Anyone who says that guns aren’t a threat to public health is either consciously lying or doesn’t understand what the words ‘public health’ actually mean. And what those two words mean is anything which might be a community-wide health threat and could be monitored or regulated by public authorities. Which is why the self-appointed as well as paid representatives of Gun-nut Nation have been proclaiming that guns shouldn’t be considered as anything having to do with public health, because the whole point of their strategy is to eliminate all government regulation of guns.
Except now the pro-gun narrative seems to be going beyond a concern about regulating guns to an attack on regulating anything else having to do with threats to health. And what I am referring to is a commentary on the NRA-ILA website which attacks Mike Bloomberg not just for funding an effort in New Mexico to expand NICS background checks, but also for pushing an attempt in Santa Fe, NM, to impose a 2-cent per ounce ‘soda tax’ on sugar-filled beverages, an effort which, along with the background check initiative, ultimately failed.
Now why would the NRA link background checks for gun transfers to whether consumers should pay more for caloric drinks? Well, for one thing, any time they can dump on Bloomberg they’ll give it try, if only to remind Gun-nut Nation that even with Adolph Trump in the White House, there still are threats to the Second Amendment lurking around. But I think there’s something even more insidious going on when the NRA equates the ‘freedom’ to drink high-caloric soda with the ‘freedom’ to own a gun. Which is exactly what the NRA-ILA statement says: “And make no mistake: he’s just as focused on coming for your guns as he is on coming for your Dr. Pepper.”
Remember a guy named Ronald Reagan? It was during his presidency that we first stuck warnings on packs of cigarettes. And then what happened is that we started passing additional taxes on cigarettes to discourage people from starting or continuing to smoke. And we did it because smoking is a serious risk to health. Which also happens to be true when we talk about high-caloric drinks. Every day, at least 5 percent of all adults add 567 calories to their food intake by drinking soda and juice with sugar; one in four adults adds at least 200 calories to their daily food intake with sugary drinks. Right now we spend nearly 200 billion a year treating the health conditions caused by obesity and the complications from obesity are probably responsible each year for 300,000 deaths. We also probably lose 480,000 Americans to smoking every year, but that number has been going down while the obesity number keeps going up.
The amount of money spent by Bloomberg on anti-smoking campaigns around the world has gone above one billion bucks. When it comes to personal freedom, you don’t hear the NRA or anyone else saying that Bloomberg’s attempt to get more stringent anti-smoking laws is a threat. But that’s because as loony as the NRA’s messaging has become, nobody would take Wayne-o or Chris Cox seriously if they told the membership to demonstrate their support of the Second Amendment by buying a pack of cigarettes and enjoying a smoke. But public opinion hasn’t yet come to a consensus on how sugary drinks contribute to the epidemic of excess weight, so the NRA can pretend that regulating soft drinks, like regulating guns, is another example of government overreach into an area of personal choice which should be left alone.
Here’s how the NRA sums it up: “we’ll happily join the residents of Santa Fe in toasting liberty with the soft drink of their choice, whatever its sugar content might be.” And on the way back from the Mini-Mart, why not stop off at your local gun shop and pick up some ammo or even another gun? After all, you can still strap on your Glock even if you can’t fit into your pants.
