Let's research gun violence.

[Direckshun]

I've said this in a couple other threads, but I don't believe that gun control is going to get any traction in Congress. Some Democrats will push for it, some other Republicans will table it, some pro-gun control folks like myself will cry foul, and yet another Congress will pass without any gun control measures seeing the light of day.

But here's one thing that maybe we can start doing: better educate ourselves on gun violence, so we can stop stabbing in the dark as to what we can better do to mitigate it.

The problem is that for a couple decades now, the government has not been able to produce any information on gun violence because the NRA has been threatening war if Congress failed to choke off all funding for gun-related research.

The CDC and NIH used to conduct research for decades, but around the time of the late 90s, the NRA became so powerful it was able to prevent these agencies from granting funds to researchers on those topics. McClatchy DC:

The CDC and NIH award billions in grants. They fund research into cancer, brain injury, tobacco use, obesity, AIDS, abortion, hearing loss, allergies, infectious diseases, back pain and virtually everything else related to human health. But gun violence is the one area that carries that specific language. The effect has been to limit federal funding into research that could be used to shape policy.

This is irresponsible. We pass hundreds of gun-related laws across the country every few years. Like all laws, we should be able to research the impact of the laws we pass, so we can make decisions based on more than pure ideology.

Anyway, there's a ton of stories on this, but here's a really good one from last year in the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us...anted=all&_r=0

N.R.A. Stymies Firearms Research, Scientists Say
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: January 25, 2011

In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, the familiar questions inevitably resurfaced: Are communities where more people carry guns safer or less safe? Does the availability of high-capacity magazines increase deaths? Do more rigorous background checks make a difference?

The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.

“We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions,” said Mark Rosenberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was for about a decade the leading source of financing for firearms research.

Chris Cox, the N.R.A.’s chief lobbyist, said his group had not tried to squelch genuine scientific inquiries, just politically slanted ones.

“Our concern is not with legitimate medical science,” Mr. Cox said. “Our concern is they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.”

The amount of money available today for studying the impact of firearms is a fraction of what it was in the mid-1990s, and the number of scientists toiling in the field has dwindled to just a handful as a result, researchers say.

The dearth of money can be traced in large measure to a clash between public health scientists and the N.R.A. in the mid-1990s. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg and others at the C.D.C. were becoming increasingly assertive about the importance of studying gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health phenomenon, financing studies that found, for example, having a gun in the house, rather than conferring protection, significantly increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

Alarmed, the N.R.A. and its allies on Capitol Hill fought back. The injury center was guilty of “putting out papers that were really political opinion masquerading as medical science,” said Mr. Cox, who also worked on this issue for the N.R.A. more than a decade ago.

Initially, pro-gun lawmakers sought to eliminate the injury center completely, arguing that its work was “redundant” and reflected a political agenda. When that failed, they turned to the appropriations process. In 1996, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, succeeded in pushing through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the disease control centers’ budget, the very amount it had spent on firearms-related research the year before.

“It’s really simple with me,” Mr. Dickey, 71 and now retired, said in a telephone interview. “We have the right to bear arms because of the threat of government taking over the freedoms that we have.”

The Senate later restored the money but designated it for research on traumatic brain injury. Language was also inserted into the centers’ appropriations bill that remains in place today: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

The prohibition is striking, firearms researchers say, because there are already regulations that bar the use of C.D.C. money for lobbying for or against legislation. No other field of inquiry is singled out in this way.

In the end, researchers said, even though it is murky what exactly is allowed under this provision and what is not, the upshot is clear inside the centers: the agency should tread in this area only at its own peril.

“They had a near-death experience,” said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, whose study on the risks versus the benefits of having guns in the home became a focal point of attack by the N.R.A.

In the years since, the C.D.C. has been exceedingly wary of financing research focused on firearms. In its annual requests for proposals, for example, firearms research has been notably absent. Gail Hayes, spokeswoman for the centers, confirmed that since 1996, while the agency has issued requests for proposals that include the study of violence, which may include gun violence, it had not sent out any specifically on firearms.

“For policy to be effective, it needs to be based on evidence,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, who had his C.D.C. financing cut in 1996. “The National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress have largely succeeded in choking off the development of evidence upon which that policy could be based.”

Private foundations initially stepped into the breach, but their attention tends to wax and wane, researchers said. They are also much more interested in work that leads to immediate results and less willing to finance basic epidemiological research that scientists say is necessary to establishing a foundation of knowledge about the connection between guns and violence, or the lack thereof.

The National Institute of Justice, part of the Justice Department, also used to finance firearms research, researchers said, but that money has also petered out in recent years. (Institute officials said they hoped to reinvigorate financing in this area.)

Stephen Teret, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, estimated that the amount of money available for firearms research was a quarter of what it used to be. With so much uncertainty about financing, Mr. Teret said, the circle of academics who study the phenomenon has fallen off significantly.

After the centers’ clash with the N.R.A., Mr. Teret said he was asked by C.D.C. officials to “curtail some things I was saying about guns and gun policy.”

