It's no surprise that former Vermont governor and physician Howard Dean spoke of the importance of access to health care at this year's Democratic National Convention. Perhaps more telling was that Dr. Dean, who received the highest possible rating from the NRA during his tenure as governor, called gun violence "the ultimate public health crisis" in the United States.
Dean's framing of the issue as a public health crisis reflects a broader shift in US society as it attempts to deal with the prevalence of firearm deaths, as well as a shift in the Democratic party's willingness to make gun control a major political issue.
"We're seeing a major shift in the Democratic party, and a real adoption of a public health language to talk about guns," Adam Winkler, professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, tells The Christian Science Monitor.
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