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from the anthropogenic-population-change dept.
We have a recent report by the US government that climate change is almost certainly caused by humans. However, we don't have the same rigor in gun death statistics; instead policy debate can rely only on FBI crime statistics which aren't directly comparable year-over-year due to changing measurement methodology (see "Caution to users").
This is because the NRA put pressure on the CDC through a Republican Congress to halt this research, under the logic that it promotes the cause of gun control.
But how likely is it that this is intentional, to use the US Second Amendment as an ongoing lightning rod for public attention (in a "bread and circuses" sense) while political business continues as usual on the back end (e.g. Paradise Papers)? Obama and a Democratic congress had the opportunity to restart this, which would presumably be just as "common sense" as the actual reforms they have been promoting on this issue, since whoever was actually supported by the facts would presumably have a motivation to set the program back in motion to improve support for their proposals.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 09 2017, @02:36PM
No, actually, it's not. Every time people try to suggest "well if we just didn't have guns this tragedy wouldn't happen" it turns that direction, but this discussion is ultimately about how to improve public safety, since we clearly have a problem. A full range of solutions involves related issues of how to keep guns out of the hands of disturbed individuals, how to keep our schools safest, how to care for those members of our population with mental and/or economic stability problems so they don't become gun violence problems. Facts are both right and necessary to that debate, and I find the idea of plugging our ears and singing LA LA LA TYRANNY at the top of our lungs to be, at the very least, repugnantly disrespectful to victims of gun violence and their social circles.
We can do better than this, but we need to be smart about it. And, to borrow an old chemistry joke, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"