If ever there was an abuse of power, it's the president's commissioning of a trumped-up Centers for Disease Control study to validate hisgun-control agenda.
See the study here. So much for CDC objectivity.
The study was commissioned in January as one of Obama's 23 executive orders to enact gun control. To get Congress to fund it with taxpayers' money, the CDC had to classify gun violence as "a contagious disease." It's all phony baloney, but after Sandy Hook, the general feeling in the corridors of the White House wasthat the end justifies the means. (Read Obama's complete plan to reduce gun violence.)
Oh, yes, and the part of it that might relate to mental illness was played down. Way down. Thethree-to-five-year study-to-come is cleverly disguised anti-gun propaganda, nothing more. It will focus more specifically onthe effects of media portrayals of violence and a look at whether smart guns that only fire for registered users could decrease accidents.
It's hard to believe CDC Director Tom Frieden, Obama's appointee though he is, is any too happy about serving as a yes-man and a lackey for a study commissioned under false pretenses, even if it is the president of the United States giving him his orders. Frieden is a scientist to the core.
Its still not clear that the CDC will actually spend the next three to five years on gun violence. Congress, to avoid a clash with the Second Amendment, has long barred the CDC from funding any research that could be used to advocate or promote gun control. Technically, thats not a ban on all gun research, but in previous interviews, even Frieden has explained the law is hazy enough that the centers have shied away from the topic altogether.
Contagious disease? Really? Contagious -- that's the insult to our collective intelligence.
How are we defining a contagious disease? Must be a brand new way. What other contagion do you know in which there is no germ and nobody "catches" anything from anyone else? Will we isolate "patients" to keep the disease from spreading? Will we look to develop an immunizing vaccine? This is an interesting stretch, even for the father of our new national health plan.
We don't even know iffirearm licensing and registration make people safer. We don't know iflimits on high-capacity magazines reduce the number of deaths. Clearly we should have hadmore research on gun violence before President Obama drew up his 23 executive orders. But none of that is the point.
What is the point -- while the years-long study is unlikely to answer these or other important questions anyway, the president of the United States 1) has used an overworked, $10 billion federal agency to pander for him, and 2) he straight-faced conned the American people with his gun-violence-contagious-disease bunkum.
Never mind that the CDC has better things to do and Frieden knows it. Obama can believe he's on the side of righteousness all he likes, but it does not excuse what amounts to disappointing abuse of power.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423.
