Syria's an important geopolitical place, We want to impose our will on it, Russia wants to impose theirs, and is willing to go farther than us, it's really just that simple. We wouldn't care in the slightest if ISIS was in Sub-Saharan Africa.

It's even simpler than that. I don't care whether Al Nusra shoots at Isis or whether Russia bombs either or both of them. I don't care whether they pray to Allah or to whomever, either. They can do that. ADF can take the entire Kongo, I'm OK with that. If that's what the population wants, who am I to judge them.

But I don't want thousands of people who are demonstrably ready for violence and who have shown that they will use any weapons they can get hold of against other people in a riot / civil war about Allah or about a toilet key, or about whatever other unimportant reason they may have three hundred meters from where I live.

I don't want people entering a train (or shopping mall, or whatever) with assault rifles and machetes, killing people either. That's just the kind of thing I don't like. If I wanted that, I'd move to northern Africa. Or central Africa.

In case you wonder what this is about, watch this. TV report from two days ago, commentaries are German only, but I think the footage speaks for itself. No, that is not somewhere in Africa. This is not footage from Belfast in 1985 either. That's happening right now, and right next door. My town is not shown in this report, but a place like this is 300m from here.

Now go figure why I'm applying for a license that allows me to keep a gun at home. Guns are bad, guns kill people. But I'll rather have a large caliber gun than no gun the day a mob of 50 angry young men with cudgels breaks down my door and comes to kill me for no apparent reason.

It doesn't say they can't publish statistical truths or anything like that, they simply can't promote gun control. It functionally just means they need to take an impartial view. They made a self-imposed ban to adhere to that.

There was no self-imposed ban. You're making that up. If they do a study that finds certain gun control measures would reduce gun violence, or that as a society the guns are causing more harm than good, they are "advocating for gun control" and cannot publish. This is clearly an example of the NRA paying politicians to silence dissenting opinions.

In case you wonder what this is about, watch this. TV report from two days ago, commentaries are German only, but I think the footage speaks for itself. No, that is not somewhere in Africa. This is not footage from Belfast in 1985 either. That's happening right now, and right next door. My town is not shown in this report, but a place like this is 300m from here.

Holy crap, what were they rioting over in that video?

High gun ownership states have a firearm suicide rate of 9,749. Low ownership states have a firearm suicide rate of 2,606.

Low ownership states are typically more population dense with better access to mental services, correlation is not causation.

From your article

Is it Rurality?

When two factors are associated, the relationship may be causal (one of the factors causes, or helps to cause, the other) or they may both be related to a third factor that plays a causal role. For example, suicide rates are higher in rural areas in the U.S. Firearm ownership is also higher in rural areas. Perhaps it is not the presence of firearms, per se, but something about rural life that leads to greater depression and suicidality, or, alternately, perhaps there is a character trait (such as self-reliance and an inclination to “go it alone”) that may be associated both with firearm ownership and suicide and it is this trait, not the presence of the gun, that leads to the association.

The evidence isn’t strong for either of these hypotheses.

This is the problem I have arguing with "you people". You debate with opinions and anecdotes rather than easily accessible data.

I don't think I've posted many anecdotes, and I've source mostly everything that could be contested with legitimate sources. To your point, every country (and indeed, every State in the USA) has a different culture.

The suicide rate in the USA fell during that time as well http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html

Note that the UK's suicide rate is large also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_Kingdom

That would be like me saying "Well look at Japan, their suicide rate skyrocketed after their weapon bans!", but that doesn't make sense, because correlation is not causation, and different countries can't be compared in that 1 singular aspect.

Sounds like you think both sides are equally bad. I went through that phase too, but it really requires a lot of mental gymnastics to justify Republican stances.

If you want, I'll run through each of those positions quick.

abortion - A good thing, should be covered under health care.

gay rights - Where people stick their dick or rub their vaginas shouldn't be the business of the government, especially when detemining rights. I'm also an ordained minister from the universal church of life (They give out ordainations online, and you buy the marriage certificates from them as well), and have submitted the marriage form for my friend (who was gay).

minimum wage - Minimum wage should scale with inflation.

social programs to help the poor - Necessary.

tax rates - Income adjusted tax rate from the 50's.

immigration - Our strongest benefit, see this by Michio Kaku

voting rights - Everyone that's a citizen should be able to vote (Except felons and institutionalized).

campaign funding - Shouldn't be restricted, everything should be reported, straw donations (and super pacs) should be illegal and prosecuted.

education - I'm not aware of any controversies around education. I assume people on both sides of the aisle think education's good.

unions - Too corrupt to be of much use, and prevent businesses from firing ineffective workers

health care - Single payer government solution, with allowed private competition.

