Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's declaration of so-called gun violence as a 'public health emergency' was supposed to do...something. Since he included a list of laws he felt Congress should pass right away, it's clear that the "something" here is gun control.

Now,  he's been in the role of surgeon general since President Joe Biden took office. Over the last three years, he's had plenty of time to do just this, but he didn't. It wasn't until the presidential campaign season that suddenly, this "emergency" was a big enough deal that he had to act, all despite homicides being down compared to his first year on the job.

So it's clear that this was naked politics.

In fact, that's how this opinion piece from the Baltimore Sun--which seems more like a long letter to the editor than your normal op-ed--writer seems to see it. 

Violent crime is not a disease.

The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board recently wrote that gun violence deserves to be treated as a public health crisis and praised U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s plan to take gun ownership “out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of public health,” proving that they drank the gun control Kool-Aid (“Gun violence deserves to be treated as a public health crisis,” June 29).

...

Yes, this is a scheme, a campaign stunt, to boost donations and votes for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign from anti-gun zealots who embrace any government power grab, especially when they are finding it difficult to support a candidate with a weakened mental state.

Speaking of power grabs, remember those unelected bureaucrats who used “public health” as an excuse to deny citizens their rights? Think COVID-19. Murthy may want to enact a Dr. Anthony Fauci-like national health crisis, but I reject his unconstitutional power grab.

Yeah, this is just one opinion, but the writer is in North Beach, Maryland, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from Baltimore. It's perhaps more reflective of the attitude in a lot of America than people think, particularly those surrounding anti-gun Baltimore.

The author goes on to point out that Murthy waited until now to try and pull this, which is awfully telling, as I've already noted. I mean, he had years to do this. The homicide rate is declining from where it was in 2020 and 2021 when he started the job. If this is such a pressing issue, why not start then?

He didn't because it wasn't needed. 

Now, this is nothing more than an attempt to help President Joe Biden remain in office. We can all see it. It's so pathetically blatant that we can't not see it.

In the process, however, Murthy has managed to damage the office of the surgeon general like no one before him. COVID-19 was an actual virus, after all, so while the way the public health establishment reacted was a proverbial trainwreck, at least it was something we could all agree was a public health concern. We just disagreed with how much of one.

The issue is that now, Murthy has taken something that's no such thing but is purely political, tried to justify his involvement in politics, and set the stage for the next guy to do so as well.