It's a Health Issue

Death and injury in car accidents has been reduced in this country, not by reducing driving, but through research that has made cars safer.  Research about guns could make them safer too, but it isn’t happening partly because gun research is discouraged.  Jon Levine writes this at Mic:

…since the mid-1990s, the federal government has done exceptionally little to investigate the threat posed by firearms, thanks largely to successful efforts by the National Rifle Association to intimidate, threaten and harass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies....in 1996, Congress reallocated the $2.6 million from the NCIPC's [National Center for Injury Prevention and Control] budget that was devoted for gun research and prohibited the CDC from allocating any of its funds "to advocate or promote gun control." The CDC, fearing further budget cuts, enacted a self-imposed ban on any research related to firearms.

In 2003, Congress also successfully prohibited the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from releasing tracking information about guns used in crimes to the public, creating another high barrier to research.

Gun advocates are apparently afraid even of health research.  I’m going to write my legislators today and protest this policy.