U.S.A. — “Proud of my colleague, @bradhoylman for getting our bill, A2893A/S0580A passed in the Senate!” Queens Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas tweeted Wednesday. “This legislation backed by @NYAGV1, @Everytown, @TheHAVI, @bradybuzz & more is a White House proposal. Let’s address gun violence with health solutions & pass it in the @NYSA_Majority!”
In summation, gun prohibitionists are once more demonizing guns rather than the violent criminals who abuse them and mischaracterizing evil behavior by aberrant individuals as a public health issue. So, what’s this bill they’re claiming provides “solutions”?
“Medicaid would reimburse violence prevention programs in New York under a proposal advanced Tuesday in the state Senate,” Rochester’s Spectrum News 1 claims in a story González-Rojas shared.
“Under the proposal, a Medicaid beneficiary who has been involved in or injured by community violence and has received a health care referral would be eligible,” the report recounts, noting “California, Connecticut and Illinois have been granted similar approval to use Medicaid for violence prevention programs.”
Senate backer Hoylman took full advantage of the free publicity to virtue signal.
“In our hospitals, there’s a revolving door of gun violence injury that disproportionately hurts young people of color,” he declared. Left unsaid was who was disproportionately hurting them. And that’s in spite of all the New York gun laws he demands, including requiring firearms (that will forever be untraceable to the criminals using them) to microstamp ammunition.
“With our bill, hospitals in partnership with community violence prevention programs will receive federal support to not only treat their patients’ immediate injuries, but also help prevent their future physical and mental harm,” Hoylman promised with a straight face. How transferring tax booty into more Democrat boondoggles would actually “prevent… future physical and mental harm” was left unstated, and the Spectrum reporter evidently didn’t think to ask.
“Gun violence is a state-wide health epidemic and it requires swift and effective health solutions,” González-Rojas chimed in, again leaving key questions unasked, let alone unaddressed. First, if it’s “statewide,” it can’t by definition be an “epidemic,” because, as economist John Lott’s research demonstrates, occurrences are limited to “a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them.”
That makes fair the question “Are Hoylman and González-Rojas lying, incompetent, or both?” The only certainty is that as far as Everytown and Brady’s involvements are concerned, the answer narrows down to one option.
Ditto for the White House, which González-Rojas tells us “has recognized this and recommends the billing of Medicaid for community violence intervention programs.” Of course, it does. And of course, that’s what encouraged Democrat-dominated California, Connecticut, and Illinois to jump on the bandwagon, with New York running to catch up and other “blue” states seeing an opportunity to jump in.
“The hope is the measure would result in a reduction in violent injuries in the future,” Spectrum’s publicity release masked as the news concludes. “Supporters pointed to a reduction in violence after hospital-based violence intervention programs were introduced.”
As the saying I can’t entirely repeat here goes, you can wish in one hand and do something else in another. As for the reduction in violence claim the piece goes out on, how about pointing the rest of us to what we’re told supporters pointed to?
How big of a reduction? When? Where? Got proof?
Or is everybody just supposed to buy into the claim that gangsters alter their violent behavior because Democrats once more slopped some favored bureaucratic troughs with tax plunder coerced out of the productive sector?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
