But can activist-researchers do anything but lie, manipulate and distort?
The media release is below.
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Reverse US funding freeze on research into gun violence, say experts
Only hard evidence can address this critical worldwide problem
BMJ
A ban on federal funding of research into gun violence initiated by Congress in 1997 must be overturned to improve understanding of gun use and how best to control it, argue experts in The BMJ today.
In an editorial, Margaret Winker and colleagues say the move has had “a chilling effect on gun violence research to this day” and they argue that “US history and the political pressure brought to bear by the National Rifle Association have so far proved impossible to defy.”
In the US, one person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed each day, and 609 are killed every week on average, they write. Guns were responsible for 33,599 deaths in 2014, of which 63% were suicides, 34% homicides, and 2% were unintentional shootings
The problem is worldwide, they add, “although few countries have guns embedded in the national psyche to quite the same extent as the US.”
The toll of gun violence is not just premature death, they explain, but a series of serious snowball effects in education, health, incarceration, family instability, and social capital,” making it a classic public health problem.
They note that a public health approach has been effective in tackling other injury problems, such as those from road traffic incidents. But say, unfortunately, “US political forces and special interest groups have blocked any public health approach to gun violence.”
They believe that research is needed on all aspects of gun policies and safety, “including evaluating state policies, improving understanding of the effects of restricting access to firearms and other lethal means for people at risk of suicide, and evaluating the effectiveness of community and school gun safety training.”
For instance, a gun owner’s license, already required in some states, should be a requirement in all states and tracked nationally, they argue. “Just as driving tests and licensing do not stop people from driving unless they can no longer do so safely, gun ownership should be a privilege, retained only while safe ownership remains possible and revoked when safety is in question.”
By taking basic steps to permit public health research, “we can finally begin to understand the sources of the current epidemic of violence and how best to control it,” they conclude.
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The pretext of lack of gov funding for research is total BS. There are enough anti-gun billionaires in the US to fund all the “research” these trough feeders could ever do.
If one wants to ban all guns, for any reason, including reducing carnage, be up front about it, but apply the same standards to cars, etc. Gun ownership and possession is a right reinforced by the Constitution, not made so by the Constitution. Numerous old documents make that very plain. If driving cars is a privilege instead of a right, why, in the horse and buggy days, were there no requirements and licenses issued to people who rode and drove horses? And don’t forget, no license plates for wagons and coaches. No requirement to show a license at the livery stable. The skills for handling horses are harder than for cars. Would some of these “experts” please learn the difference between a right and a privilege.
63% were suicides.
Would that the statistics for the carnage caused by the mis-handling of automobiles were so favorable as to remove six of every ten who cause an accident to be removed from the pool of drivers.