I noticed a recent article in the Washington Times (which is to print what Fox News is to TV) that had me thinking, "Here we go again."
The article, headlined "U.S., after long ban, quietly begins to study gun safety," reported, with barely-concealed alarm, that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is studying the risks to teenagers from carrying guns. Can you imagine that? A government agency believing that teens with guns should be considered an issue of public health?
Pro-gun Members of Congress sent NIH an intimidating letter questioning the gun-related research. A spokesperson for the Gun Owners of America added ominously, "This kind of research does concern us, and we're going to be watching it closely."
Yes, it's "déjà vu all over again," the repetition of a longtime gun lobby theme. I call it the "fear of facts." Or, "the less we know about gun violence, the better off we are." This principle dictates a recurring gun lobby tactic: when new information starts to look threatening to the pro-gun agenda, make sure it never sees the light of day.
We saw this tactic at work in the 1990s, when the Centers for Disease Control began to fund firearm surveillance systems at state health departments to allow the collection of basic data about firearm deaths and injuries - the same kind of information that has long been collected about auto deaths and injuries. Gun lobby intimidation led Congress to cut $2.6 million from CDC's budget - exactly the amount that was being spent on gun-related research.
To this day, the CDC is subject to a legislative restriction barring it from funding research used "in whole or in part to advocate or promote gun control." In other words, if there is a chance research would support the need for stronger gun laws, CDC can't fund it. There is no such restriction on research that could be used to oppose stronger gun laws. Can you imagine if CDC were barred from funding research that could be used "in whole or in part to advocate or promote" the regulation of tobacco products?
In recent years, we have seen the "ignorance is bliss" approach of the gun lobby surface on other issues. It is the basis for the infamous Tiahrt Amendments barring public disclosure of the crime gun trace data that for many years had been routinely disclosed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. When researchers used the data to show that state gun laws impede the flow of guns into the illegal market, that assault weapons are disproportionately traced to crime, and that certain gun dealers are feeding large numbers of guns into the criminal market, the gun lobby felt sufficiently threatened to get Congress to suppress the information.
We see the same effort to hide the truth about state concealed weapon laws. The National Rifle Association has been shockingly successful in bullying state legislatures into passing laws that have exponentially increased the number of people with licenses to carry concealed weapons, even in the face of strong public opposition. It turns out that, in state after state with these laws, lots of very dangerous people have been given licenses to carry hidden handguns in public, and they have committed lots of very serious crimes.
For example, in 2007, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that 1,400 individuals who had pled guilty or no-contest to felony charges had been issued concealed carry licenses and that license holders had committed crimes ranging from aggravated stalking to manslaughter. The Sun-Sentinel obtained the names of the license holders just before the Florida legislature, at the behest of the NRA, passed legislation to block further public disclosure. The same pattern has been repeated in other states: after the press discloses the dangerous individuals granted concealed carry licenses and their crimes, the NRA immediately seeks legislation to seal the names.
It's ironic, isn't it? The gun lobby insists that "the people should be trusted to have guns." But it is unwilling to trust the people with the truth about guns.
For more information, see Dennis Henigan's new book, Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy.
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"Mori Ben-Nissan
http://www
Those damn 11 round magazines up to no good again.
"TORONTO (Oct. 28) -- Two coyotes attacked a promising young musician as she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authoritie
http://new
You learn something new every day.
Must be that Molson, aeye?
Where'd it go?
He is still proudly listed as one of Mayor Bloomburg'
TP demonstrat
It's an odd game TP plays, for it's far easier to find NRA-endors
http://www
A deputy assistant attorney general who said he was on his lunch break when an officer found him with a stripper and sex toys in his sport utility vehicle has been fired, his boss said Wednesday.
Notice how jade chastizes TP for the same logic which guides the anti-gunni
Pot, meet kettle.
When you look at the rates of criminal activity, such as by the members of MAIG, far more 'gun control' advocates are caught and convicted of crimes than can be said for the opposite.
This is the same game he plays when he alternates between raw numbers and per capita crime numbers and changing population numbers to whatever he feels like.
http://www
"SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - Savannah-C
It happened around 2:30am Tuesday bear Bartlett Middle School.
Police found the victim on Edgewater Road just off Montgomery Cross Road between CVS Pharmacy and Bartlett Middle School.
