Can an Elite Education allow you to objectively evaluate Gun Violence?

Harvard's "The Crimson" demonstrates that even the most literate of our Young Americans cannot resist the lure of biased reportage when addressing the twin issues of Gun violence and Gun Control.

After recounting the shock of discovering that his Harvard classmates have become victims of gun violence, the author (ANDREW W. AOYAMA Apr 26, 2018) sinks to the same level of reaction as did the CDC decades ago.   He reports only one side of the issue:

Can an Elite Education Protect You from Gun Violence? | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson:

Hemenway cites the Dickey Amendment as a major hurdle in the path towards a realistic conversation about gun violence. The amendment, a 1996 congressional provision, effectively prohibits the Centers for Disease Control from using public funds to research gun violence. “The gun lobby didn’t like the results of early research funded by the CDC that found that having a gun in the house increases, not decreases, one’s risk of death,”  Hemenway says, referencing a landmark 1993 study that challenged the narrative often repeated by the National Rifle Association: that gun ownership allowed individuals to better protect their families.

Had Aoyama done his homework ... a concept which is apparently no longer taught at Harvard ... he would have discovered that the CDC had been found to be highly biased in reporting the findings of their research on Gun Violence.

Specifically, he would have learned that the reason  that CONGRESS pulled the reins on CDC reportage was that the federally funded research center reported on gun violence without balancing their reports with information about personal firearms which were used to protect citizens against gun violence.   This information had been casually gathered by CDC, but either not as thoroughly researched or else deliberately not reported.

Gun Violence Studies Biased, Used to Force Agenda | National Review

Gun Violence Studies Biased, Used to Force Agenda | National Review: So, why are gun-control advocates up in arms (rhetorically) about the CDC? Cue the 1996 Dickey Amendment, regularly renewed by Congress, even after its author, Jay Dickey, left Congress and changed his tune on the issue, according to his 2015 interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. This amendment was attached to the funding of the CDC and provided a restriction: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” But the CDC does still collect its own empirical data, published regularly as part of its National Violent Death Reporting System.

Republican Omnibus Bill Will Authorize CDC to Perform 'Gun Violence Research' | Breitbart

Here's the problem with the "Republican Omnibus Bill":

Long long ago, and far far away, the "Dickey Amendment" was imposed by gun-rights people who didn't think that the Center for Disease Control should use their populist power specifically to undermine the Second Amendment rights of Americans by using their  popularity to campaign against Second Amendment Rights.

Specifically, they spent a lot of time enumerating the negative effects of  "Gun Violence", bur failed to balance their opinions by mentioning that many Americans had used firearms to defend health, hearth and home.  So in the interest of fairness, folks decided that the CDC website ... paid for by federal funds (our taxes!) should at least make an effort to present a "balanced" interpretation of American firearms laws.  Which CDC did .. reluctantly.

For a while.

But now, the outrage has died down, and CDC is migrating back to it's original issue of treating "Firearms Violence" as if it were a "Disease".  And a lot of folks are insulted tht their defensive measures are unjustly categorized by a public venue.

Republican Omnibus Bill Will Authorize CDC to Perform 'Gun Violence Research' | Breitbart: Republicans will be using the omnibus bill to clarify that the Centers for Control and Prevention (CDC) can perform “gun violence research.” The Democrats wanted a full repeal of the Dickey Amendment, and Republicans demurred but met them halfway by agreeing to make it clear that the CDC is not barred from doing the researc

Now Second Amendment Advocates are making an effort to "meet them half-way", which allows the Center for Disease Control to acknowledge that firearms are not-infrequently used to defend honest citizens against predation ... and are therefore not "always bad".

(The "Dickey Amendment" was intended to stifle CDC postings on 2nd Amendment issues because of previous articles which were one-sided against private ownership of firearms.)

The 'repeal' of the Dickey Amendment allows CDC to regain research on Gun Control issues.

Will the CDC again open the door to viewing Second Amendment Freedoms as a danger to Americans?   This does not bode well for the 2nd amendment, and anti-gunners are quick to take advantage of their newly opened venue for attacks on America's First Freedom.

