Ya' can't fix something you know nothing about.

[AndyS]

From the Trace newsletter email:

In 2017, a novel study estimated that shootings were the least researched topic among the top 30 causes of death in the United States. In one particularly striking example, it estimated that gun violence research between 2004 and 2015 received 0.7 percent as much funding as research on sepsis, which killed about the same number of people. While public health issues like motor vehicle accidents, influenza and pneumonia, and Alzheimer's get millions of dollars of investments from both public and private sources, researchers interested in gun violence have had to jump through hoops including an effective federal funding ban and intense scrutiny from political leaders.

A Young Scientist Compared Gun Deaths to Other Leading Causes, and Found a Billion Dollar Research Deficit
How David Stark put a number to the knowledge gap surrounding fatal shootings.

link

I've seen everything in the world blamed for gun violence and the devastation it leaves behind. Video games, poverty, gangs, drugs, the pandemic and just about everything under the sun. Yet we really don't know how to deal with 90 people a day being shot. It costs the US $280 Billion a year yet we spend next to nothing finding out how to stop it.

It's politics clear and simple. The gun industry does not want us to know how to stop gun violence because it will decrease sales. Fear sells guns and gun violence stokes fear. The gun industry has been buying legislators for 50 years. ALEC and the ILA (legislative arm of the NRA) write laws and hand them to politicians to put into practice. ALEC wrote the first Stand Your Ground law and got it passed in 25 states.

If anything is to change we have to play their game. BUY politicians. Contribute to a gun violence prevention group of your choice.