Do gun laws prevent violence? Health officials don't know

[dgibson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Atlanta-AP -- A sweeping federal review of the nation's gun control laws finds no proof that they reduce firearm violence.

But federal officials who released the review say that's not proof the laws don't work. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the failure to show a benefit means someone should look harder for one.

Not the C-D-C, though. It has no such plans. Many conservative lawmakers think the agency should limit itself to studying disease.

Gun-control advocates quickly called on the government to fund better research. The National Rifle Association said it needed more time to review the C-D-C report before commenting on it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>MY OPINION: Well, smack my ass and call me Cletus! The CDC finally woke up to what everyone else has known for years.

 

[danr55]

THey need to read my thesis.... I believe it certainly gave evidence that they have no effect on gun violence. CCW permits, on the other hand tend to create an environment conducive to a polite more constrained society. Not to any signigicant degree however. Unfortunately, there in no case where a CCW law was passed in an area that had been known for high percentages of violence with firearms...

 

[ELKCHSR]

It's nice to know that some gov. agencies are now not trying to slant the findings of truth that they come up with to meet their own agendas...I wonder how some thing like this will pan out in the long run. It would be nice to see at least one big brother agencie let loose of some of its grip on some thing that they have no buisness dabling in!!!

 

[Calif. Hunter]

The CDC has no place meddling in gun control issues. Period.

 

[Tom]

Yes, its a problem when the CDC looks at gun issues. Doctors experience the people who come in with gun wounds, etc. They don't experience much of the benefits from guns preventing anything, so most all the medical research with guns, is biased towards treating guns as a disease. Diseases don't have benefits, but guns do, so somebody, like an economist or sociologist, who doesn't study just diseases, needs to do gun research, to do it more objectively looking at the benefits as well as the risks of gun use.

 

[dgibson]

That's all true; now you just have to convince THEM of that (along with folks like NEJM and other medical "think tanks" who regard guns as an "epidemic").