Mr. Teret objected, saying his public comments about gun policy did not come while he was on the “C.D.C. meter.” After he threatened to file a lawsuit against the agency, Mr. Teret said, the officials backed down and gave him “a little bit more leeway.”

C.D.C. financing for research on gun violence has not stopped completely, but it is now mostly limited to work in which firearms are only a component.

The centers also ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the N.R.A. as a courtesy, said Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the centers.

Invariably, researchers said, whenever their work touches upon firearms, the C.D.C. becomes squeamish. In the end, they said, it is often simply easier to avoid the topic if they want to continue to be in the agency’s good graces.

Dr. Stephen Hargarten, professor and chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, used to direct a research center, financed by the C.D.C., that focused on gun violence, but he said he had now shifted his attention to other issues.

[patteeu]

Private entities like the NRA can fund gun research. Our government doesn't need to spend money for that. We can just let the competing private interest groups present their findings and critique each other.

[durtyrute]

It's a really simple equation, less guns=less people getting killed by guns.


Thank you

[CoMoChief]

Originally Posted by kcpasco

If 1 issue can split the democratic party it's this issue.
Democrats have to be extremely careful here.

Wooohooo let's play politics when it comes to common sense!

[Brock]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Private entities like the NRA can fund gun research. Our government doesn't need to spend money for that. We can just let the competing private interest groups present their findings and critique each other.

Not sure if serious, but

[KC native]

Heh I see the usual dumbasses prefer to remain in the dark.

And before you dipshits start, gun control isn't what we need to prevent these situations nor is arming teachers. Mental health care is abysmal in ou country.

Aside from that, what do studies hurt? We need to make informed decisions. Studies give us the information we need.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

I’m pretty sure the FBI already has a data base it keeps updated with this kind of information.

The fbi database is riddled with problems. It is populated with data from local entities. Those local entities report things different ways. Thus it is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from their database.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by KC native

Heh I see the usual dumbasses prefer to remain in the dark.

And before you dipshits start, gun control isn't what we need to prevent these situations nor is arming teachers. Mental health care is abysmal in ou country.

Aside from that, what do studies hurt? We need to make informed decisions. Studies give us the information we need.

They cost money. Why do we need this information?

[frazod]

Originally Posted by KC native

Heh I see the usual dumbasses prefer to remain in the dark.

And before you dipshits start, gun control isn't what we need to prevent these situations nor is arming teachers. Mental health care is abysmal in ou country.

Aside from that, what do studies hurt? We need to make informed decisions. Studies give us the information we need.

I guess if I had the slightest bit of confidence in the government producing an unbiased report that wasn't just another stepping stone toward more restrictions/bans, I'd be all for it.

Apparently I'm not ****ing stupid enough to trust them.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by InChiefsHell

How come the Centers for DISEASE CONTROL are involved in this shit anyway?

The agency name is a bit of a misnomer, is one answer.

Another answer is that it's been suggested in a lot of research that disease prevention methods can actually be effective in staving off gun violence. It's pretty interesting.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by 2bikemike

If you want to get serious about this then by all means let's discuss the issue of violence. Just leave guns out of it. The gun is nothing more than a tool. What is wrong with sociopaths perpetrating these acts of violence.

To perpetrate this shit, you need two elements in place:

(1.) The mindset to do so.
(2.) The opportunity to do so.

Assault weapons and semi-automatics and huge magazines create a canyon's worth of opportunity for somebody willing to do so, to the point where (2.) isn't even a barrier anymore.

I'm fully in favor of having a comprehensive discussion on this issue, but these guns are a part of the issue.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by frazod

Any liberal horseshit that the NRA beats down is a good thing.

BUT IT'S JUST A HARMLESS LITTLE STUDY (that we'll use to enforce more restrictions).

BUT IT'S JUST A HARMLESS LITTLE BAN ON ASSAULT RIFLES (and when we push it through we'll go after your handguns).

BUT IT'S JUST A HARMLESS LITTLE BAN ON HANDGUNS (and now you're defensless HAHA).

csb

[A Salt Weapon]

Originally Posted by frazod

Apparently I'm not ****ing stupid enough to trust them.

Me neither.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by JonesCrusher

We still fund research but now that they can't just throw anything out there.

Outside of rightwing circles, the CDC is universally accepted as a reliable researcher.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by frazod

I guess if I had the slightest bit of confidence in the government producing an unbiased report that wasn't just another stepping stone toward more restrictions/bans, I'd be all for it.

Apparently I'm not ****ing stupid enough to trust them.

Agree

[luv]

I have a question, and I don't want to create a thread in order to ask it. I don't believe that guns should be banned. I do, however, believe that not just anyone should be allowed to purchase a gun, and that some types of guns are not necessary outside the realm of personal protection or hunting. If I don't agree that owning a gun is a human right, but I also don't want them banned, then where do I fall in the grand scheme of things? I'm pro guns, but also pro gun control.