Humankind; "Epidemic of Gun Violence"

[old lady new shooter]

They are applying a medical germ theory of disease (gun as germ) to a criminological problem of actors with motive, opportunity and means (gun as means) when illegal acquisition of guns or substitution of means is easy. You can'y have polio without the polio virus; therefore, you can't have gun violence without guns. Reductio ad absurdem. Violence fits the medical example of immune system failure better than germ theory. 2004 a man killed a woman in the boarding house one block from my apartment and was caught in 2006 after murdering a couple with a baseball bat in their home. He had more in common with the other local murderers of 2004-2006 including a few gun murderers than the murderers had with the vast majority of owners of knives, baseball bats or guns.

This is a long going crusade, since the 1990s; gun-as-germ and eradication advocacy:
Katherine Christoffel, M.D.: "Guns are a virus that must be eradicated.... Get rid of the guns, get rid of the bullets, and you get rid of the deaths." in Janice Somerville, "Gun Control as Immunization," American Medical News, January 3, 1994, p. 9.
Patrick O'Carroll, Acting Section Head of the Division of Injury Control, Centers for Disease Control: "We’re going to systematically build a case that owning firearms causes deaths. We’re doing the most we can do, given the political realities."

They started with the conclusion, and do research to justify their conclusion; now they are being bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg.

About a year ago there was a double murder attempt at a 7-Eleven around the corner from me. One of the victims did die. No gun was used, the weapon was a knife.

 

[Captain33036]

There are many firearm advocates who say that you cannot do these kinds of comparisons, but...many many times more people die from PRESCRIPTION drugs, than firearms. And many times THAT, die from ILLEGAL drugs.

So, where is the outrage over that, on the part of those who would control guns to lower deaths?

But my absolute favorite piece of non-logic is: Those who demand that birth control be paid for by public money, because it is a 'right.' I missed that one in the Constitution, but I did see that the Second Amendment specifically states that I have the right to keep and bear arms. SO....who is going to pay for my new Colt?

 

[barnbwt]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/invisible-problem-gun-violence-research
'nuther interesting read...

 

[.338-06]

I, too, listen to NPR. Most of their pieces on guns are negative, BUT I heard a Freakenomics program on risk assessment that started with the risk to children with a gun in the house vs. a pool. Their take? Children are at 100% greater risk of death in a house with a pool.

 

[MedWheeler]

Captain 33036 writes:

I did see that the Second Amendment specifically states that I have the right to keep and bear arms. SO....who is going to pay for my new Colt?

Funny.. I have just, in the last few days, been making this precise argument, regarding health care. The courts have finally affirmed that I have the right to keep and bear arms. If health care is a "right", and must be paid for by the public as a whole, then should the public as a whole not also be paying to make sure I have the arms I'm entitled to keep and bear?

 

[vito]

There certainly is nothing new about the anti-gun bias of NPR and Public television. The liberal bias in these organizations almost mandates their anti-2nd Amendment position. In the next several days the President will be announcing his budget for FY2018 and I have no doubt that funding for public radio and TV will be drastically reduced or eliminated, as well the National Endowment for the Arts and some related funding. With $20 trillion in public debt there is absolutely no rationale for Federal spending on other than critical government programs. But I would expect public broadcasting to continue and their anti-2nd Amendment slant to continue as well. I actually enjoy some shows on public broadcasting, but stopped being a "contributor" many years ago because of their political stances and in particular their anti-gun bias.

 

[GAF]

The people who drink that Kool-Aid are ignorant .

 

[CapnMac]

They started with the conclusion, and do research to justify their conclusion; now they are being bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg.

This is part and parcel of what made me LoL during the much ballyhooed EA at the end of the last administration. The part about directing CDC to investigate more thoroughly on ways to "cure" gun violence, yada yada yada.

Except, the dirty little secrete is that CDC has already done a ton of research, and it all keeps coming back to the same conclusion. You cannot reduce gun crime by creating new laws. To follow a medical analogy, you cannot cure TB by banning cigarettes. So, quite naturally, the CDC has stopped bothering to fund studies along these lines (stopping during the 1st Clinto Administration, to put a point on it.

Which then creates a tautology for low-information liberal types. They have bought into the premise that guns are bad, there must be a medical reson we cannot ban them all! The few that bother then see that it's been decades since CDC did any research, so obviously they need to do some more! The fact that CDC tends to use scientific method (largely) and will not simply gin up research that proves the desired result means that they are constantly being set to the task of ressearching why the sky is "up" and iff banning oceans will correct that "problem." It won;t, and it's pointless to try, so they don't. Which does not much please histrionic emoters very much at all.

 

[JohnKSa]

Some of us like and appreciate NPR and PBS.

If there's enough public support it will be able to stand on its own without the government propping it up. If it can't, why shouldn't it fail like any other broadcast media organization that can't figure out how to maintain a customer base and turn it into funding?

 

[RON in PA]

The third leading cause of death in the USA after heart disease and cancer is medical malpractice. Maybe the medical profession needs to do some housecleaning and better training before making claims about "gun violence" and ignoring violent people as causation.

 

[P5 Guy]

Pretty sad pandemic, seeing as the number of those afflicted are lower than ever in the past 50 years.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

CapnMac #33 brings a point about the CDC and gun research.

As the sunset of the 1994-2004 Assault Weapon Ban approached, the Centers for Disease Control 2003 and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences 2004 reviewed academic research into effectiveness of the AWB and gun control policies in general. They found no measurable effect. They also had plenty of research to evaluate in spite of what NBC called a 1996 ban on studying the impact of gun violence.
The only limits on research to support the apriori assumption gun violence = disease and gun = germ and cure = eradication are CDC funding Additional Requirement 12 re the AntiLobbying Act that blocks using federal grant money to lobby Congress and the Additional Requirement 13 that emphasizes "that means lobbying for gun control too".
CDC funding AR-12 Additional Requirement 12 concerning the Anti-Lobbying Act:
https://www.cdc.gov/grants/additionalrequirements/ar-12.html
"Applicants should be aware that award recipients are prohibited from using CDC/HHS funds to engage in any lobbying activity. "
Blocking lobbying does not block pure academic research.
CDC funding AR-13 Additional Requirement 13 concerning the Appropriations Act:
https://www.cdc.gov/grants/additionalrequirements/ar-13.html
"AR-13: Prohibition on Use of CDC Funds for Certain Gun Control Activities"
The Anti-Lobbying Act blocks using grant money to lobby for gun control too. Guns are not an exemption to AR12. AR13 does not block pure academic research on guns and violence.
AR12 and AR13 usually get reported like this:
16 Dec 2015 NBC NEWS: "Noticeably missing from the deal -- and a blow to congressional Democrats -- is the lifting the nearly 20-year ban on the Centers for Disease Control to study the impact of gun violence. That despite Pelosi personally raising the issue with the speaker himself late last week." -- Alex Moe and Frank Thorp V, "House Democrats Have Concerns Over Details in Trillion-Dollar Spending Deal", NBC News 16 Dec 2015 4:10pm ET.
It is not a ban on using CDC grant money for research. It is a ban on using CDC grant money for lobbying.

AR13 has not prevented Bloomberg from funding research by David Hemenway to promote gun control legislation.