue to maintain that free ownership of guns has something to do with "overthrowing tyranny". The doctors advocating this public health point of view aren't talking about morality; they're talking about HARM REDUCTION.

Notice how every gun nut instantly devolves to speculation about a total ban on firearms, and starts shouting about the Second Amendment. You will NEVER hear a gun nut talk about harm reduction, unless it is to advocate diversionary tactics like "well, you know, it's all about mental health, we should do something about THAT".

Gun nuts know this -- they know that most of what they say in public is bullshit. But they know that they must, at any cost, stop any discussion of public health or harm reduction. When you follow that line of reasoning hard enough, you'll end up becoming a strong advocate AGAINST PUBLIC HEALTH ENTIRELY. You turn into Jenny McCarthy; you're with the anti-vaxxers.

Because they know it works. The public health approach WORKS, against crash injuries, motorcycle helmet injuries, vaccinable disease outbreaks, flu outbreaks, clean water, AIDS, and everything else. Including gun injuries.

But gun nuts don't give a shit about gun injuries because they mostly don't happen to them. Their kids, maybe, and some randos at the mall, and those black kids in the projects, maybe -- but they're happier with those people dead anyways.

This is why gun kookery is racist to the core, a threat to public health to the core, and also why every gun owner everywhere is an accessory to murder.
3
what is Murthy's view on homosex?

way deadlier than gun ownership.

is he sounding the alarm?

oh dear. more HomoLiberal BullShit?
4
The quickest way to get a conservative in America angry is to in anyway suggest that guns are dangerous. Gun ownership is like an article of faith for them.
5
2

how is that public health approach working for homosexual HIV?

pretty amazing how it continues to climb.

are homosexuals impervious to Science?
6
@ Right. Guns are designed to be a health hazard.

See much shorter :) *wink*
7
are we sure paul wouldn't have blocked an Obama nominee with any reason that was handy? it is standard GOP policy.
8
There isn't actually a strong connection between mental health and gun violence/harm. Unless you define mental health so broadly that basically nobody qualifies as mentally healthy, which you can do, but it's not necessarily useful to do so. People like to after the fact label anyone capable of killing an innocent with having a mental disorder, and then pretend if we'd diagnosed them in advance we could have prevented the problem. But by that reasoning, everyone has a mental disorder and shouldn't be allowed guns. In reality, normal, typical people do violent or incredibly stupidly dangerous things - and that is just what typical humans are like.
9
He's not an eye doctor--he's an (unlicensed) optometrist. Which makes him even better qualified to comment, of course.
10
@9: I am not at all a fan of Rand Paul, but it only requires looking at his wikipedia page to find out that he is a retired ophthalmologist with an M.D. from Duke University.

(The ruckus about his certification later on is basically 99% bullshit too.)
11
(Er, that is, retired from being a doctor, not retired in general.)
12
Republicans want to ignore facts about everything. They are ignorant.
13
@3: Name one person who died of gayness.
@5: Wrong-o. HIV infection rates haven't changed much since the mid-90s after falling drastically from a previous high. The HIV-positive population is increasing, yes, but that's because people with HIV no longer die so quickly thanks to advances in medicine. There's someone in this thread who is impervious to science, or at least to evidence, but that someone probably isn't gay. Are you gay?
14
There is no need for a surgeon general in the first place. The nominee is rookie, but has a medical degree from Yale School of Medicine. From Fox:
At the ripe old age of 36, Murthy would not even come close to being picked to run any medical department, in any academic medical center in this country. This is not because he is a bad doctor, but simply because he has not contributed enough, published enough or healed enough to qualify him to be a medical leader.

We have the CDC, FDA, and heath departments across the country, not to mention HHS and now the IRS involved with our personal decisions about our health. It's time to abolish the Surgeon general - he/she is a figurehead anyway.
15
@14 "From Fox"

Oh, well I'm convinced. Idiot.
16
@15: Did you not watch the Super Bowl because it was "from Fox?"
17
@15: It may be from Fox, but they do have a point.
18
@17, their point is "this guy is in favor of affordable healthcare for everyone, therefore let's throw reasons at the wall why he's unqualified and see what sticks." Not to mention the author himself has a pretty pathetic medical career. And Nevermind Raindrip's first and last paragraph had nothing to do with the article. But yea, if their point was "he's young", that would be true. NONE of which has anything to do with the topic at hand.

