Gun Violence Research Remains Neutralized

Spitting hot lead in defense of America, mom, 

apple pie, the flag, automatic weapons, ammo, etc.

The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are important risk factors for homicide in the home. Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance. .... Our data indicate that keeping a gun in the home is independently associated with an increase in the risk of homicide in the home. The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are also important risk factors. -- Arthur L. Kellermann, et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 329:1084-1091, Oct. 7, 1993

“The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.” – conservative Chief Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger

In an average year, gun violence in America kills nearly 40,000 people, injures more than twice as many, and costs our nation $280 billion. .... examining the serious economic consequences of gun violence is paramount to understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is. .... On an average day:

• American taxpayers pay a daily average of $34.8 million for medical care, first responders, ambulances, police, and criminal justice services related to gun violence.
• Employers every day lose $1.4 million in productivity, revenue, and costs required to recruit and train replacements for victims of gun violence.

CONTEXT

In 1996, congress effectively banned federal funding for gun violence research. The ban was a response by people who opposed gun regulation and the NRA to a 1993 research paper (quoted above) that shows that gun ownership was a risk factor for domestic homicide. That unsurprising result sent the gun people into a crazed frenzy of fear and rage. As usual, the inconvenient research paper was smeared by partisan propaganda. It was falsely characterized as a political attempt to take away everyone's guns. Once again, inconvenient science and truth was politicized and lied about for ideological and special interest reasons, mostly gun industry profit. That came at the expense of the public interest, in particular, public safety.

The ban came in the form of a law that barred the CDC from spending money to “advocate or promote gun control.” Over the years, the NRA and others justified keeping the ban in place in the face of attempts to get it removed. The justifications included lies such as (i) the CDC does not have the expertise to get involved in gun violence research, and (ii) the research is being done in other federal agencies. When ideology and/or big money is at stake, inconvenient facts and truths are shamelessly obliterated by lies and slanders for political partisan reasons in congress and for special interest profit.

The situation in 2021

An article in the New York Times, Can New Gun Violence Research Find a Path Around the Political Stalemate?, curiously suggests that the research funding ban is still in effect while actually saying it isn't. Maybe this is the NYT's attempt to help get the funding ban removed. Who knows? The NYT writes:

And Andrew R. Morral, a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, a research group, is using sophisticated modeling tools to estimate rates of gun ownership in every state, with detailed demographic information. The purpose, he said, is to search for patterns in firearm homicides and suicides — a first, basic step in research that could lead to reducing them.

The recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colo., have once again left Democrats and Republicans in a stalemate over background checks for gun buyers and assault weapons bans. But public health experts say a new round of research could pave the way for gun policies that avoid partisan gridlock — and ultimately save thousands of lives.

The studies by Dr. Naik-Mathuria and the others are being paid for by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is once again funding research into gun violence after a nearly 25-year hiatus imposed by Congress. And while they might not reduce the number of massacres, mass shootings account for an extremely small percentage of the roughly 40,000 Americans who die each year from gun violence.

“It’s not either, ‘Keep your guns or prevent gun violence,’ ” said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who helped establish the C.D.C.’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control but said he was fired in the late 1990s under pressure from Republicans who opposed the center’s gun research. “There’s a strategy that science can help us define where you can do both — you can protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and at the very same time reduce the toll of gun violence.” 

Federal money for gun research all but disappeared after Congress in 1996 enacted the so-called Dickey Amendment, which barred the C.D.C. from spending money to “advocate or promote gun control.” It was named for Jay Dickey, a former Republican House member from Arkansas, who proudly proclaimed himself the National Rifle Association’s “point man” in Washington.

In 2019, Dr. Rosenberg and Mr. Dickey’s former wife, Betty, a retired former prosecutor and chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, helped persuade Congress to restore the funding; lawmakers appropriated $25 million, split between the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, for firearm injury prevention research.

The agencies are now financing nearly two dozen studies, though backers of the research say the money is a pittance compared with the breadth of the problem. (emphasis added)

Inflicting righteous discipline on the miscreants,

you know, democrats, atheists, the LGBQNT folks, 

undocumented immigrants, 

people shopping for groceries, etc.

There's nothing like a good NRA point man in Washington to make sure that greedy, corrupt special interests get what their campaign contributions paid for. Before he died in 2017, Dickey expressed surprise and regret about banning the research money. He defended himself as saying something along the lines of: 'Gosh 'n golly, shucks, gee wiz, holey moly! I never intended to stop all the research. I just wanted to stop all the political stuff.' Maybe Dickey actually drank the cool-aid the NRA bought for him and was sincere, or maybe he was just another cynical lying politician.

So, here we are today, about 25 years later and still ignorant about gun violence and politically gridlocked. We are still ignorant about possible ways to reduce it without unduly burdening a fraudulent right to bear arms. And we are still suffering mass shootings by freaks, mostly enraged males, exercising their fraudulent right to bear weapons of mass slaughter.

Come and take it?? That's feisty!

Careful, don't grab the wrong pussy!