Whether this more lenient approach to gun control research will allow more open-ness to a balanced version of gun control, or whether it will revert to its original viewpoint of total negativity, is yet to be seen.

For today, the latest responses (see above) seem to demonstrate that the anti-second amendment cadre is again using this federal study to bolster their efforts to undermine our Constitutional rights.

Face it, gun control doesn't work

Commentary: Face it, gun control doesn't work:

By JAY AMBROSE |

PUBLISHED: June 22, 2017 at 7:00 am | UPDATED: June 22, 2017 at 1:35 pm

 Finally, what about a 2013 study of studies by the Centers for Disease Control? It failed to find evidence that gun control laws worked but did find evidence for something else: People rescue themselves from crimes on a regular basis with guns and guns work better than any other safety technique.

Me: The funny thing about the CDC was that for some time they deliberately downplayed the 'benefits' of firearm ownership, while the emphasized the "Evil That Guns Do".
Which resulted in the Dickey resolution .. essentially stating that "they can say anything they want, but if they're going to report based on their personal bias against guns, instead of presenting a balanced and objective report, we won't pay for it" said the Feds. CDC was getting funding from NGOs to report on guns, but their bias seened to be beginning to show again. Deep Pockets in Academia and Bloomberg Nation.

(I was prevented from posting this comment on the website because Discus)

It is striking is that CDC has apparently received funding for posting anti-gun comments by institutions LIKE Harvard Law School, which has been known to fund anti-gun research.

Still, this recent finding by Ambrose (of which I have been ignorant for 3 years!) is unique because CDC has seemed to somehow discovered   that there IS some value in private ownership of firearms.    

They've danced around the truth for years, got their ears boxed for their can-can routine,   (the Dickey Amendment of 1999), been defunded, been humiliated (by gun bloggers who have cheerfully held their dirty linen up for public display ......

... and now I wonder if I've been badmouthing the CDC for past indiscretions, although four years ago they may  have demonstrated A Soul!

I feel uncomfortable knowing that my research never went in the direction of finding out if CDC had mended its morality.

Tone Down The Rhetoric?
Yes! If I've been wrong about CDC current policies, I'll retract and apologize.

Although ... this time I'll wait until I've found current evidence of their "Come To Jesus" moment.

(Admit it .. once your reputation has been ruined, it's difficult to convince your detractors that you have changed your ways.  It's a higher standard you've earned for yourself, CDC!)

Perhaps I should look to my own reputation at the same time.

Money for Nothin', and Checks for Free

The Gun Grabbers (democrats and the CDC) are at it again.

Democrats request $60 million for CDC to study gun violence as health crisis:

A group of 30 Senate and House Dems debuted a proposal on Tuesday to fund research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on firearms safety and gun violence prevention.
 Backed by U.S. Sen. Edward Markey D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, along with a host of other Democrat and Independent lawmakers, the bill, S.834, would provide $10 million per year to CDC for a term of at least six years beginning in 2018.

You will note the list of radical leftest senators who are sponsoring this bill to use my federal tax dollars to politicize the "gun violence" issue ... again.

 The measure introduced this week would set aside $10 million in funding each year for FY2018-2023 to be added to the CDC’s budget, earmarked for research into guns. The money, if approved, would be the largest funding for federal gun use research since a 1996 amendment by then-Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., precluded CDC’s funds from being spent on actions intended to restrict or control the purchase or use of firearms.

(And there are NGOs involved in this effort, too ... which will come as no surprise.)

The bill is supported by a number of health care lobby groups and gun control organizations including the Newtown Action Alliance, Everytown, Moms Demand Action, the Brady Campaign, Americans for Responsible Solutions and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

This bill is an attempt to go back to the Good Old Days, when the CDC could pursue its own political agenda ... at our cost!   Before the Dickey amendment, the CDC could publish biased reports on "gun violence".   Their reports were long on the harm that guns can do, but absolutely lacking on any "positive effects" of private firearms ownership ... such as self defense, and the original purpose of the 2nd amendment (which was to prevent a runaway government from controlling an unarmed citizenry).

