PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Any Study Of 'Gun Violence' Should Include How Guns Save Lives :: 03/22/2018
After the Parkland, Florida shootings, some are calling for more government research into “gun violence.”
Currently, the federal government’s Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is restricted by Congress from using tax money to promote gun control (although not from conducting research into gun-related violence). Some legislators want to remove this funding restriction. Separate from the federal government, the state of California has created a “gun violence research center” and the state of New Jersey is considering establishing a similar program. Similarly, university professors such as David Hemenway of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, have called for more federal funding of gun violence research.
Many gun rights advocates are wary of such research, fearing it will be used to fuel a partisan political agenda. Dr. Timothy Wheeler of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership has noted that CDC has a track record of anti-gun bias. In the 1990s, one CDC official even stated that his goal was to create a public perception of gun ownership as something “dirty, deadly — and banned.”
But regardless of whether “gun violence” research is being conducted by the federal government, states, universities, or private organizations, there are three key principles all public health researchers and firearms policy analysts should remember.
The first principle is:
* Firearms save lives as well take lives.
If one imagines that guns in civilian hands are used solely as murder weapons, it makes sense to ban or strictly regulate them.
But millions of Americans legally carry a firearm every day, and most cite self-defense as their primary reason. The overwhelming majority of the time, those guns are never drawn in anger. But innocent civilians can and do sometimes use their guns in self-defense. Any discussion of firearms policy must acknowledge the lives saved by legal use of guns as well as the lives lost by criminal use.