More info? My family's had members who worked directly for officials in NYC (democrat), I've worked for Bob Menendez's campaign (democrat), I've represented the democrats at polling stations (Polling stations have an even number of registered democrats and republicans staffing them), I voted for Obama twice, and think he's done a pretty good job given the circumstances.

That doesn't mean I dismiss all of the republicans arguments like you seem to. For example, while I believe there's nothing wrong with abortion, I don't know if I'd support funding planned parenthood considering evidence of corruption that's come out of private investigations. The funds may be better off going to a different organization.

Their economic policies have been tried for the last 40 years and have lead to the huge income gap we have today. Instead of learning from failed policies and changing tactics, they double down. Somehow more tax cuts for the rich is going to mean more income for the bottom 99% of the country. If you think a little compromise would solve all our problems, then you should definitely be blaming Republicans.

Democrats and republicans both follow Keysnian economics, and do the same thing regardless of the lip service they give. Our economy is the strongest in the world, so I'll trust both parties to keep doing the same thing. There's no one to blame because we're in great shape, and no one to give credit for because both sides do the exact same thing.

There was no self-imposed ban. You're making that up. If they do a study that finds certain gun control measures would reduce gun violence, or that as a society the guns are causing more harm than good, they are "advocating for gun control" and cannot publish.

The CDC’s self-imposed ban dried up a powerful funding source and had a chilling effect felt far beyond the agency

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why-the-cdc-still-isnt-researching-gun-violence-despite-the-ban-being-lifted-two-years-ago/

The wording in the law has nothing to do with publishing statistics or studies, it merely prevents them from saying "If we had more gun control, this might not have happened". It doesn't restrict them from saying "We had x rifle deaths, y handgun deaths and z shotgun deaths, q% of those were gang related and w% were homocides"

I mean, if your main position is "He's probably a republican he's so stupid and ignorant!" ok then, but I'm not a republican.

I do agree with ChaosEngine that there is a fallacy in the argument. I've even heard arguments that say that criminals will still find a way to get guns, therefore gun control is pointless as it doesn't let the average person get guns.

The argument is that allowing the average citizen to get guns gives more of a benefit then the negatives of some criminals getting guns (Illegally because criminals can't own guns already).

Sure there's background checks in the US, but I think we need to expand this process a bit more.

How would you suggest expanding it? The existing NICS check is very comprehensive unless there's cases of human errors.

On the first point, certainly making access to guns tougher will limit the amount of criminals that get guns. After all, this is the US, not a third world where corruption is rampant. As far as the second point goes, take getting a driver's license. You have to first get a doctor's seal of approval, then pass a written exam, then pass a practical exam as well. I think it's fair to say that people who want to have guns should have the knowledge to handle them safely, and if a doctor has given his/her approval, then there's no issue with said person having a gun.

Moreover, there are a lot of loopholes in NICS. Not all states are required by law to share their data with NICS and also, private transactions are not covered by NICS. It's well worth noting that the VA Tech shooter was also cleared by a background check even though he was declared mentally ill.

If the hypothetical future US government needs to be removed, [...] home-defense guns are useless (paraphrased)

Well...

History seems to disagree.

uh-huh and if we were still back in the 1860s, you might have a point.

It doesn't say they can't publish statistical truths or anything like that, they simply can't promote gun control. It functionally just means they need to take an impartial view. They made a self-imposed ban to adhere to that.

In other words, they can publish the statistics I posted above, but they can't say "We can reduce these deaths by banning handguns". Federal funds should never be used to sway opinion in partisan topics like that.

It's not about publishing statistics, it's about learning about the effects of gun prevalence. Leaving aside that the statistics themselves come from research, which requires funding, how many times in this thread alone have you trotted out "correlation is not causation"? It's true, but that also means that the statistics themselves aren't that useful in informing policy. You yourself have waved stats off for this very reason, so how useful is it, exactly, for the CDC to publish them?

An "impartial view" is one that follows the evidence as closely as possible, using reasonable interpretations, and being open about weaknesses in those interpretations and open to alternatives. It's not about banning discussion of a particular conclusion regardless of what evidence indicates. You've read the amendment, so you've noticed that it doesn't forbid discussion of any change in gun policy-- it only forbids one side. Yeah, really impartial.