After years of whining because the mean old Republicans wouldn't let them undermine our Constitutional Rights at our cost, the Dems have taken the "Moral High Ground" by asserting that the CDC is hampered by the Dickey amendment.

Write your congressman.

I just wrote to mine:

Congress retains ban on CDC promoting gun control

House Dems lose fight to nix gun research ban in budget | TheHill:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has come up empty in her efforts to eliminate a budget rider that has halted nearly all government research into gun violence for 17 years.

That "budget rider" was known as the Dickey Amendment, which I discussed a few days ago in an article titled "Why We Can't Trust The CDC With Gun Research".

Here's some more information on the Dickey Amendment:

[...] The 1993 NEJM article received considerable media attention, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) responded by campaigning for the elimination of the center that had funded the study, the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention. The center itself survived, but Congress included language in the 1996 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill (PDF, 2.4MB) for Fiscal Year 1997 that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”  Referred to as the Dickey amendment after its author, former U.S. House Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), this language did not explicitly ban research on gun violence. However, Congress also took $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget — the amount the CDC had invested in firearm injury research the previous year — and earmarked the funds for prevention of traumatic brain injury.

Given that the Rabid AntiGunRights .... uh .... Congresscritter Nancy Pelosi refused to draw a line in the sand over this issue, it appears that even she acknowledges there is some truth to the original claim that the CDC has proven it can't be trusted to be neutral on the subject of Gun Control.

Center For Disease Control: Why NRA lobbied to stop their 'research' on "Gun Violence"

New Jovian Thunderbolt: CDC:
(October 12, 2014)

 I'm getting tired of liberals whining, "if only the Rethuglicans didn't block the funding the Centers for Disease Control could study gun violence and help put an end to it."

I'm so grateful for this opening. I've been wanting to talk about the CDC and their campaign against private firearms ownership.

---

Several years ago (1993+), the Center for Disease Control (CDC) .. a federal agency ... experienced a Rite of Passage wherein their researchers were spending an inordinate amount of their time and efforts, not to mention (public) funding, railing against Gun Violence.  They had tons (figuratively speaking) of comments about the injuries incurred upon the American Citizenry due to firearms injuries.

Well .. they're doctors,  They can't help but be outraged (even though they are not Emergency Room First Responders, or whatever the terminology is) by the number of people who appear in hospitals all across America with Gunshot Wounds.  You can't blame them for their societal concerns.  Only for the way in which they misused their office to effect their personal goals.

You would have to be a callous person .. perhaps even an NRA member .. not to be appalled by the injuries which gun violence performs on Americans every single day. Of course .. firearms violence is no more driven by guns and inexpert firearm owners than crappy music is by guitars and singers with nasal blockages.

Gun Violence is to Violence as as Country Music is to Music ...Horrible.  A bad influence, perhaps, but not the single driving cause of Badness.

And for those who really LIKE Country Music, I offer my apology;  I think it sucks, but I'm not blogging against Buck Owens singing "I've Got A Tiger Tail It's Plain To See .. although I think somebody should.  But that's just me.

Perhaps that's a better model than it seems.  Just because you don't like Country Music, that doesn't necessarily mean that all music is bad.

And just because Gun Violence is horrible, that doesn't necessarily  mean that Guns .. and the people who own them .. are also bad.

Somewhere, CDC got all confused about the cause, and the effects.  They assumed that Guns were the progenitor of Violence.

Just as I think Country Music is the progenitor of Discord.

Maybe we were both wrong?

Well, I've learned to enjoy listening to Patsy Cline.  And just because I cannot abide Buck Owens is no reason to tar all Country Music with the same brush.

But the CDC's attitude toward firearms is another story.

For one thing ... perhaps The Most Important Thing ... they are a Public Trust.  That is, we pay them to protect us from Disease.  You know?  Like .. Ebola?  We don't pay them to decide that a social situation that is also a Civil Right should be treated as if it were a disease.

