President Obama Unveils New Gun Control Measures

[Wetcoaster]

The leftist useful idiots have had decades to indoctrinate supporters though their taking over of the education system, corporate media and many other institutions (see the concept of "active measures"), ultimately bringing the legitimacy of any such elected officials into question.

[Tearloch7]

Oh the hell with it ... I believe that rather than selling these wing-nuts tinfoil, we should take up a collection and buy it for them .. they can even cover their windows so ATF has a reason to break-in ..

[Wetcoaster]

Oh the hell with it ... I believe that rather than selling these wing-nuts tinfoil, we should take up a collection and buy it for them .. they can even cover their windows so ATF has a reason to break-in ..

[Mr. Ambien]

Interesting assertion. I was always taught and read that the American Revolution was rooted in Anti-Colonialistic measures, such as taxation without representation and the desire for self-determination through democratically elected representation.

I'm also under the impression, concerning these gun measures coming from the Whitehouse, is that they were put in place by a duly elected representative of the majority of the population, and that the majority of the population, through polling, desires that some measures be taken by their elected representatives. Isn't that essentially what is occurring here?

And all these measures are up for debate and ratification through the U.S. Congress, another body of elected representation......so, where all this talk of 'tyranny' from some of the populace down south, or talk of constitutional violations.....is beyond my comprehension...i freely admit.

[inane]

That is like the 20th time you've posted that same tin foil post with the same text and same photos.

[Wetcoaster]

That is like the 20th time you've posted that same tin foil post with the same text and same photos.

[Wetcoaster]

Pick some books and read up on what organizations like the KGB, GRU, STI, DGI etc were busy doing back in the Cold War, instead of cutting and pasting shill propaganda and pounding back scotch.

[Richard Parker]

You're taking one little sentence of what I said and running wild with it, I suppose you freely chose not to read the part about individual rights or the rest of it either. Shame, such a waste of a long response I won't make a second mistake with. You also for some reason assert that because the US President is elected that he can do whatever he pleases. This is wrong.

[Richard Parker]

double post....

[Electro Rock]

I am quite aware of Cold War History - I personally lived through most of it.

[Scott Hartnell's Mane]

Goes without saying that down here in NC these measures are being met with a great deal of hostility and defensive reaction...I knew the measures were coming...and I knew I'd have to hear a lot of it from my neighbors and people who live in the county...but I never knew just HOW MANY gun crazies there were around here...until I saw the block and a half line outside the local gun shop just to buy ammunition...this is not going to end well, whatever happens...I can assure you of that.

[Wetcoaster]

Maybe you're aware of the major political and military events, but it was the clandestine side of things that actually carried most of the weight.

[Electro Rock]

Also aware of that.

And I worked in intelligence as well. And yourself?

[Electro Rock]

Are you taking about "CLEU" or whatever the ancronym was? Because that's stretching the definition of intel service. Even CSIS barely qualifies.

[Wetcoaster]

Are you taking about "CLEU" or whatever the ancronym was? Because that's stretching the definition of intel service. Even CSIS barely qualifies.

[Wetcoaster]

The gun lobby with its pet Congressmen and Senators has managed to choke off research on guns, gun violence and gun control. Big Tobacco managed to do the same thing for decades until the US government authorities began research and as they say... the rest was history.

President Obama is trying to kick start scientific research by government agencies but it is unclear how successful this may be with congressional co-operation.

Of course it is in the interest of the gun lobby to be able to obfuscate as much as possible so look for a pitched battle. The commonly heard screed from the gun lobby has been "Where's your evidence?" Pretty hard to have answer when research and research dollars have been ystematically choked off at the behest of the NRA.

Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.

That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.

Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.

How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?

Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.

The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."

Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.

"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.

Some unknowns:

—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.

—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.

—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.

—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.

—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.

—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.

"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.

One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."

Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention centre, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.

"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury centre at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."

Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.

He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."

"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.

Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.

The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.

Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.

Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice-President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."

Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.

"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.

What now?

CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."

Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.

Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.

"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.

