The National Rifle Association has mounted an outrageous campaign to torpedo President Obama’s nomination of an outstanding young doctor to be the next surgeon general of the United States because of his attitudes on gun control. The sad part is, the campaign is causing some nervous Democrats whose votes may be needed for Senate confirmation to consider breaking with the president to bolster their own chances for re-election in states where the gun lobby is powerful.

The nominee is Dr. Vivek Murthy, an internist, who has impeccable credentials for the job. He currently works at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an outstanding teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, where he also teaches. He started a software technology company to improve the efficiency of clinical trials around the world and currently is president of Doctors for America, the successor to Doctors for Obama, whose 16,000 members support the health care reforms and access to affordable health care.

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What aroused the N.R.A.’s ire was a letter Doctors for America sent to Congress in January 2013, shortly after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which he co-signed as the organization’s president, and a similar letter sent to Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., as chief of the task force appointed by Mr. Obama to find solutions to gun violence.

The N.R.A. objected to the letter’s support for a federal ban on the sale of assault weapons and ammunition, a buyback program to reduce the number of guns in circulation, limits on the purchase of ammunition, mandatory safety training for gun owners, and mandatory waiting periods before completing a purchase. The N.R.A. also objected to the group’s sensible recommendations that Congress lift restrictions in federal law that effectively block funding of research on preventing death and injury from firearms and federal data collection on gun violence. Such restrictions are intended to prevent the public from understanding the full damage to public safety and health done by guns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/opinion/the-gun-lobbys-latest-bizarre-crusade.html?emc=edit_th_20140318&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31465010&_r=1