There’s a weird cult of personality on the Left centered around Dr. Anthony Fauci that’s oddly akin to the one they created around the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You can find a Fauci pillow for your futon, a Fauci action figure or bobblehead, and some eye-rolling t-shirt designs that turn the CDC’s infectious disease expert into a secular saint. Fauci’s recommendations that even fully vaccinated Americans keep socially distancing and wearing masks have seen plenty of backlash, but many on the Left keep swallowing his every word, eager for more.

So you can imagine what their reaction will be now that Fauci has weighed in on “gun violence” as a public health epidemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the “horrifying” spate of mass shootings in the U.S. shows why gun violence is a public health issue.

“As a public health person, I think you can’t run away from that,” Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when host Dana Bash asked if gun violence is a “public health emergency.”

“I mean, in this last month, it’s just been horrifying,” replied Fauci, the U.S. government’s foremost infectious disease expert. “How can you say that’s not a public health issue?”

Easy. You look at the fact that these are criminal actions and recognize that it’s not a freaking public health issue, for crying out loud.

Yes, it’s awful and yes, doctors do get involved in treating the injured and trying to save those who may not make it. Yet trying to call this a public health issue should be troubling for each and every American.

After all, we’ve had people actually advocate for quarantines to combat violent crime, so yeah, I don’t really want doctors involved in gun violence discussions. The last thing we need is perpetual lockdowns because of something a small handful of people do anyway.

Let’s also remember that Fauci is part of the medical establishment that told us masks were useless against COVID-19 before later telling us we all need to wear masks. It wasn’t that they learned differently, either. They lied to us because they didn’t want us buying up N95 masks.

If he’ll lie over something like that–something that may have cost people their lives–what else will he lie about?

After all, he approved of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic plan, which included forcing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients. That’s the same COVID we knew then would tear through a nursing home like a grizzly through a nylon tent.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that Fauci has anything meaningful to offer to the gun debate that won’t be partisan hackery. That seems to be about all he’s really good for these days as he desperately clings to relevancy.

Gun violence, even mass shootings, aren’t a public health emergency, epidemic, or anything else. If they’re anything, they’re a mental health problem, but that’s so far outside Fauci’s wheelhouse that he should still stay out of it.

Until we understand why mass shootings happen, we’ll never actually stop them. If I thought for a moment that Fauci and company were talking about that, I could probably go along with him. Instead, doctors want the authority to set policy regarding firearms in this country, so I can’t. They’ve already made it clear that they see no problem destroying people’s civil liberties in exchange for a little temporary safety. Why should we trust them to set policy?

Sorry, no. That’s not gonna fly.