Khaiy, on 06 Oct 2015 - 5:04 PM, said:

Do you have any links to statements from CDC researchers or administrators backing up your claim that they felt the appropriate response to potential bias was to do no more research?

No, they didn't publically address it, it seems.

So you have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this is what happened. Even with no additional information, Occam's razor would cut against your description of events because stifling inquiry is not how science works. But we also have the author of the amendment saying that it reduced research, along with researchers in the field. This story of self-censorship out of terror of bias is a fantasy, and a cartoonish one.

Quote
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner would not address directly the NRA’s critique. In a written statement, he said: “CDC is committed 24/7 to prevent violence and injuries and reduce their consequences in an effort to make the U.S. more healthy and safe.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/cdc-politics-affected-gun-violence-research/nTZnf/

I don't understand the purpose of this quote or linked article in the discussion. It lays out that research into links, in any direction, between guns and violence tapered off sharply after the amendment. It has some assertions, on both sides, but no data or links to data backing them up. Is there a piece that I'm missing that you wanted to bring up?

Khaiy, on 06 Oct 2015 - 5:04 PM, said:

Scientists, especially professional researchers, don't shut down research altogether forever because they're concerned about biases. They address them as best they can, and when research is published others assess how well they did.

That's what happened, is it not? They did research previously, and the NRA took issue with bias that was found. Congress cut funding for it, and the CDC banned themselves from continuing research without rebuking the bias allegations. It's not like the CDC was trying to do a first study of it, and the NRA killed it.

*Sigh*. No. No it is not. When a scientist is concerned about bias causing a problem in their work, they design studies more carefully to account for it, they review existing studies to see if they can identify a bias effect, they rely on the peer review process to bring it up so that it can be addressed, or any number of other things. They don't abandon an entire field of study which interested them previously. And the bias allegations were plenty contested. What you don't see (or at least, what I haven't seen) are specific charges of what the bias was supposed to be. There's a lot of "they were always anti-gun!", but where was that expressed in the research design of the studies that so inflamed the NRA?

Not really. There's obviously research showing that more guns in the illegal market causes more shootings, as well as research showing that more legal guns leads to more domestic violence, with clear nonbiased information to support those positions.

My argument is simply that the positive benefit from having more legal guns outweighs the negatives. The other position is the opposite, that there's positives and negatives, and the negatives outweigh the positives. Both arguments are based on personal beliefs and priorities, and neither side is really "correct". I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone sane that thinks guns have had no negative impact on anyone's life, or anyone who thinks that guns have never had a positive impact anywhere.

That certainly didn't come up earlier in the thread, where the pattern is as I described. Regardless, research, which you certify was acceptable, demonstrated that domestic abusers having legal access to guns leads to more domestic violence. That's a specific scenario where more guns (even legal ones) was a net negative. Do you support the prohibition of gun ownership by people convicted of domestic violence? Or is your position more measured, that on the whole domestic violence convicts would do more good with guns than harm, even given the increase in violence it would produce?

Your argument as to gun legality overall is clear, but your rationale that neither side is "correct" can only exist in a low- or no-research environment. If you want the decision to be made on something other than personal beliefs you should support more research. You shouldn't substitute your own existing beliefs for research while also stifling any research that says anything different, regardless of its quality.

uh-huh and if we were still back in the 1860s, you might have a point.

It's still possible to assassinate politicians.

Leaving aside that the statistics themselves come from research, which requires funding, how many times in this thread alone have you trotted out "correlation is not causation"? It's true, but that also means that the statistics themselves aren't that useful in informing policy. You yourself have waved stats off for this very reason, so how useful is it, exactly, for the CDC to publish them?

I wave off statistics which try to determine a causation between 2 statistics because the alternative is me posting statistics that show the exact opposite, and rely on the same logical flaws.

You've read the amendment, so you've noticed that it doesn't forbid discussion of any change in gun policy-- it only forbids one side. Yeah, really impartial.

Well yeah, the NRA pushed for the amendment so obviously they didn't want to include that, then no representative requested it to be changed, most likely because of redundancy. The CDC's studies finds causes of deaths/disease, not things which are not causes, so they should theoretically never give an assessment for how many crimes lax gun control protected against.

So you have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this is what happened. Even with no additional information, Occam's razor would cut against your description of events because stifling inquiry is not how science works. But we also have the author of the amendment saying that it reduced research, along with researchers in the field. This story of self-censorship out of terror of bias is a fantasy, and a cartoonish one.

Here's what we have.

