Rethinking Gun Control: Surprising findings from a comprehensive report on gun violence

[derby378]

Background checks are back. Last week, Vice President Biden said that five U.S. senators—enough to change the outcome—have told him they’re looking for a way to switch their votes and pass legislation requiring a criminal background check for the purchase of a firearm. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who led the fight for the bill, is firing back at the National Rifle Association with a new TV ad. The White House, emboldened by polls that indicate damage to senators who voted against the bill, is pushing Congress to reconsider it.

The gun control debate is certainly worth reopening. But if we’re going to reopen it, let’s not just rethink the politics. Let’s take another look at the facts. Earlier this year, President Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete. Its findings won’t entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them...

http://www.slate.com/bullpen/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_finding.html

[Lurks Often]

1. Do you like your popcorn with or without butter?

[Eleanors38]

2. If the debate is reopened, some new faces should do it...

Not the usual gun-ban harangue-ers. They are discredited and untrustworthy and will easily pollute the dialogue. Some version of Manchin-Toomey I can support.

The study prompts several questions; one very basic. Number 1 cites an "indisputable gun violence problem," when more accurately it is an indisputable violence problem. This problem persists even as gun-related crimes and homicides have dropped, and the number of guns has risen to over 300,000,000. The violence problem is, IMO, a better place to start.

4. Handguns are also a "problem," but for whom? The vast number of hand gun-owners are not the problem. It is the persistent use by veteran criminals of handguns which is the problem. Again, the focus should be on the two-legged creatures, not their implements.

8. The study cites an "arms race," and cite (presumably) non-criminals arming themselves in SD because of drug markets where they live. This is hardly an "arms race," but could be a situation where citizens are playing catch-up for their own good. Besides, if there is a "race," it seems to involve the drug dealers.

Most of the rest of the study seems fairly sound, and is a good point of departure for legislative proposals aimed at UBC. But there should be greater clarity as to what the "problems" are.

[pablo_marmol]

3. Sorry......won't *ever* trust the CDC

"That’s a good reason to take them seriously—and to fund additional data collection and research which have been blocked by Congress over politics."

Not this dishonest talking point again. For those not aware, the CDC lost it's funding because it was busted for using a bogus source to support a bogus claim, among other dishonorable practices.

What astonishes me is that they concede that the jury is in w/regard to the frequency and utility of defensive gun use. A little suspicious, quite frankly, given their history.

A couple of years ago I recall reading a statement from the CDC listing the various areas where more research was needed regarding gun violence. Many of the items on the list were settled issues - and not favoring gun restriction - demonstrating that they were looking for an opportunity to come up with a new set of facts more sympathetic to their agenda. I know I saved the article. If I can dig it up I'll post it.

[derby378]

4. Granted, I'm not a fan of the CDC getting involved...

...because there is a strong political push to treat violent crime involving firearms not as a "public safety" issue or even as a "crime and punishment" issue, but as a "public health" issue - which means pushing a meme to low-information voters that guns are a disease. And the CDC is feeling the weight of this push on its shoulders.