So it is an "effective ban" even if it isn't an outright ban. Even the guy who put forth the amendment regrets it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jay-dickey-gun-violence-research-amendment_us_561333d7e4b022a4ce5f45bf

study, junk "advocacy research" that didn't follow the scientific method, is it really much of a loss? The DoJ still contracts criminologists and others to study the issue who do follow proper protocols.

And I have yet to see any evidence that most of the research was junk science.

writings of scholars, not activists or the media, had to say about it. Kellerman specifically refused to release his notes and data when asked by scholars for years before he relented. He was raked over the coals. Kellerman adjusted his numbers with several other "studies" that were equally bad. Here is overview of criticism by criminologists.
http://reason.com/archives/1997/04/01/public-health-pot-shots

Any public policy should be based on impartial empirical evidence free of ideology or bias. After reading the studies, and the critiques of those studies by neutral scholars, it was "advocacy research", which is a nice way of saying shill study, start with the conclusion you want and create a study to fit the narrative.

just the ones written by non-scientists, not following the scientific method, and paid for by authoritarian racist billionaires.

in fact he is head of the criminology department and FSU. His assumptions were the opposite of the results, and his research was funded either by the university or DoJ. His question was simply how many defensive gun uses are there. The Wright Rossi study, which dovetails to Kleck's, was funded by the DoJ. Kleck's was not only published in a peer review criminology journal, his notes and data are public in book form. That book was awarded the Michael J. Hindelang Award from the American Society of Criminology.

Here is Kleck's cv from the FSU website
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcriminology.fsu.edu%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FaddresseditKLECKVIT.51.docx

only the non empirical does.

And that includes the so-called "pro-gun" research of John Lott.

Which is always the problem with this topic - on both sides. The hard-core activists refuse to bend in any way. One side wants to see the removal of guns from society, which isn't practical. The other side refuses to accept any type of rational controls, no matter how effective they might be.

However, the facts are that the CDC was actively pursuing a pro-gun control agenda, which led to the amendment being put in place. If they were to simply publish facts supported by evidence, that would pass muster. The honest truth is, though, that gun violence is a murky and ill-understood subject that doesn't lend itself to easy answers. Suicide, for example, obviously doesn't depend on firearms - the UK suicide rate in 2013 was 11.9/100,000 population, in a country with very strict gun control:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_395145.pdf

The U.S. rate for the same year was 13.0:

http://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/docs/Resources/FactSheets/2013datapgsv3.pdf

Would reducing the number of guns reduce suicides significantly? Who knows? There is no unbiased study that I know of that has looked at that on a regional/state/county/city level.

Note: Edited to compensate for failing typing skills...

This is what I heard to, it is the wording that is the issue. How do you run a neutral study if the results are not neutral?

not the shit that Kellerman et al was churning out.

I wonder if they are so upset they'll get out their checkbooks and do a "Go Fund Me" project and get out their own checkbooks to get some actual "research" completed?

You'd think with $50 mill a year from Bloomie, that some of it might get channeled into research, instead of paying for new clothes and travel and entertainment expenses for Shannon Watts and her posse.

And again, for the sixth time this month. How about the 2013 CDC study on gun control and it's impact on violence the President ordered and got?

Why doesn't that ever count as CDC research for the grabber contingent?

They just kind of ignore it as an example of the research they claim the CDC can't do. I guess if you don't like the results it just doesn't count as "research".

As can be seen from a couple of the responses here, even though the law very specifically does not ban research into gun violence, they have an excuse for how it actually does what it quite specifically doesn't do.

For some subjects, with some people, facts just don't matter.

...that we can't get the anti-rights people in general, and the anti-gun people specifically, to join the rest of us in reality.

They just keep repeating that "gun violence" is an epidemic, or that the CDC is banned from doing research, and various other fantasies, ignoring the actual facts of the matter.

Until that changes, I don't see much headway being made -- well, except for the continuing liberalization of gun-ownership and -carry laws, or the continuing decrease in violent crime rates. Those things are doing just fine, in spine of the anti-rights folks regular tantrums...

that occurred at the same time as the amendment sent a pretty clear message to CDC that they were on thin Congressional ice. Since then, they haven't chosen to test the limits--out of fear of what Congress might do--and the ban has become self-imposed. And they were probably not wrong during most of the intervening years to assume that they'd be walking into a minefield if they got too active in the gun-related arena.

That said, CDC can and has performed gun-related work and collected gun-related data. And they are not prevented from issuing an RFP for legitimate gun-related research right now if they chose.

So yes, "ban on gun violence research" is in the same accuracy category as "blanket immunity" and many other oft-repeated gun control mantras...

Man, it showed how great research can reveal the creation by commercial interests of a gun culture! Won the Bancroft Prize for historical research, and all. Check it out on Wiki!

And sadly, for many around these parts that's all that counts. Facts and reality be damned!

I'm not sure, but I think Bellisiles is working at the Taqueria down the street now.

But on the plus side, he has tenure there.

...talk about the sense of betrayal and embarassment. The bitterness of the academics toward the author was worse than any luke warm criticism his apologists made. It may have very well marked a "turning point" for some intellectuals about any further involvement with the gun issue.

The awards, the recognition, the talk show interviews. Ahhh, fame and fortune were all his.

Then that annoying little old librarian lady in Costa County had to point out that the records he claimed to use for his "research" were all destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Then piece by piece the wheels fell off. As his own peers started to look a little more closely at his claims and methodology.

Goodbye fame, goodbye tenure, goodbye teaching job, goodbye broad academic support.

Hello; 'Do you want fries with that?"

What's ironic is he was outed by other anti-gun academics before the pro-gun people ever even got to him.

Betcha that whole situation gave Hemenway nightmares for a few years.

Here is a link to an article about the 2013 study that President Obama ordered.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/06/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_findings_from_a.html


Seems everyone forgets this one.

Especially when they take it as an article of religious faith that the CDC can't do gun related studies.

But they are sure that, boy oh boy, if they could just do studies, it would prove beyond any doubt that guns are all evil and there are far more killings than you think out there being hidden by the media an "Big Gun" makers.

I've pointed out that White House directed 2013 study several times, in threads bemoaning how evil the NRA is for stopping all gun related research.

Funny how I never get an answer from the handful of remaining gun control fans here. Just ignored or the subject changed.

They don't have an answer for that one for some odd reason. Doesn't fit their narrative I guess.

People were unaware of the study. But I think a lot are just choosing to ignore it.

Maybe I'll just start sharing that link.

"A lie makes it across the country before the truth has a chance to tie its shoes."



.....Case in point.....

...like law enforcement, being a government entity, is always to be trusted.

It's that appeal to authority that some hold in high regard.