Quietly, Congress extends a ban on CDC research on gun violence

[Electric Monk]

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee quietly rejected an amendment that would have allowed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the underlying causes of gun violence.

Though gun violence and gun control has again come to the forefront of the American conversation, prohibition on gun research goes back decades.

Dr. Fred Rivara, a professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at the University of Washington at Seattle Children's Hospital, has been involved with injury research for 30 years. He was part of a team that researched gun violence back in the 1990s and personally saw the chilling effects of the NRA’s lobbying arm. Rivara says that the NRA accused the CDC of trying to use science to promote gun control.

(snip)

“Congressional prohibition, which was extended in this very vote that we’re talking about with that appropriations bill, prevents the CDC from advocating for any form of gun control,” says Zwillich. “Researchers are concerned that if they report the results of their data publicly and say, for instance, as Fred Rivara found in the ‘90s, that having a gun in the home makes you more likely to be injured than if you don’t have a gun in a home, then they’ll be accused by Congress of breaking the rules and advocating for gun control.”

more
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-cdc-research-gun-violence

This kind of reminds me of the global warming debate, with science on one side, and faith* on the other.

[-none]

1. Another reason to vote for sanity by electing center and Left of center Democrats, to all levels of

government.

[pansypoo53219]

2. our national plague.

[jimmy the one]

3. obama's executive order 14 on gun control research

Wasn't gun violence research included in Obama's list of maybe 23 gun control initiatives he did by executive order or executive actions (slt)? let me google.

pardon using right wing forbes for source, article otherwise is typical right wing propagunda: 23 executive orders/Obama: 14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/01/16/here-are-the-23-executive-orders-on-gun-safety-signed-today-by-the-president/

Evidently the House of unRepresentatives can do away with executive orders?

In 2013, some 34,000 Americans died from gunshot wounds. So Takeaway Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich decided to ask House Speaker John Boehner why his party is trying to block research on gun violence.
“The CDC is there to look at diseases that need to be dealt with to protect public health,” Boehner said.. “I’m sorry, but a gun is not a disease. Guns don’t kill people — people do. And when people use weapons in a horrible way, we should condemn the actions of the individual and not blame the action on some weapon.”

Double double talk talk from a john boner.