Ban on research into gun violence must be repealed

[BainsBane]

From that bastion of liberal gun grabbing, Arizona.

SENSELESS LAWS ARE TYING HANDS OF POLICE AND PROSECUTORS, KEEPING US ALL IN THE DARK

How do criminals get their guns? Are there observable patterns to gun crime? Who is at the greatest risk of injury, or causing injury to others, from firearm use? Which gun-safety practices are most effective at preventing accidental injury?

The answers to these and other basic questions remain difficult and obscure in part thanks to a senseless ban, on the books for a decade, that limits research on gun violence and denies researchers and even police and prosecutors access to federal gun data. The laws prohibit the public disclosure of a gun's sales history, make that data inadmissible in court, require the Justice Department to destroy background-check records within 24 hours and prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from requiring gun dealers to check their inventories annually for theft.

A recent report from the Institute of Medicine, an independent, nonprofit research organization, details just how thoroughly Americans are in the dark. The report, commissioned by President Obama after the massacre of 26 students and educators in Newtown, Conn., underscores how little even serious scholars know about gun violence and shows how such ignorance jeopardizes public safety and health.

A better understanding of the "characteristics of firearm violence," the "risk and preventative factors" for gun-related injuries, and the "impact of gun-safety technology," the report says, would undoubtedly help save lives. By making reliable gun data scarce, the research ban has hamstrung police, prosecutors and public health officials in their response to an onslaught of 30,000 gun deaths a year.

Congressional opposition to gun data, which advances the anti-research agenda of the National Rifle Association, isn't merely a policy position. The lack of information has successfully restricted public debate itself. Healthy democracies do not resolve conflicts by stifling inconvenient evidence. Imagine banning doctors from studying cancer cells or requiring radiologists to destroy X-ray records within 24 hours.


http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/editorial/ban-on-research-into-gun-violence-must-be-repealed/article_92ab48d7-f8dc-51fb-813b-21c23de41a62.html

[samsingh]

1. its criminal not to collect gun data. this is completely different

than the right to bear arms.

the only reason would be to hide the true violence and destruction being caused by guns. given the nra's complete disinterest in the victims, why should they try to hide the truth. even if guns were causing untold destruction, the second amendment is still the second amendment to them. collecting data in no way infringes on the right to bear arms - except if they're afraid of public opinion if the truth is revealed.

[BainsBane]

2. That is exactly why the ban exists

Read any thread on guns here and see how they distort evidence. The absence of solid research makes it easier for them to do that.

[billh58]

3. Many Gungeoneers of

the "cold dead hands" persuasion fancy themselves accomplished statisticians, and are proud of their ability to twist logic and reason with "simple numbers." Suicides don't count, so throw those numbers out. Self-defense doesn't count, so throw those numbers out. And fairly soon, through their simple elimination-of-valid-reasons process, guns actually cause an increase to the national population -- especially for those who sleep with their guns.

So their answer to gun violence is also simple: more gunz = more people = nirvana.

If you cock your head in a certain way, you can almost hear the ocean when the Gungeoneers crunch their mystical numbers with magical .38 caliber pens and embossed target paper.

[BainsBane]

4. I've been battling with them on gun trafficking into Mexico

Since that is their favorite explanation for what happens when guns are banned. Amazingly, people mysteriously die from gun shots wounds because of gun control, whereas lots of guns make a peaceful and loving society where no one ever dreams of hurting anyone else.

They falsify numbers in the most blatant and tortured ways.

[billh58]

5. The absolute fact

that the United States is the world's leader in gun deaths and injuries by large margins on an annual basis, and the absolute fact that we have experienced more domestic gun deaths over the years than war deaths, does not faze them.

To the NRA-apologists and right-wing Gungeoneers, a "few" deaths and injuries are acceptable, and the price that must be paid to ensure freedom and civil liberties. They fail to acknowledge that the minority of gun owners represented by the NRA, and those radical extremists who are the most vocal on the Internet (and in the Gungeon) do NOT represent the views of most Americans.

Fortunately, the American public is waking up to the fact that we have had insane gun laws shoved down our throats by the NRA's bought-and-paid-for politicians, and as a nation we are beginning to demand more regulation and responsibility. Future SCOTUS rulings, and local State, City, and County ordinance revisions will reflect this return to sanity.