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“What people have grown up with and what they’re used to is gun violence prevention being a political issue, and most people think of it in terms of either you take the guns away from people or you let them keep their guns. And what science can do is find a way to let people keep their guns, to protect the rights of law abiding gun owners and reduce gun violence both.” – Mark Rosenberg in The federal government knows surprisingly little about gun accidents [via usatoday.com]

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60 COMMENTS

    • This is all you need to know.

      “In 1993, then-Director of the NCIPC, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, articulated his vision for the agency: “a long-term campaign, similar to [those pertaining to] tobacco use and auto safety, to convince Americans that guns are, first and foremost, a public health menace.” In 1994, Rosenberg stated, “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes.” The CDC incorporated firearm-related violence into the public health model, and considered the reduction of firearm ownership as an important public health goal.”

      • Yep, we need a national federally directed War On Gun Accidents to protect our children from killing themselves with guns.

        But, you say, accidental death by guns are at the lowest level of cause of accidental death of children. Drowning in buckets, bathtubs and pools is twice the rate of gun deaths, and the frequency of deaths due to things like falls, drinking chemicals under the sink and vehicle accidents go up from there. Maybe we should have a war on buckets, chemicals and cars , which kill alot more kids, which also aren’t a constitutional right, before a war on guns?

        But, but, you heartless monster! It’s death by guns!! That is a much worse death than by those other methods!!

      • Auto deaths and injury had been declining since I believe 1967, EXCEPT this year, they are climbing, due to distracted driving and lack of using seatbelts. Unless you are suicidal or in a gang you’re more likely to be killed on a public road. Back to the drawing board for auto safety.

    • When “science”, as a public commodity, went from being efforts to understand the world better by genuinely exceptional smart guys (Newton, Einstein), to being just a me-to-I’m-with-those-guys catchall for mediocre progressive hacks, whose combined accomplishments and aptitude never, ever, even conceivably, extends beyond having spent enough time soaking up other people’s money in indoctrination institutions to recive a certificate that they have done so, it ceased being worth even the ink required to print the word. The approrpiate response to any progressive drone running his worthless mouth about “science this and science that, and therefore we have decided you must…”, is “Cure cancer, find something useful to do with your pathetic little life, or just Shut up, F off, Go die. Either option works. Better than all alternatives, as far as your kind of worthless piles of less than nothing goes.”

  1. We don’t need an expensive, taxpayer-funded research project to determine the causes of gun violence. We already know thew answer to that question if we take an honest inventory of human nature and history. People have a capacity for good and evil. Some people have much more of a capacity for the latter. Some of these people have little or no regard for their fellow man and use firearms to carry out their evil intentions. Many do so repeatedly with absolutely no sorrow or remorse. Unless Mr. Rosenberg and the geniuses who populate the central government can figure out how to eliminate jealousy, greed, revenge,and hatred from the human soul they’re wasting their time and our money. And, disguising their real intent – the disarmament of law abiding citizens.

    • I concur, with the added comment that I don’t think it can be done without changing the human genome to eliminate our natural propensity for violence.

    • One of the reasons the problem is insoluable is the existence of verifiable sociopaths, who don’t care who they hurt because they are physically incapable of empathy.

      Hey, look — a MEDICAL problem worth your time, Rosenberg!

  2. He isn’t right, but he isn’t wrong.

    Additional research and understanding is always helpful. You can never know too much about correlative and causative effects, especially the latter. Finding a way to mitigate those while remaining within the bounds of the 2A is the best hope of the right and left coming together to reduce violence – firearm-related or not.

    Unfortunately, we see a propensity for emotion to drive legislation and research designed to elicit emotion. Pure science, without the baggage of authorial advocacy, would be a boon. Directed science with sought results will not.

    I wish there was a way to get the good without the bad. But, just as the control platform believes the law-abiding must be frustrated to stop the bad, so to must fair scientists be frustrated to stop the unfair.

    • Unfortunately, what we see is a basically dishonest approach to such “science”, as these pukes begin from a position of “we need to convince people to outlaw all guns.”, rather than investigating why we would want to do that. Thereafter, the role of their “science”, as paid for with our money, is to convince otherwise intelligent people to sign on to a self destructive course, with no holds barred in regard to lying, conniving, encouraging more and more violent crime, hiding the truth, and on and on.

    • “Additional research and understanding is always helpful. You can never know too much about correlative and causative effects, especially the latter”

      Absolute nonsense (otherwise known as BS). Correctly defined as Analysis paralysis. Kumbya.

      Today, “research” is big government “business”. big $, no sweat or heavy lifting. Just sit around “thinkin” and DOING nothing. Spending big $ to employ useless people is a major way to create new demtards.