The word "Disease" has a clear, well established definition: and that no more includes the free exercise of a Civil Right (eg: ownership of a firearm) than it does to exercise of a Privilege (eg: ownership of an automobile). .. both of which lead to thousands of deaths, annually.  These deaths occur because of abuse, not because of the inherent utility of the right or the privilege, but because of the inherent lethality of both mechanisms.

[Liberals like to say that a firearm has only one purpose: to kill people.  Based on the statistics, one would be inclined to say the same about automobiles.  People say that automobiles have "a useful purpose": transportation.  Realists might counter by saying that firearms have an even more 'useful purpose':  Freedom.  But that's a subject for another discussion.]

Getting back to the CDC:

These fine, well-educated, well intentioned folks took it upon themselves a few years (a couple of decades) ago to provide cherry-picked statistical 'facts' which proved (to their own satisfaction) that firearms were a blight upon society.

The provided reams of statistics which proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that firearms murdered thousands of people every year.

And their statics were correct ... thousands of people ARE murdered every year by firearms!

However, in their zeal, they neglected to document (as a famous New Reporter once considered important) :"The Rest Of The Story".

They forgot to consider the number of lives which were SAVED by firearms.

Not in the hands of the police, but in the hands of individual civilians.

So .. what about " ...  if The Rethuglicans didn't block the funding the Centers for Disease Control"?

Set the WayBack machine to 2011: from the New York Times:

The reality is that even these ...  basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.
“We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions,” said Mark Rosenberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was for about a decade the leading source of financing for firearms research.

From 2013:

Research on the prevention of firearm-related injury, supported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and coordinated within CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), has come under attack from Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) and the National Rifle Association (NRA). The House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee initially rejected Rep. Dickey's attempt to eliminate the $2.6 million dedicated to CDC firearm-injury research. However, Mr. Dickey prevailed in the full Appropriations Committee. The Dickey amendment would transfer the $2.6 million to regional health education centers. This research has attracted a powerful and wealthy opponent — the NRA. The NRA has taken the position that firearm-related injury research at the CDC amounts to 'antigun' political advocacy and has also attacked the quality of this research. However, research proposals submitted to CDC are subject to a peer review process that follows standard practices. APA's Public Policy Office (PPO) has distributed accurate information to Congress on the nature of CDC-supported firearm-injury research and is advocating against the Dickey amendment.

Also from 2013: CDC Ban on Gun Research Caused Lasting Damage

April 9, 2013
President Obama may have ended the 17-year ban on gun violence research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but even if Congress restores research funds, experts say the damage runs deeper than funding cuts.
Since the 1996 ban, many of the leading researchers of the 1980s and 1990s have moved on to other specialties, and some said they've even discouraged students from specializing in gun violence research because the work doesn't pay. The ban also helped make gun-related questions controversial even for studies not funded by the government, and it will take years to restore available data to what it once was.
"Good research was being done by Art [Kellermann] and by us and by others on what the risk factors were for firearm violence, and how it might be prevented and so forth," said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency room physician and leader on gun violence research at the University of California at Davis. "I won't say it halted, but it decreased substantially in scale."

From 2012:  "The ugly campaign by the NRA to shut down studies at the CDC."

In the 1990s, politicians backed by the NRA attacked researchers for publishing data on firearm research. For good measure, they also went after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for funding the research. According to the NRA, such science is not “legitimate.” To make sure federal agencies got the message, Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) sponsored an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget, the exact amount it had spent on firearms research the previous year.

(BTW, nobody stopped the CDC from researching "Gun Control" issues .. we just stopped giving them our hard-earned tax dollars to pay them to undermine the Second Amendment.  Whoo-- EEE!  You can't believe how quickly they shifted their attention to issues which did NOT undermine the constitution!)

(You may wish to search information on "kellerman", who famously announced that if you had a gun in your home, you were "43 times more likely" to be a victim.  Here is one analysis of that decision.)