catbarf on 6/6/2016 at 22:35
Quote Posted by Pyrian
It's one thing for studies to have biases, it's quite another to pass laws preventing data collection.
We don't have any law against collecting data on gun violence. If you're thinking of the infamous case regarding the CDC in the 1990s, they got defunded for 1997 exactly the amount they had spent on gun violence research in 1996, after putting out (
http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/15/why-congress-cut-the-cdcs-gun-research-budget/) shoddy, methodologically unsound reports with overtly partisan goals, not only using federal funding to pursue a political agenda but throwing heavy confirmation bias into their work. As a consequence of the defunding, the agency elected to abandon gun research altogether, and it's been that way ever since despite no law being on the books about it. In the meantime, other groups have continued to put out research, but none with the funding and resources of the CDC. After the Newtown shooting, however, President Obama urged the CDC to resume research, and there are researchers on both sides of the issue calling for a renewal of research, so perhaps if they avoid partisan activism this time they can make it work.
Starker on 6/6/2016 at 23:49
There is no ban on research as such but the Dickey amendment basically cuts off federal funding for it. It doesn't matter how many people call for the resuming of research, without money, there will not be any and the congress has refused twice to give CDC any. And this does not concern only CDC -- basically no federal money can be spent on researching gun violence, as long as it can be interpreted as advocacy for gun control in any way, shape or form. And this is very hard to avoid when even something like firearm-related injury research is interpreted as political advocacy. Dickey himself regrets it in hindsight: (
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx)
Pyrian on 7/6/2016 at 03:59
Quote:
No such rule or regulation prescribed [by the Attorney General] after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or disposition be established.
(
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/926)
catbarf on 7/6/2016 at 11:30
That's a prohibition against maintaining a national registry of firearms. I'm not seeing the connection to research.
heywood on 7/6/2016 at 12:16
Quote Posted by Starker
There is no ban on research as such but the Dickey amendment basically cuts off federal funding for it. It doesn't matter how many people call for the resuming of research, without money, there will not be any and the congress has refused twice to give CDC any. And this does not concern only CDC -- basically no federal money can be spent on researching gun violence, as long as it can be interpreted as advocacy for gun control in any way, shape or form. And this is very hard to avoid when even something like firearm-related injury research is interpreted as political advocacy. Dickey himself regrets it in hindsight: (
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx)
The Obama administration has been requesting $10M
dedicated for it, and Congress has been denying it. That does not mean CDC cannot research it under current funding. There was no dedicated funding line in 1996 before the advocacy prohibition but the CDC managed to spend $2.6M on it. And the CDC says they can do it as part of their current scope:
I think the reality here is that nobody
wants to do it, because it's a career limiting move. The President and his political appointees want you to give him something he can take to the American people and say "see, this is why we need more gun control." You can be as careful as you want to avoid advocacy in your research and avoid taking any position on gun control, but that's not going to help you win any favors. Either you're going to piss off your current political masters by spending the money and not delivering what they're looking for. Or you can give them what they want and then have hell to pay when the next Republican administration comes in.
Pyrian on 7/6/2016 at 14:10
Quote Posted by catbarf
I'm not seeing...
The connection between data collection and research?
faetal on 7/6/2016 at 14:26
I can say from a research standpoint that few people expend weeks outlining, costing up and writing a research proposal in an area which is unlikely to receive funding.
You can't just decide to start researching something - shit takes time to set up and approve. Withholding funding is as good as shutting it down.
catbarf on 7/6/2016 at 15:55
Quote Posted by Pyrian
The connection between data collection and research?
National registries aren't the sort of data collection relevant to this discussion. They're government-managed lists of guns and owners that in almost every implementing country have to be kept only available to law enforcement, for privacy and security reasons. That's more like a watch list or the No-Fly List than an academic resource.
The best that access to a registry can tell you is how many people own guns and how many they own, information that is already readily available through other sources. It tells you nothing about the relevant criminology stats, which is what the CDC and other organizations focused on in the first place.
Starker on 7/6/2016 at 16:23
Also, there are NRA supported riders like the (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiahrt_Amendment) Tiahrt Amendment that, for example, prevent the ATF from releasing crime-gun trace data to researchers or computerizing their information on gun sales.
Pyrian on 7/6/2016 at 17:43
Quote Posted by catbarf
National registries aren't the sort of data collection relevant to this discussion.
Sure they are. Regardless, the law prevents the collection of the data for any purpose.
Quote Posted by catbarf
That's more like a watch list or the No-Fly List...
:D I see what you did there. That's pretty funny, actually.
Quote Posted by catbarf
The best that access to a registry can tell you is how many people own guns and how many they own, information that is already readily available through other sources.
Both sides of that are BS - even an obfuscated registry allows you to check against other variables in ways that raw counts do not, and by "readily available through other sources" you're talking about surveys and rough estimates.