@16 go fuck yourself.
19
Rand Paul has a bit of a point -- almost fifty times more people in the US die from heart disease than die from homicides committed with firearms (~500k vs ~11k). Firearms are a public health issue, but they're not a very important one in the overall scheme of things.

@8: In the overall gunshot death statistics, suicides outnumber homicides by almost two to one. I'm pretty sure suicide is considered a mental health problem, no?
20
@19 homicides are not the only ways in which guns are a public health issue. When you add accidental deaths related to guns and sucide, you're up more around 30k. It's the second leading injury death after car crashes. Then we can add another 80k non-lethal firearm related injuries per year.

over 100k deaths and injuries per year certainly seems like a significant public health issue to me
21
@18: It's never off-topic to point out how government can be reigned in.
22
@20: There are about 1200 accidental firearms deaths every year in the US; I didn't mention it because it's such a small part of the whole.

Lumping suicides and homicides together is inappropriate because they are committed by very different people for very different reasons. They aren't even remotely the same problem and lumping them together by instrument is just bad logic.

Pulling in non-lethal injuries is just padding the numbers for emotional effect. If you want to keep an apples to apples comparison, you'd have to pull in all the non-lethal cardiac events and you'd end up with a similar overall ratio.
23
@21: There's a difference between government being "reigned [sic] in" (seriously people, it's REINED in, like a horse) and just being made ineffectual.
24
@14 yup.
25
oh look

slogs resident Homosexual Holocaust Denier.....

from the CDC:

Homosexual men represent approximately 2% of the United States population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2010, young homosexual males (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24

Homosexual males account for 63% of new HIV infections in the United States and 78% of infections among all newly infected men. In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

In two years, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) homosexuals and 12% among homosexual males overall.

are we going too fast?
26
@25 Talk about having one's head up one's poop chute, you take the award of the day for stupidity.
27
26

what?
you no like the CDC?

why are we not surprised.....
28
@25: An increase over a single two-year period means that the rate just keeps rising, eh? By your logic, we should be worried that the Northern Hemisphere will catch on fire, since temperatures rise so quickly over a 3-month period. Go wrap yourself in asbestos to stop it from happening to you!
@27: He doesn't like YOU. I don't like you either!
29
@3: Actually, in 2010 about 6,000 gay/bi men died from AIDS complications (source). Also in 2010, over 30,000 people died by firearms, roughly 2/3 of them by suicide and the other 1/3 by homicide (source).
In 2010, 42% of households had at least one gun (source). Under the reasonable assumption that 7% of people are LGBTQ, gun ownership is actually MORE likely to cause death by firearms than being gay is likely to cause death by AIDS.
You say all sorts of things, but just like on the Maury Show, the facts determined that that was a lie.
30
29

nice sources. we'll get to them later.

we realize that you continue to deny your true inner feelings, and project a calloused disregard for the toll HIV takes on homosexuals in a show of bravado. but the facts, from your source, are sobering....

"Homosexual men remain the population most profoundly affected by HIV.
In 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections among homosexuals was 29,800, a SIGNIFICANT 12% INCREASE from the 26,700 new infections among homosexuals in 2008.
Although homosexuals males represent about 1.8% of the male population in the United States, in 2010, they accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections.

Since the epidemic began, an estimated 302,148 homosexuals with an AIDS diagnosis have died..."

have you been tested in the past six months?
31
@30: I can say with 100% certainty that I will never catch AIDS from having gay sex. But go ahead, keep ignoring the facts. Feel free to pretend that I didn't catch you in an obvious lie.
32
31

that is so sad.

have you tried getting your bf drunk?
or stoned?
or high on meth?

or putting a bag over your head?

or hanging out in really dark smoky bars?

or maybe even only dating during power outages?

surely you can coax or trick someone into fucking you...
33
@32: I'm actually straighter than the pole your mother dances on.

Please wait...

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