Gun violence is the least-studied cause of death in America

[SecularMotion]

Gun violence is the least-researched cause of death in America, researchers say. It’s badly understudied and underfunded compared to research on other ways US citizens die.

Gun violence had only 1.6 percent of the funding predicted based on how common gun deaths are — in other words, $1.4 billion should go toward funding gun violence research, but the actual number is only $22 million, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It only had 4.5 percent of the number of publications expected. In fact, gun violence research was the least-researched cause of death. To make the comparison, researchers took cause-of-death data from 2004 to 2014, and compared that with funding numbers from a database of projects funded by US federal agencies.

Since the study only looked at actual deaths from guns and since so much gun violence causes injuries without death, the actual research gap might be even bigger, according to the scientists.

Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, which stipulated that no funds set aside for injury prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be used to promote gun control. The legislation doesn’t explicitly ban gun-related research, but people suspect that it has still discouraged this research. The funding for the CDC’s firearm injury prevention fell 96 percent since the amendment passed, according to a January 2013 report.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/3/14153572/gun-violence-funding-dickey-amendment-cd-shootings

[HAB911]

1. In Florida.......................

A legal battle continues to rage over a one-of-a-kind Florida law restricting what doctors can ask patients about gun ownership

Barrel strokers are vewy vewy afawaid

[aikoaiko]

4. The FL law is a response to a pediatrician dismissing a family because they didn't answer a question

...about gun ownership.

Please note that FL Drs can still distribute information about gun safety to their patients.

I don't like this law, but I don't like Drs dismissing patients simply because they don't want to answer a question even more.

Lots of patients don't discuss every detail of their lives to their Drs, but activist anti-gun doctors will punish you for not disclosing that one piece of information.

[HAB911]

8. pretty soon.........

Docs will be able to dismiss patients for being gay or some other religious reason, what then?

[HoneyBadger]

2. Gun deaths are mostly suicides and suicides are studied

[SecularMotion]

3. Is that a quote from Donald Trump?

[HoneyBadger]

6. NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/upshot/gun-deaths-are-mostly-suicides.html?_r=0


Many of the gun-control measures that politicians propose to reduce the number of homicides and mass shootings would have a limited effect on gun suicides. Efforts to ban so-called assault weapons or to reduce the number of bullets that could be loaded into a gun at once would probably not make suicide any less likely. But other measures meant to prevent gun homicides might have an effect on gun suicides, particularly those designed to identify and help people with mental health needs. Mental illness, which may contribute to mass shootings, is a clear risk factor for suicide.

[SecularMotion]

9. Guns, when they are in the home, can make self-harm both easy and deadly.

1) Guns are more lethal than most other methods people try, so someone who attempts suicide another way is more likely to survive

2) Studies suggest that suicide attempts often occur shortly after people decide to kill themselves, so people with deadly means at hand when the impulse strikes are more likely to use them than those who have to wait or plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/upshot/gun-deaths-are-mostly-suicides.html

[FarCenter]

5. Why call it "gun violence"? What's wrong with "shooting"?

As in "Shooting is the least-studied cause of death in America"?

Are many people being pistol whipped or struck by gun butts?

[aikoaiko]

7. The article conflates congressional funding for amount of research

Lots of foundations fund research on gun violence and studies can occur without special funding at univerisities.

Still I'm ok with the CDC conducting studies and producing data which they can do under existing law.

[SecularMotion]

10. This may help you to better understand the Dickey Amendment

Why the Dickey Amendment, a Potent GOP Weapon to Shut Down the Gun Debate, Must Go

As I argued yesterday, one of the most dangerous refrains we hear every time guns are used to kill people is: “Don’t politicize this tragedy!” It is so dangerous because it has become an effective way to silence the conversation on guns even before it starts and, without a conversation, without coming to terms with the effects caused by our lack of anything resembling gun policy, nothing can be done. It should remind us of the decades-long campaign to erase gay persons from daily life, passing laws that force us into the closet, and keeping us at the margins so no one cares if we live or die.

Republicans, conservatives, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) have another weapon for shutting off debate even before it starts: the Dickey Amendment. In short, the Dickey Amendment, since its passage in 1996, cut off federal funds for research into guns, gun deaths, and gun safety. Even its eponymous sponsor, a mild-mannered former Republican congressman from Arkansas, Jay Dickey (pictured), regrets the abyss he helped create. The victims of gun deaths since 1996 and, especially, since the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban certainly regret it. The only people that don’t seem to regret it are Republican members of the House and Senate and the leadership of the NRA. It’s time for the Dickey Amendment to go. And the only way to do that is to vote Republicans out of office.

http://www.towleroad.com/2016/06/dickey-amendment/

[aikoaiko]

12. Even your article says the CDC can do research on gun violence.

And there is nothing stopping university and foundation based research on gun violence.

[DanTex]

11. Part of the GOP's war on inconvenient science.