538 researcher's discovery about guns

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

106. Dickey Amendment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)
"...mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control."

IMNSHO it is entirely possible (and preferable) to scientifically study violence, and specifically gun violence, while neither advocating nor promoting gun control. If you are a CDC researcher with a bias tasked with such a study, it behooves you to recuse yourself.

It seems obvious to me that the problem here is twofold. For one, seniormost CDC positions during Democratic (generally pro-restriction administrations) probably favor a pro-"control" position close to the party's on guns. They therefore avoid the issue and since congress isn't funding specific work on it, no work has been done other than what was ordered in 2013. I feel they prefer using the issue politically to blame the lack of research on the Republicans. For two, during Republican admins, those senior CDC officials favor the Republican position and they don't require evidence in support of their beliefs.


If the restrictionists/banners weren't trying to blame everything on a weapon and solve the whole violence issue with a simple widely cast ban, progress could be made. The biggest problem you have is the assault weapon ban supporters. Rifles are used very seldom by murderers. Maybe there's a way to enhance BGCs for handguns. We won't get there by trying to ban rifles.


This:

In comparison, firearms killed 33,636 people. Yet no national databases exists for gun deaths.

I'm not seeing this. The FBI maintains info differentiating murders by weapon (i.e. - handgun, rifle, shotgun...)
If you want statistics on death in general: https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html