Gun policy is pointless without funding for public health research
To make an informed decision, you need information. And that's exactly what everybody involved in America's bitter gun debate doesn't have.
Guns kill more than 33,000 Americans a year, yet the clock stopped on government research into this epidemic two decades ago. As is frequently noted, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has funded no in-depth studies of gun violence, its causes, or proposals for its reduction since 1996. That's when the so-called "Dickey Amendment" — telegraphed, if not explicitly described as, a "ban" on such research — was enacted by Congress
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There is simply no other means of making a dent in the high rate of gun violence in this country than framing it as an issue of public health. In April 141 medical agencies — including heavy hitters American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics — joined in an urgent call on leading members of Congress to direct the CDC to begin funding research aimed at answering key questions.
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In the experts' own words:
"Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearms-related deaths and injuries."
— Dr. Steven Stack, president, American Medical Association
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/11/17/gun-policy-pointless-without-funding-public-health-research
The right-wing gun lobby, like their current hero Trump, "solves" problems by suppressing research and science in order to make them go away. They silence doctors by prohibiting them from talking about gun violence, just like they try to silence the medical profession around the world from talking to women about abortion rights.
The one fact that they can't easily suppress however, is that over 33,000 US citizens die every year from a bullet discharged from a gun. Research on the causes of this epidemic of gun violence is necessary in order to begin to lessen the carnage and misery caused by the gun culture in this country.
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