1. CDC studies gun violence

2. Bias is raised as an issue with it

3. Congress considers it, and pulls funding

4. CDC self-bans studies on gun violence

Those should be the undisputed facts of what occurred, correct? Now, if the CDC was accused of bias, why did they never rebuke it?

The fact that the person who drafted the amendment regrets it doesn't matter, the concerns of bias were never rebuked by the CDC, and congress approved it.

I don't understand the purpose of this quote or linked article in the discussion. It lays out that research into links, in any direction, between guns and violence tapered off sharply after the amendment. It has some assertions, on both sides, but no data or links to data backing them up. Is there a piece that I'm missing that you wanted to bring up?

It's just a statement that acknowledges the CDC never contested the NRA's allegations of bias. I couldn't find any statement on it, and only found that link saying there's no statement from the CDC on it.

*Sigh*. No. No it is not. When a scientist is concerned about bias causing a problem in their work, they design studies more carefully to account for it, they review existing studies to see if they can identify a bias effect, they rely on the peer review process to bring it up so that it can be addressed, or any number of other things. They don't abandon an entire field of study which interested them previously. And the bias allegations were plenty contested. What you don't see (or at least, what I haven't seen) are specific charges of what the bias was supposed to be. There's a lot of "they were always anti-gun!", but where was that expressed in the research design of the studies that so inflamed the NRA?

http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/twisting-gun-science-and-silencing-researchers/

“We looked at homes where a homicide had occurred, and also went to homes in the neighborhood around the block where there was no homicide,” says Rivera of his gun research from the 1990s. “We sent out experienced interviewers and asked a series of questions, including whether or not there was a gun in the home.”

From this research, Rivara and his team discovered that having a gun in the home is associated with a threefold increase in the risk of a homicide.

“The most common reason that people have a gun is because they have it for home protection,” he says. “Unfortunately, the data indicates that having a gun is associated with both an increased risk of homicide, but even more importantly, an increased risk of suicide. We know that, for example, if there’s a gun in the home, the risk of suicide among adolescents and young adults increases tenfold.”

“[Specter] approached the Centers for Disease and Control and discussed the idea that this research was biased,” says Rivara. Congress “ended up cutting the CDC budget by the exact amount of money that was used to fund the gun research. They had first threatened to cut all of the funding for injury research at the CDC. They didn’t do that, but they ended up cutting it by the exact amount that was spent on gun research.”

He continues: “More importantly, however, was that they put a clause for the appropriations of the CDC that essentially blocked all gun research for the next two decades.”

The research was published, the NRA raised the issue of bias in the samples taken, and the funding was pulled.

That certainly didn't come up earlier in the thread, where the pattern is as I described. Regardless, research, which you certify was acceptable, demonstrated that domestic abusers having legal access to guns leads to more domestic violence. That's a specific scenario where more guns (even legal ones) was a net negative. Do you support the prohibition of gun ownership by people convicted of domestic violence? Or is your position more measured, that on the whole domestic violence convicts would do more good with guns than harm, even given the increase in violence it would produce?

My position, and the current law in the USA, is that no one convicted of a felony should be able to own guns legally.

http://felonyrestrictions.com/Owning-a-Gun.php

Your argument as to gun legality overall is clear, but your rationale that neither side is "correct" can only exist in a low- or no-research environment. If you want the decision to be made on something other than personal beliefs you should support more research. You shouldn't substitute your own existing beliefs for research while also stifling any research that says anything different, regardless of its quality.

Correct. I support impartial research, my position on that is that in the 90's when the CDC was accused of being biased and they didn't fight the accusations, they were biased. I wouldn't be opposed to a review of that judgement, as obviously the researchers and leadership has changed.

I think it would be better if an organization such as the CIA factbook or FBI crime statistics did a review, but it might be a bit outside their scope.

I wave off statistics which try to determine a causation between 2 statistics because the alternative is me posting statistics that show the exact opposite, and rely on the same logical flaws.

The point is that if they are functionally useless, why is it worthwhile for the CDC to publish them?

Well yeah, the NRA pushed for the amendment so obviously they didn't want to include that, then no representative requested it to be changed, most likely because of redundancy. The CDC's studies finds causes of deaths/disease, not things which are not causes, so they should theoretically never give an assessment for how many crimes lax gun control protected against.

So your argument here is that the NRA specifically wanted a one-sided amendment, but a change to make it not one-sided would be redundant. It's hard to process that. Have you read a federal law? They are not worried about redundancy or being too detailed. Also, representatives tried to pass an amendment that would undo the prohibition but didn't make it past committee.

