JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association explains:
Silencing the Science on Gun Research
"...in 1996, pro-gun members of Congress mounted an all-out effort to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although they failed to defund the center, the House of Representatives removed $2.6 million from the CDC's budget—precisely the amount the agency had spent on firearm injury research the previous year. Funding was restored in joint conference committee, but the money was earmarked for traumatic brain injury. The effect was sharply reduced support for firearm injury research.
To ensure that the CDC and its grantees got the message, the following language was added to the final appropriation: “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.” Precisely what was or was not permitted under the clause was unclear. But no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out.
Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up. Even today, 17 years after this legislative action, the CDC's website lacks specific links to information about preventing firearm-related violence.
When other agencies funded high-quality research, similar action was taken. In 2009, Branas et al5 published the results of a case-control study that examined whether carrying a gun increases or decreases the risk of firearm assault. In contrast to earlier research, this particular study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Two years later, Congress extended the restrictive language it had previously applied to the CDC to all Department of Health and Human Services agencies, including the National Institutes of Health.
These are not the only efforts to keep important health information from the public and patients. For example, in 1997, Cummings et al used state-level data from Washington to study the association between purchase of a handgun and the subsequent risk of homicide or suicide. Similar studies could not be conducted today because Washington State's firearm registration files are no longer accessible.
In 2011, Florida's legislature passed and Governor Scott signed HB 155, which subjects the state's health care practitioners to possible sanctions, including loss of license, if they discuss or record information about firearm safety that a medical board later determines was not “relevant” or was “unnecessarily harassing.”
A US district judge has since issued a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of this law, but the matter is still in litigation.
Similar bills have been proposed in 7 other states."
Read the rest HERE to understand the evil that is the NRA and its evil influence on our government.
UPDATE: STATS ON USA GUN VIOLENCE
The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year.
Around 11,000 were gun homicides.
To understand how staggeringly high this number is, compare it to the rate in other rich countries. England and Wales have about 50 gun homicides a year -- 3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people.
Many people believe that America is simply a more violent, individualistic society. But again, the data clarify. For most crimes -- theft, burglary, robbery, assault -- the United States is within the range of other advanced countries.
The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.
The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries.
8 comments:
I would hope that Ted Nugent, Chuck Norris, Grover Norquist,
Tom Selleck, John Bolton, Larry Craig, Bob Barr and Ollie North
and their fellow
members of the board at
the NRA are receiving a ton of
mail...
This is just another example of how private money works against the general welfare.
Ah yes.
Ted Nugent is on the BoD of the NRA.
And why wouldn't the NRA want someone as eloquent and stable as Nugent to be part of their organization?
Ted Nugent, in his own words:
To United States Senator Barack Obama.
"I said hey Obama, I told him you might want to suck on one of these you punk. Yeah, Obama, he’s a piece of shit." Holding two machine guns above his head.'
To United States Senator Hillary Clinton while holding two machine guns
"Hey Hillary you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch."
To United States Senator Barbara Boxer while holding two machine guns.
"And hey Barbara Boxer you might want to suck on my machine guns."
But on the upside he was cordial to Diane Feinstein by only calling her a "whore."
After attacking Bob Costas for criticizing America’s gun culture, Ted Nugent blamed America’s purportedly “politically correct culture” for the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In an op-ed for the far-right Washington Times, Nugent said that the shooting occurred because of the country’s “’anything goes’ value system” which “vilifies, condemns and mocks traditional societal values and customs at every opportunity.”
But because Nugent is stupid and has no self-awareness, he cannot understand that he just accurately described himself and his behavior in that screed.
I think Ted Nugent is the PERFECT representative of what the NRA has become.
This quote from Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" comes to mind [regarding Nugent].
"He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely."
Costa's remarks, in the venue he chose to make them was, IMNHO, inappropriate.
Nugent on the other hand is a flaming a** hole. I used to enjoy his music, now I don't listen to his music or his diatribes. He is, IMNHO unstable.
The needs of the many should always outweigh the needs of the few.
I support the right of every American to protect their home and to hunt. Automatic weapons and handguns are seemingly used to hunt two legged prey, rather than four legged prey.
Some of the people in this country are desperately in need of an enema.
RN, we disagree on Bob Costa. IMO, Costa was appropriate in giving his remarks when he did. He's a sports announcer, and his opinion was given after a football player committed a heinous act. Why do people feel it is inappropriate to give opinions on subjects having to do with gun control when gun deaths occur?
Reggie,
I agree with your comments. Neither I nor other people who agree with me politically want to take all guns away from anyone. We only want sane gun control laws, you know, like the rest of the civilized world.
Here are some interesting gun/death statistics on a state by state basis.
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