According to police, two men got into an argument after a misdialed phone call and then it escalated into a shooting. The victim, 24-year-ol
Another DGU.
-Joyce Foundation funded gun control advocate Carl T. Bogus on his Second Amendment Symposium
http://arm
That is the nature of gun control 'research'
As we all know by now, when a pro-gun-ty
In this case, TP provides 2 out of 3; truncated and out-of-con
As for a symposium being "research,
I'd also hate to burst TP's bubble that the Tennessee Law Review held a Second Amendment Symposium where no one from the gun control side was invited or participat
Bogus's 'symposium was as fictitious as one regarding Batman or Buffy. Glad even you can recognize that.
So Jade, did the NRA fund the TN Law Review symposium? So far all the one's you're supporting have been directed by 'gun control' advocacy groups.
How many people live in Chicago?
What stops the NRA from hypothesiz
Let's consider John Lott. Lott has published a number of studies, most famously 'More Guns, Less Crime.' Did the gun control advocates demand Lott not be permitted to publish? Did they demand Lott not be funded? Did they demand legislatio
No.
Instead, professors and universiti
Bottomline
Seems you're the one wanting the gov't to fund your hobby of trying to ban guns.
The pro-gun-ty
What's ironic is that the pro-gun-ty
When it comes to guns, the pro-gun-ty
The pro-gun-ty
Anti-gunni
Yeah jade. It's the pro-gun side who is against science.
"Baltimore County police say Sgt. Eric Janik was been charged with assault for pulling his service weapon on the worker, who was dressed up as the killer from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Police say the employee approached Janik after the haunted house tour was over Sunday night. Police say Janik pulled his service weapon and pointed it at the man's chest. The man dropped the chain saw, which had no chain and was not dangerous. Charging documents show that Janik smelled of alcohol and told different stories about what he did with the gun.
http://www
"Police say the student was apparently talking with a professor when he pulled out a gun and shot himself once in the architectu
http://www
Dennis, which angle is the BC going to play on this one? The "we need laws which make guns on campus 'more illegaller
Makes you wish a coin had 3 sides, doesn' t it?
ignoran_b_
For the unaware, a "switchbla
While some will note that the result either way is that the blade quickly snaps open via spring pressure and requires only one hand to operate, the courts have repeatedly made a distinctio
I have a small but interestin
These absurd laws were the result of a mid-1950s 'juvenile deliquency
Now, guess which state was first to ban automatic knives. If you guessed New Jersey, you'd be right. Big surprise.
I live in NJ, and I have seven automatics (which I keep in a display case). I guess knife bans aren't any more effective than gun bans.
The issue is that the gun control special interest group was not just using the data in the way that Dennis describes. Instead, they were engaging in a pattern of repeatedly frivolous lawsuits designed to finacially break the the firearm industry. Congress was smart enough to recognize what the gun control special interest groups were up to and to limit the access to the data.
There is a thing called "relief from disability
Here is why such a study would be !dyotic:
1) It is illegal for someone under 18 years of age to possess a handgun.
2) No state that I am aware of gives concealed carry permits to people less than 21 years of age.
That means that the study would be an an@lysis of criminal behavior.
It's the same ignorance which has the anti-gun camp pursuing bans against rifles used in less than 3% of all annual homicides.
It's the same ignorance which fails to provide the statistica
It's the same ignorance which includes up to 24 year old gang-bange
It's the same ignorance which continues to include 17k/yr suicides as a "gun issue" instead of a social issue.
It's the same ignorance which seeks to ban weapons because of cosmetic features which do not affect a weapon's functional
It's the same ignorance which takes issue with a weapon's color when discussing lethality.
It's the same ignorance which seeks to overturn Tiahrt when gun trace data is already available.
It's the same ignorance which ignores demographi
It's the same ignorance which fails to address our judicial system's failure to keep violent felons incarcerat
It's the same ignorance which fails to report the failure of the AWB to have any impact on crime after a 10 year period.
Yes, Dennis, ignorance is bliss.
FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Table 20
Murder, by State and Type of Weapon
http://www
Last year, all rifles COMBINED (including AR-15 type rifles, civilian AK's, and whatnot) accounted for 2.6% of U.S. murders, down from 3-4% in prior years. Rifles are not a significan