The outcome is concerning for Second Amendment advocates, to say the least.
Overall, the opioid crisis and fentanyl deaths were the number one public health concern of 26% of respondents. This makes perfect sense as fentanyl, an extremely dangerous synthetic opioid, has risen to such prominence in a markedly short time. It is blasted regularly on the news and online, and no one is unaware of its incredible lethality.
Not only is it the leading cause of death from overdose by a wide margin, but it shockingly is the number one killer of adults ages 18 to 45.
Next on the list is obesity, with 21% of respondents saying it is the most prominent threat to public health. Again, understandable with the wide range of health issues that result from being out of shape.
But then came number three. A full 17% of Americans surveyed listed “access to guns or firearms” as the number one threat to American public health today.
Access? Worded differently, there is some validity to the answer. For example, violent crime may be argued to be in the public health sphere, and there is absolutely progress needed with the nation’s suicide issue.
But access to guns?
To put that in perspective, citizens having weapons came in ahead of cancer, which killed over 609,000 people in the U.S. last year. Nearly 700,000 Americans die of heart disease per year, accounting for one in every five deaths. But coronary heart disease did not even register on the list.
Following cancer’s 12% were COVID-19 (6%), driving and unsafe roads (4%), smoking and tobacco products (3%), and alcohol abuse (2%).
Access to weapons, it must be said, is not a disease. It is not a condition or any type of malady that must be addressed as a public health crisis. The Axios-Ipsos survey showed that at least 37% of households exercise their Second Amendment rights, and the vast overwhelming majority of them are safer for it.
Access to guns does not cause deaths and is not a public health issue. Criminals having guns is an issue, but there are plenty of laws already on the books to deal with that. Adding more bans, background checks, waiting periods, age limits, and purchasing restrictions will only affect those who follow the law. And law-abiding citizens are not the problem.
Beyond suicide, the second-most likely way to die from gunshot is due to crime. But does that mean that guns cause crime? No, of course not. Violent criminals cause violent crime, and limiting the access to guns for those who obey the law does nothing to thwart violence.
Perhaps a better answer would be to keep violent criminals off the streets. Plea deals are struck with such alarming regularity that some of the most serious charges result in very little actual time served. This means a revolving door justice system that does next to nothing to solve the escalating crime problem.
Few believe the nation can incarcerate itself out of the current crime surge, but throwing out the Second Amendment and disarming the citizenry will only create more ready-made victims to prey on.
No, access to firearms is not a public health issue. The much better argument is whether being a victim of violent crime — and thus the victim of a criminal — falls into that category. It is counterproductive and plain wrong to label a fundamental constitutional right as a matter of public health policy.