      • +1000

        And in addition, on Antebellum cotton plantations, as in totalitarian, progressive dystopias, “reducing violence” is not some sort of universal, a priori end, in and of itself. A world burned to the ground with all and everything in it, is very much preferable, to an existence as nothing but a slave. No matter how peaceful the latter may be, if only one abstains from getting too uppity with those who claim “science says” they should be happy that their particular Massa is nice enough to use lube.

      • We all know the stories of scholars who get massive grants for “studies” designed to show results that the government professes, while other scholars can’t get a nickel for studies designed to show that opposing theories are equally or more plausible.

  3. They cannot predict the effect of a ban on AR-style firearms, or restrictions on ammunition, or the effectiveness of biometric “locks” on firearms.

    Actually we do know. It’s just that the gun control lobby didn’t like the answer, so it remains “we don’t know”.

  4. “Research ” done or funded by government will be inherently politicized. Being horrible, cynical, and Trumpite about it, one ND per day in the entire country due undeniably to stupid parents/baby mamas/baby daddys/”uncles” does not merit research. Nor do many other government research projects that pervert science for political and social control experiments.

    • ‘“Research ” done or funded by government will be inherently politicized.’

      see – anthropogenic global warming

    • All illegal shooters should be jailed for five years minimum — No Exceptions.
      The parents of youthful illegal shooters should be jailed for five years minimum — No Exceptions.
      The provider of the weapon should be jailed for five years minimum — No Exceptions.

      The government should construct large super jails for illegal shooters, no frills, only minimum amounts of a gruel-like food, no entertainment except for old “Barney” episodes played 24/7, no exercise allowed.

      Provide free suicide pills to anyone 18 or older who wants to leave the planet — we are already horribly overcrowded.

      Gun violence would plummet.

    • Criminologists and economists using econometric analysis have all done plenty of work in the field. One of the major issues with organisations pushing the ‘public health’ model for conducting research into firearms matters is that the models they use in the field are fundamentally flawed for this type of activity, their eternal reliance on artificial control populations on self selecting populations is a logical flaw that cannot be overcome. The econometric based models that are used by criminologists and economists are far more appropriate. Its just that these models don’t produce the desired results, showing gun control laws to be ineffectual or counter productive.

      • The other reason the left insists on having the “medical” establishment take control of the dialog is that “public health” is a magic word that often circumvents constitutional protections. Declare a quarantine, an epidemic, or a biological emergency, and your due process can go out the window indefinitely, while politicians disguised in lab coats “get things sorted out.”

  5. Paragraph preceding the one quoted in this post. Note emphasis on “legislation.”

    “Mark Rosenberg, who led the CDC’s gun violence research as director of its National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said several fundamental questions would benefit from in-depth federal research: What leads to gun violence? What are the most effective ways to reduce it? What is the best way to craft legislation to make it happen? And perhaps most importantly, how might this work without infringing on Americans’ Second Amendment rights?”

    Frankly, I do not trust legislators to uniformly protect my Second Amendment rights. Too many of them do not believe in these rights.

    • True. If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail. But the anti-liberty community is not so myopic.

      You can tell right away from the language these people use what their intentions are. The entire issue of “gun violence” is made up, unless of course you also believe in knife violence, hammer violence, truck violence…

    • And that’s all right. Never forget that the Second Amendment is there specifically to protect you against government — legislators included. It was expected that government would work to disarm you, that’s the whole reason that the amendment is there. So when legislators work to disarm you, you shouldn’t be surprised. You just have to react in such a manner as to let them know that they’re out of line, and you will not comply.

  6. How can science attempt to address any type of violent crime while the statement of statistical fact is both politically and socially taboo in virtually all academic settings?

  7. One would think that the dismissal of Bushmaster case would be the lead story today especially after trashing Bob Owens yesterday. He posted the story on Bearing Arms at 4:00,pm yesterday.

  8. ‘Gun violence prevention’ is a political issue because the left has made it political. We have our law, it says our rights ‘shall not be infringed’. It’s the left that wants more laws that infringe on our rights and if we wish to keep our rights we must fight back in the political arena. Simple as that. Get the left to defend our right of self protection with the same vigor that they have for people’s right to fraudulent voting and the issue disappears as a political issue.

  9. The fatal flaw in all the science/CDC/research arguments is that no amount of airbags, seatbelts, locks, numbers can prevent intentional misuse of an item which makes up the vast majority of firearm related injuries and deaths.

    So unless these people are too thick to realize this any talk of science/CDC/research is just a cover for prohibition.

  10. I hate to be an insensitive asshole… but what else kills 500 (out of 300,000,000) people a year that we need to compulsively study.

  11. Something tells me this guy is going to cover his ears and go “lalalalala” if told the actual science says black people are responsible for nearly all the “gun violence” in the country.

  12. Well, research is for finding out stuff you don’t know already. Dr. No there seems unclear on the concept.

    Material to convince others is called “propaganda.”

