The other day I received an email from an organization which runs a bunch of recovery centers around the country trying to help poor unfortunates break their addiction to alcohol or drugs. The email asked me to take a look at what this outfit is saying about the connection between gun violence, and addiction, which I did.

              And what came out from reading about the work these recovery centers are doing is the possibility that for the first time, we have a program operating which may really have a positive impact on reducing the number of Americans killed and injured with guns.

              Because it seems to be the case that right now, the so-called gun-violence ‘epidemic’ is out of control. The shootings just seem to be going up, up and up. Meanwhile, for all the well-intentioned talk over the last couple of years about how Covid-19 was creating a stress level in minority neighborhoods which was fueling the increase in shootings and gun deaths, in fact the Pandemic seems to be under control and yet shooting numbers keep going up.

              Basically, what The Recovery Village is saying is that drug and alcohol abuse appear to be causal factors in gun violence, so if we can reduce the former behavioral factors in the human community, then maybe the latter factor will be reduced as well.

              I’m not sure whether this organization has yet to try and determine the validity of this thesis through some kind of evidence-based research, such as (for example) doing a before-and-after study of their patient population to determine whether a decline in substance abuse will also lead to a decline in access to guns, but just the fact that this organization is thinking about such a linkage is a very promising and positive thing.

              The problem with the research done on gun violence by public health specialists who are once again being funded by the CDC, is that what they never seem to be able to do is get beyond what they believe will be sufficient laws and regulations what will keep guns out of the ‘wrong hands.’ And while they admit to the fact that substance abuse is often seen in the families and households of shooters, they claim this problem can be eliminated by extending background checks to all gun transfers, because the current background check procedure includes disqualifying information about substance abuse.

              What the public health researchers at schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins never do, of course, is actually sit down and talk to individuals who have been substance abusers, then somehow gotten their hands on a gun and use the gun to try and kill themselves or someone else.

              Instead, what we get from the so-called scholarly bunch who do research on gun violence is an analysis of demographic data on violence victims from the CDC which is them ‘associated’ with the behavior of individuals who end up committing violence with a gun.

              I believe that the approach to gun violence being developed by The Recovery Village marks a new and fundamentally more productive response to gun violence than anything coming out of the so-called public health ‘research’ about guns.

              Take your time. Take a look.