The CDC investigates public health, which includes both finding things that cause health issues and ruling things out as causes of health issues. The Rivara study was funded by their National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. You argue elsewhere that the CDC is not the right agency for this research, which I don't think is that strong an argument, but even if I granted it completely then you should favor the funding being transferred to the appropriate agency. Instead, the ban was extended to additional agencies (page 301).

Here's what we have.

1. CDC studies gun violence
2. Bias is raised as an issue with it
3. Congress considers it, and pulls funding
4. CDC self-bans studies on gun violence

Those should be the undisputed facts of what occurred, correct? Now, if the CDC was accused of bias, why did they never rebuke it?

The fact that the person who drafted the amendment regrets it doesn't matter, the concerns of bias were never rebuked by the CDC, and congress approved it.

No, not correct. The major issues are the accusation of bias and the idea of a self ban, but I'll walk through each point for clarity.

The CDC funded the study, but didn't conduct it themselves. That's a minor point, so let's pass 1. For 2, the NRA did indeed cry bias. I still don't see what they are using as the basis of that claim aside from their dislike of the conclusion, but allege they did. An amendment got crammed into a bill, and there was not support/interest in tanking the whole bill because of it, so that's part of 3. The CDC chose not to risk violating the law, though not through a ban so much as not funding studies on gun violence, so that's 4.

The CDC stood by the Rivara paper, as did Dr. Rivara. The study successfully went through the peer review process for the New England Journal of Medicine, a very high-profile journal. It draws heavily on previously published studies. The paper itself seems pretty upfront to me about the approach used, its shortcomings, and potential sources of bias and how those concerns affect the results. The results themselves only suggest an association between having a gun in the home and higher risk of death, with a heavy emphasis on the complication of domestic violence. It doesn't even call for gun control! The strongest statement in it is that people should be discouraged from keeping guns in their homes because there's a net negative in terms of risk to residents vs. benefits against intruders.

The NRA shrieked bias, but I haven't found a specific piece they objected to, and I just don't see what they might have been referring to aside from a relatively mild conclusion that they wouldn't like. Without pointing to something specific, how could Rivara or the CDC rebut an accusation beyond standing behind the study? Which is what they did. What more, exactly ought they have done? And I'm talking about specific accusations to refute or actions to take, not a bland statement that "they didn't rebuke it".

The research was published, the NRA raised the issue of bias in the samples taken, and the funding was pulled.

See above. The fact that a lobby got its way on pulling funding is not that shocking of a point, and it's all you've got.

My position, and the current law in the USA, is that no one convicted of a felony should be able to own guns legally.

Very slippery. Are you saying that you support following laws in general, or do you support the motivations and mechanisms of this law? Domestic abuse isn't necessarily a felony, but if a person convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse and is under a restraining order, they are not allowed to own a gun. If you were writing the law from scratch, would you duplicate that restriction? If you find the current degree of gun control acceptable and justified, would you consider additional restrictions if they could be shown to be justified? If so, what evidence would be strong enough that you would find a new restriction justified?

Correct. I support impartial research, my position on that is that in the 90's when the CDC was accused of being biased and they didn't fight the accusations, they were biased. I wouldn't be opposed to a review of that judgement, as obviously the researchers and leadership has changed.

I think it would be better if an organization such as the CIA factbook or FBI crime statistics did a review, but it might be a bit outside their scope.

I still don't see what standard you're using for "impartial". If any accusation of bias, no matter how vague or well founded, is enough to shatter impartiality for you then I don't know what to make of your "support".

Low ownership states are typically more population dense with better access to mental services, correlation is not causation.

And what about the other study which showed that removing more lethal means of suicide (coal gas in the UK) reduces the overall suicide rate without significantly impacting suicide via other means? Maybe you just overlooked it, or maybe you chose to ignore it because it doesn't fit your world view. Maybe you just think that changing from coal gas to a safer gas happened to coincide with a mass exodus from rural UK areas to the cities.

How about this one?

Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives?

To preview our results, we find that the withdrawal of 3,500 guns per 100,000 individuals reduced the firearm suicide rate by close to 80% and had no statistically significant effect on non-firearm death rates

Did all of those Australian residents also happen to move out of the rural areas and into the cities during this study?

Sounds like you think both sides are equally bad. I went through that phase too, but it really requires a lot of mental gymnastics to justify Republican stances.

If you want, I'll run through each of those positions quick.

