In a post on the social network X on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said that his state would not follow the Surgeon General’s new public health advisory on gun crime. He called the move “unconstitutional.”
“We will not follow through,” DeSantis wrote. “Florida will never agree with the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional attempts to take over the government.”
Tuesday, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called gun violence a public health disaster, saying that the number of deaths caused by guns has been steadily rising.
Murthy said in his speech, “Firearm violence is a public health crisis.” “It is a moral crisis that we haven’t done anything about it.”
As for DeSantis, he said he would react to the new advisory in the same way he did to steps taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeSantis wrote on X, “During COVID, unelected bureaucrats used ‘public health’ as an excuse to take away people’s rights. I signed laws to protect Floridians from government overreach.”
“Now, Biden’s Surgeon General is using the “public health” bureaucracy to try to break the Second Amendment.”
A request for feedback from the DeSantis team did not get a response right away.
Murphy asks the government in the advisory to make background checks mandatory for everyone, require safe gun storage, and ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for public use. He also asked lawmakers to “make it safer for people to use and carry guns in public places.”
DeSantis signed a bill into law in April that lets people in Florida carry guns without a permit. It was called “the opposite of commonsense gun safety” at the time by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Not only DeSantis, but also other lawmakers spoke out against the advisory from the government. The National Rifle Association (NRA) also said in a statement soon after Murthy’s introduction that the rule violated Second Amendment rights.
“This is another step in the Biden Administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners,” NRA Director Randy Kozuch said in a statement on May X.
At the time of publication, the office of the surgeon general had not responded to calls for comment.
Source: The Hill