The LIE that won't die

Americans 'much likelier to be killed by guns' than people in other countries | Americas | News | The Independent:

Funding for gun-related research was decimated after it was targeted by the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress, a decision that reverberates two decades later. “We have to understand what the problem is, how to approach the problem, and do our approaches work,” Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told the Trace last year about the problems involving funding for gun research. “And we just don’t know anything.”

(H/T: War on Guns)

Liberals and other control-freaks will say anything to make their point, and when that's not enough they just hide the truth.

In this case, the lie is that the NRA "decimated" funding for gun-related research.  Well, in a sense that isn't so much a lie as it is an obfuscation.

Truth is the Center for Disease Control (a federal agency) took it upon itself to define guns as a "disease" and through a process of addressing firearm deaths as the consequence of a disease, declared:

GUNS ARE BAD!  THEY KILL PEOPLE!  WE SHOULD STOP THIS DISEASE!

... or words to that effect.

The NRA pointed out that the 'research on guns' at CDC was biased, in that it ignored the benefits of firearms ownership ... not the least was that guns are very often used by honest, peaceful citizens in defense of themselves, their family, their homes and their property.  And oh, by the way?  Guns are inanimate objects.  Sometimes the people who pick them up do bad things with them, but that's no reason why you should be calling them a "Bad Dog!"

Part of the "research" at CDC was a reliance on the flawed data from the "Kellerman" study.  The CDC didn't bother to evaluate the data in terms of the way it was gathered or the questions it asked; they just took the whole thing and painted it with a patina of legitimacy.  The pre-determined conclusion was scientifically flawed from the beginning.

In a word, the CDC took a lie and gave it legitimacy, with malice aforethought.
Because they don't like guns, and they don't think people should have them.
(Damn the Constitution, we're the CDC and we know what's best for you!)

As a consequence, when the government (probably the Office of Management and Budget) investigated NRA's complaint, they discovered that it was factually correct and as a consequence CDC got it's wrist slapped.   They (CDC) could research anything they wanted, but when they openly promoted "gun control" based on fallacious assumptions, they had exceeded their mandate.

Essentially, CDC was told "say anything you want, but we're not going to pay for it and you can't release findings as a federal agency".

Yes, in this specific instance, the NRA did take an active role in reining back an out-of-control federal agency.  And if the funding which the CDC applied toward "gun control" research represents ten percent of the entire amount spent on that subject through-out the country, that would be defined as a 'decimation' in the strictest sense of the word.

However, "gun control research" continues unabated in this country.

The quote which begins this screed comes from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center ... which is funded 'differently' from the CDC.

To paraphrase the gun-control crowd:
"Nobody wants to take your research grant from you; we just want to make sure it's used wisely."

(may I smirk now?)

Post Script:

In the new study, Grinshteyn and Hemenway wrote that their research shows that the country “suffers disproportionately from firearms,” ultimately coming to this conclusion: “These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our firearms are killing us rather than protecting us.”

Actually, this country does not suffer from firearms at all ... firearms are just sitting around waiting for someone to tell them what to do.  Much like "immigrant laborers" at the corner of First and Main waiting for a guy with a pickup who needs a bunch of grape pickers.

Except, of course, that the guns are legal.

Which is not the case in most of the other 49 countries in the original study, where guns are highly regulated so that only bad guys can have guns.  Which they use to kill good people who are unable to defend themselves; while in America good guys with guns sometimes kill bad guys with guns, and we have a lot of  THEM here, just like everywhere else.  The difference is remarkable, but not recognized in statistics.

Just saying.