"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.

http://www.theprovince.com/health/Research+damper+lifted+Obama+choked+science+preventing+violence/7835075/story.html#ixzz2IOgW4P42

[Wetcoaster]

For those who doubt the power of the NRA, its gun loons and politicians in its pocket consider this...

Back in 2006, Congress added a requirement for Senate confirmation of any new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives; and even since then, there has been no actual director of the ATF. Since that time it has been led by acting directors.

Previously Obama nominated Andrew Traver, the head of the ATF's Chicago office, as permanent ATF director. The nomination stalled in the Senate after the National Rifle Association said Mr. Traver had a "demonstrated hostility" to the rights of gun owners.

And it was not just the NRA blocking the nomination put forward by a Democratic President:

Shortly after the 2006 law took effect, President Bush nominated U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan to head the ATF, but even a Republican president’s choice proved unacceptable to pro-gun lobbyists. The NRA, in particular, accused Sullivan of “overly restrictive legal interpretations” and “overly zealous enforcement activities” because, while Sullivan served as Acting Director of ATF, the agency revoked several gun dealers licenses to sell firearms. Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Larry Craig (R-ID) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) quickly took up the gun lobby’s cause, placing a hold on Sullivan’s nomination until he agreed to comply with the NRA’s demands. Sullivan was never confirmed.

The problem only got worse once President Obama took office. Obama did not nominate an ATF Director until Nov. 2010, in no small part because the administration “had a tough time even finding a candidate interested in the ATF job because of likely gun-lobby resistance.” When Obama finally did nominate Andrew Traver, a 23 year veteran of the ATF and the head of its Chicago office, the gun lobby did not disappoint. Within 24 hours of the Traver nomination, the NRA officially announced its opposition.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/13/1178634/-On-the-ATF-Director-or-the-conspicuous-lack-of-same

[Mr. Ambien]

For those who doubt the power of the NRA, its gun loons and politicians in its pocket consider this...

Back in 2006, Congress added a requirement for Senate confirmation of any new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives; and even since then, there has been no actual director of the ATF. Since that time it has been led by acting directors.

Previously Obama nominated Andrew Traver, the head of the ATF's Chicago office, as permanent ATF director. The nomination stalled in the Senate after the National Rifle Association said Mr. Traver had a "demonstrated hostility" to the rights of gun owners.

And it was not just the NRA blocking the nomination put forward by a Democratic President:

Shortly after the 2006 law took effect, President Bush nominated U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan to head the ATF, but even a Republican president’s choice proved unacceptable to pro-gun lobbyists. The NRA, in particular, accused Sullivan of “overly restrictive legal interpretations” and “overly zealous enforcement activities” because, while Sullivan served as Acting Director of ATF, the agency revoked several gun dealers licenses to sell firearms. Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Larry Craig (R-ID) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) quickly took up the gun lobby’s cause, placing a hold on Sullivan’s nomination until he agreed to comply with the NRA’s demands. Sullivan was never confirmed.

The problem only got worse once President Obama took office. Obama did not nominate an ATF Director until Nov. 2010, in no small part because the administration “had a tough time even finding a candidate interested in the ATF job because of likely gun-lobby resistance.” When Obama finally did nominate Andrew Traver, a 23 year veteran of the ATF and the head of its Chicago office, the gun lobby did not disappoint. Within 24 hours of the Traver nomination, the NRA officially announced its opposition.

http://www.dailykos....us-lack-of-same

[Wetcoaster]

This is a highly slanted opinion of Michael Sullivan and the ATF, but not a surprise from DailyKOS..

For years the ATF had been under intense scrutiny because of how often they would go after small arms dealers for very small and insignificant infractions while leaving large dealers like Kmart and Wal-Mart alone, leaving small arms dealers to believe Sullivan was simply a corporatist attorney, rightfully. Sullivan was part of a gun control convention sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, which:

What a surprise, an anti-gun/gun control group sponsoring "research".

The ATF was not very popular as it was, so nominating this guy who was around anti-gun circles was a very bad mis-step by Bush as the guy was not much into protecting the second amendment.

[Mr. Ambien]

What a surprise the NRA apologist pops up on cue.

BTW the quote was not from the Daily Kos - it was simply cited in the article.