    Fake material is called “fiction”, even if it comes with tables of numbers.

    Ritual distractions to cover where the rabbit is coming from is called “table magic” in the small, and “Sigfried n Roy” in the large. This guy wants to be Chris Angel, apparently.

    As practical policy, I propose that anyone who has stated “what we need” be disqualified from having any research or comment taken seriously, or publicly finded, I’ll go with for 5 years. They are also required to, at their own expense, provide a disclaimer similar to tobacco warnings, with their every statement on politics, policy, science, or research results of any kind. You know, so we all know we’re hearing from an agenda-driven propagandist, distracting from his fake “facts” with ritual piercings and douchery.

    “Thanks for the intor, Katy K. Before I begin, I am required by law to say this:”

    ORWELL WARNING: The polemicist you are about to hear has presented as “research” fake “facts” designed post-hoc to boost conclusions he started with. Ingestion of such factoids, and the violence to logic that goes with them has been found to warp all ability to think in exposed individuals.”

    “Now, answering you question…”

  13. “”There’s still a lot that we don’t know,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Among the questions he and others said could be addressed through government research: Can handguns be made safer or even made child-proof? What are the most effective ways to keep guns out of their hands? What are the most reliable ways to safely store firearms?”

    That’s what it’s all about. These anti-freedom, so-called scientists just want to shove their snouts in the government trough. These activists masquerading as scientists will slurp up taxpayer funds at one end, churn out government-pleasing, civil disarmament, junk science from of the other end, laying waste to liberty in pursuit of research grants.

    Whenever somebody wants to steal your freedom, they always claim there’s some overriding imperative justifying it. It used to that old Pharaoh-is-God canard. Then that shifted to the Divine Right of Kings scam. In more “enlightened” times, we heard things like dictatorship of the proletariat, dialectical materialism and other propaganda gussied up with phony philosophies.

    Today, technology and prosperity are paramount, so statists appeal to them to fabricate legitimacy. Hence, we hear “It’s for the children”, “It’s for public safety”, “In a country as wealthy as this…..”, “The scientific community’s consensus is……..” All of it ends the same way: gullible people stripped of liberty and rapacious rulers tightening their grip.

    • What we label science today is politicized doublespeak. Very little of today’s ‘science’ derives from the scientific method. The anti freedom agenda disguised as battle cries for ‘for the children’, ‘public ‘safety’, ‘greater good’, ‘wealthy society’ to name a few are the same ones used across the board in attacks on what’s left of individual freedoms.

  14. I love his little crucifixion pose for his picture. With the wiser-than-though smirky facial expression. What is it with liberal academics??

  15. “what science can do is find a way to let people keep their guns, to protect the rights of law abiding gun owners and reduce gun violence both.”

    I’d rather have “science” spend resources more productively by, say, trying to turn lead into gold.

  16. Like so many times in the past, we have a bigot using pseudo science to push his propaganda. Nothing new about this, from the NAZI party, and people like Margret Sanger, to the global warming nuts, there have been a bunch of people who have made a habit of doing this through out the modern era. We need to stand up to these people and never yield ground to them.

  17. I got a little science for ya’… For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So keep shaking the tree of liberty and see where it gets ya’. Eventually that apple is gonna hit you on the head.

    Or, we could talk about M-Theory instead, collapsing the wave form, and argue over the number of spacetime dimensions ….but it’s Saturday and honestly IDGAF right now.

  18. When people say they are concerned about “gun violence” rather than violence, that is an immediate tell that they don’t give a sh*t about assaulted and murdered people (or any other kind of actual violence), they’re using the suffering of the percentage whose attacker used a firearm during their attack in a ploy for political power.

  19. This idea presupposes that politics doesn’t get involved in the area of science and that science can provide answers to complicated social issues.

  20. If groups like this, medical groups, can obtain the appropriate level of funding, then they can keep funding (D) campaigns and the evil (D) will continue to provide the gun violence research funding.

    Kinda just like Planned Parenthood.

  21. Gun accidents are a non-issue. There’s only like a few hundred every year, and most of them likely from people violating the laws of gun safety. The main gun deaths are suicides and homicides via gang violence.

  22. Science is a major part of the answer. But funding was cut for government research into things gun because what was being done was NOT science.

    Yes, science can tell us what forms of gun storage are safest, it can tell us where most violence occurs, it can tell us a lot about who chooses to use a gun for aggression. But the moment one speaks of gun violence as though it were a disease, one is no longer doing science.

  23. Because “science” cured all our problems with drugs, racial tensions, and whether or not abortions are justified, and “proved” global warming so thoroughly that it was never necessary for anybody to, say, threaten to punish those who spoke up to disagree.

    It should work gangbusters for guns.

    “Good heavens, Dr. Rosenberg, you’re abominable!”

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