110 Brave Congressmen vs. NRA - screw the nation's health agencies

[packman]

"The nation’s leading public health agency has not touched gun violence research in nearly 19 years, despite the view shared by many health officials that the topic represents a serious epidemic, like an infectious disease. Further pressure to resume research came in 2013, weeks after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., when President Obama ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get back to studying the causes of gun violence.
—And the CDC still did not budge.
—The problem is that since 1996 Congress has threatened to strip the CDC of funding — if it studied gun violence. The threat was explicit"


BUT - things are to the point where the study of gun violence CANNOT be ignored ( at least by Democrats)

"On Wednesday, a group of 110 U.S. representatives made the latest push to get the CDC back in the game. The effort, spearheaded by U.S. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), calls on House leaders “to reject short-sighted and unnecessary riders that freeze gun violence research.”

A letter written by Price points out that while solutions to gun violence might be debated, “we should all be able to agree that our response should be informed by sound scientific evidence.”

The letter is signed by 110 of the 188 Democrat House members. No Republicans signed on"

I cannot believe that Republicans, backed by the NRA, is willing to defund the Center for Disease Control - which monitors and tracks all diseases in the country and which has saved countless lives - if the CDC even hints at studying gun violence as an epidemic.

http://extragoodshit.phlap.net/index.php/110-members-of-congress-plead-for-ending-ban-on-cdc-gun-research/

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R