The Patriot Post® · Cuomo Declares 'Gun Violence' a Public Health Crisis

Cutting law enforcement funding to appease the “defund the police” Left and Black Lives Matter yielded the all-too-predictable result — spiking crime, especially in The Big Apple. That has New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declaring a disaster emergency … against “gun violence.” That’s right — according to Cuomo, blame for this growing crime wave is all the fault of guns.

“If you can beat COVID, you can beat gun violence,” Cuomo declared on Tuesday. “We’re in a new epidemic, and it’s gun violence, and it’s a matter of life and death also.” Cuomo further asserted that “gun violence” is a “public health crisis” that he plans to aggressively tackle with the same resolve he applied to COVID. Given his deadly nursing home debacle, touting his COVID record seems like the wrong direction to go for building public confidence in his plan, but we digress.

Cuomo elaborated on his new “gun violence” initiative by stating: “This new strategy treats gun violence as a public health crisis, using short-term solutions to manage the immediate gun violence crisis and reduce the shooting rate, as well as long-term solutions that focus on community-based intervention and prevention strategies to break the cycle of violence. The disaster emergency allows the State to expedite money and resources to communities so they can begin targeting gun violence immediately.”

The trouble is the leftist fallacy of “gun violence,” which ignores the reality that guns are merely a tool wielded by individuals for either good or evil. Suggesting that guns and not criminals are the problem will do nothing to address the actual problem.

At least Cuomo recognizes that the spiking crime rate is a problem. Yet, like the Left’s attack on police over false claims of “systemic racism,” Cuomo’s “solution” is a problem and a threat to New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, there’s the Democrats’ soft approach to crime. Alvin Bragg, the winner of the Democrat primary and therefore likely soon to be district attorney for Manhattan, has made it clear he won’t prosecute “minor” crimes because to do so would go against his woke views on justice.

As National Review’s Kyle Smith writes: “Bragg holds that locking up criminals does not make a city safer: ‘In the 80s when I was growing up, when we were incarcerating more, I was not safer.’ He suggests ‘diversion’ into therapeutic programs for those charged with drug offenses, but when asked whether the criminals in question should at least be forced to complete drug-treatment programs before their charges are dropped, he said merely that a ‘good-faith’ effort is all he expects. He has also said that police should not be responding to ‘mental-health crisis calls,’ so don’t expect the police to come by to deal with anyone who might be merely a ranting lunatic, until it’s too late.”

Democrats like Cuomo and Bragg epitomize the long-running problem with the party of the donkey. Democrats repeatedly create bad public policy that predictably results in greater societal destruction and decay, and then they turn and blame the fallout on America’s commitment to individual liberty and freedom. In truth, New York’s public crisis is one of leftist politicians seeking to amass ever more control over the lives of those they were ostensibly elected to serve.

Try solving problems such as the spiking violent crime rate by supporting law enforcement, helping cops to better do their jobs, while at the same time refraining from burdening citizens with ideologically based virtue signals that only serve to further divide people rather than bring about greater unity.