Thanks for that. Although I wasn't referencing you specifically with those comments. That was directed at Servent of the Lord's comment that suggests that each side of the political spectrum was just as bad and compromises needed to be made on both sides.

For example, while I believe there's nothing wrong with abortion, I don't know if I'd support funding planned parenthood considering evidence of corruption that's come out of private investigations. The funds may be better off going to a different organization.

ugh... don't get me started on this shit. They were investigated multiple times and there was NO evidence of wrong doing found. None. At all. The videos were heavily edited in order to make Planned Parenthood appear to be saying things they were not. This is nothing more than a witch hunt by the GOP pandering to their base. Furthermore, no, those funds are not better off going to other organizations. You have to remember who Planned Parenthood benefits the most. Poor young women. It's estimated that without those funds, up to 25% of the current patients would no longer have access to free or affordable heath care. This comes not just from lack of access to local facilities, but from overloading other clinics to the point that they would be unable to accept patients. Quite frankly it's a shame that we cannot use public funds for abortions. I understand that Christians are morally opposed to it, but we shouldn't legislate based on their religious belief. After all, I'm morally opposed to blowing up brown people with funny names in other countries, but I don't get a chance to block funding for that.

Democrats and republicans both follow Keysnian economics, and do the same thing regardless of the lip service they give.

This is simply wrong. For the most part we have been suffering under the effects of supply side economics since Reagan. It has basically killed our middle class. More below...

Our economy is the strongest in the world, so I'll trust both parties to keep doing the same thing. There's no one to blame because we're in great shape, and no one to give credit for because both sides do the exact same thing.

Sure, we have the strongest economy in the world. How is it then that 30% of our children live in poverty? How is it that in a time of unprecedented corporate profits, wages have been stagnant for the last 40 years? Why is it that 99% of new income created goes to the top 1%? Why is it state and federal governments are giving tax cuts to the ultra wealthy and cutting basic services like food stamps and education? GM was the largest employer in the United States in the 70's and the average pay was around $50 / hour in today's dollars. Now, largely thanks to "free trade", deregulation, union busting and huge tax cuts our largest employer is Walmart which pays less than $10 / hour on average. The *only* people benefiting from our "strongest economy in the world" are the top 1%.

Here's what we have.

1. CDC studies gun violence
2. Bias is raised as an issue with it
3. Congress considers it, and pulls funding
4. CDC self-bans studies on gun violence

Those should be the undisputed facts of what occurred, correct? Now, if the CDC was accused of bias, why did they never rebuke it?

The fact that the person who drafted the amendment regrets it doesn't matter, the concerns of bias were never rebuked by the CDC, and congress approved it.

No, not correct. The major issues are the accusation of bias and the idea of a self ban, but I'll walk through each point for clarity.

The CDC funded the study, but didn't conduct it themselves. That's a minor point, so let's pass 1. For 2, the NRA did indeed cry bias. I still don't see what they are using as the basis of that claim aside from their dislike of the conclusion, but allege they did. An amendment got crammed into a bill, and there was not support/interest in tanking the whole bill because of it, so that's part of 3. The CDC chose not to risk violating the law, though not through a ban so much as not funding studies on gun violence, so that's 4.

The CDC stood by the Rivara paper, as did Dr. Rivara. The study successfully went through the peer review process for the New England Journal of Medicine, a very high-profile journal. It draws heavily on previously published studies. The paper itself seems pretty upfront to me about the approach used, its shortcomings, and potential sources of bias and how those concerns affect the results. The results themselves only suggest an association between having a gun in the home and higher risk of death, with a heavy emphasis on the complication of domestic violence. It doesn't even call for gun control! The strongest statement in it is that people should be discouraged from keeping guns in their homes because there's a net negative in terms of risk to residents vs. benefits against intruders.

The NRA shrieked bias, but I haven't found a specific piece they objected to, and I just don't see what they might have been referring to aside from a relatively mild conclusion that they wouldn't like. Without pointing to something specific, how could Rivara or the CDC rebut an accusation beyond standing behind the study? Which is what they did. What more, exactly ought they have done? And I'm talking about specific accusations to refute or actions to take, not a bland statement that "they didn't rebuke it".

I just wanted to emphasize this. The study done by the CDC was peer reviewed and accepted. The only claim to bias was from the NRA, who surely everyone can agree has an interest in suppressing information which would hurt their revenue. Millions of dollars spent on bribes lobbying can certainly buy a few friends in Congress who will take care of these pesky little PR problems for you though.