Gun violence is a subject for medical research

[SecularMotion]

Republicans have consistently established themselves as the party rejecting scientific facts and research – and this time we’re not only talking about denying climate change. For over 19 years, Republicans have stubbornly refused to budge on their gag order preventing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from conducting research on gun violence.

Just this week, Leader Pelosi (D-Calif.), my Democratic colleagues, and I pushed for a series of motions on the floor of the House that called for a vote on my Gun Violence Research Act, a bill that would lift the ban on the CDC with respect to studying gun violence. Although my Democratic colleagues in the House voted overwhelmingly to bring my Gun Violence Research Act to the floor for an immediate vote each time, the Republican majority continues to sweep the issue of gun violence research under the rug and refuses to even debate the issue. Instead, Republicans have consistently signaled to the American people that they have placed the priorities of special interest groups, like the NRA, above the safety and well-being of the people they represent.

The origins of the issue can be traced back to when the CDC first began conducting gun violence research as a public health issue in the 1980s. Largely considered the tipping point for the CDC’s research was a 1993 CDC funded study published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Gun ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home.” This study ultimately concluded that keeping a firearm in the home was associated with a significantly greater risk of homicide and suicide. Such findings ran contrary to the talking points of the NRA, whose PR campaign staunchly advocated that privately owned firearms in households provided safety and protection. Naturally, regardless of the truth of the study, such findings left the NRA unsettled and greatly apprehensive.

So the NRA did what they do best. They came out guns blazing calling for the outright elimination of the entire center that funded the study, the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention. This is the very center that conducts life-saving research into everything from seatbelts to child abuse. After not gaining much traction, the NRA eventually reneged on their lobbying efforts to dismantle the center and instead opted for a new route: the Congressional power of the purse.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/269736-gun-violence-is-a-subject-for-medical-research