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etherscythe writes:

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.

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