If you're seeing this topic then another mass shooting hap…

Hours before San Bernardino shooting, doctors urged Congress to lift ban on gun violence research

On Wednesday morning, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver a petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country, it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.

Joined by a handful of Democratic lawmakers, the doctors spoke about the need to view gun violence as a public health epidemic and research ways to solve it – as the country would with any disease causing the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.

“It is disappointing that we have made little progress over the past 20 years in finding solutions to gun violence," said Nina Agrawal, a New York physician and member of the advocacy group Doctors for America, according to the group's Twitter feed.




“We should all be able to agree that this debate should be informed by objective data and scientific research,” said Rep. David Price (D-N.C.).



The group cited a letter released by former Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas, who authored an amendment that restricted federal funding for research into gun violence and its effects on public health. He now regrets that effort.

"Research could have been continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners," wrote Dickey, who has said he only wanted to ensure that no dollars went to gun control advocacy. "Somehow or someway we should slowly but methodically fund such research until a solution is reached. Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution."

After the speeches and presentations, after the group posed for pictures, Wednesday's event ended. The crowd dispersed. And hours later, another mass shooting began to unfold in San Bernardino, Calif. Multiple shooters, multiple victims – with 14 dead and even more wounded.

Perhaps that's not as much of a coincidence as it might seem, given that the United States has experienced an average of more than one mass shooting for every day of 2015.

"It’s ironic," Price said in an interview Wednesday evening, after the extent of the carnage in California became clearer. "It certain does underscore what we were saying earlier today about the scourge of gun violence, which has become such a feature of our daily lives."

Yet maybe it really wasn't that ironic, he added a moment later, given the all-too-familiar scenes. "What we were saying this morning was just one piece of this, but surely it is the least we can do to take the shackles off our researchers and begin to understand this problem more fully," Price said. "What we’re talking about is really very modest and very basic."

Others raised the issue of the research ban after the mass shooting that killed 10 people at an Oregon community college in October.

Congressional lawmakers "control the purse strings. They could change this today, if they wanted to," Daniel Webster, who directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, told the Post at the time.

Webster wasn't optimistic that change would come anytime soon. But like the doctors who made their plea to lawmakers on Capitol Hill early Wednesday, hours before gunfire rocked another community, he hoped it would come sooner than later.

"It just affects the basic things we care about in public health – the mortality, the life expectancy, morbidity, mental health. It affects all of those things in pretty profound ways," Webster said of gun violence. "If we had a disease that was killing as many people as our guns in our country, we would devote a lot more resources to make sure we had the best data, the best research to know what is most affected."

On December 03 2015 22:45 Djzapz wrote:

Assault rifles are basically semi-automatic rifles with a certain appearance and large magazines or something like that. From my understanding, the definition is convoluted but yeah they were most likely semi-automatics with large magazines.


You'd be surprised to see that people can own those in their homes for years. There's a bunch of americans with militaria in their homes right now. They have these "consumer" body armors with steel plates that can stop rifle rounds and stuff. And there's a bunch of hicks with those in their home for no real reason.

So many people have these "tacticool" things they don't need it's ridiculous.

On December 03 2015 23:25 ahswtini wrote:

those are not assault rifles. assault rifles have a clear definition - they must be capable of select fire (ie. capable of automatic or burst fire), they must have a removable magazine, and they must fire an intermediate cartridge (more powerful than a handgun round, but less than a "full power" rifle round)

unfortunately, people call any scary black rifle #blackriflesmatter these days an assault rifle, even though a proper assault rifle would be a machinegun, and those are very heavily regulated in america.

this is why when the clinton administration wanted to ban them, they had to adopt the term 'assault weapon'. and they defined an assault weapon as a rifle with a number of (generally) cosmetic features.

On December 03 2015 23:19 ETisME wrote:
Maybe what we need is a non-lethal but more aggressive and reliable self defense weapon rather than issuing guns to citizens.

On December 03 2015 23:50 Djzapz wrote:

The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act - commonly called the "assault weapons ban," the "federal assault weapons ban," and the "AWB" - was part (Title XI, Subtitle A) of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
The ban defined the term "semiautomatic assault weapon," which is commonly shortened to assault weapon. Semi-automatic firearms shoot one round (cartridge or bullet) with each trigger pull.

If you read on, it does also ban automatic firearms, but semi-auto firearms can be considered assault weapons depending on the other characteristics. But it definitely does not NEED to have other modes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

Please do realize that the US doesn't give a fuck about other people's definitions. It makes its own. "Assault weapons" in the US does not mean "capable of automatic or burst fire" or whatever else.

On December 04 2015 00:04 heliusx wrote:

Phasers would be sweet. :D

On December 04 2015 00:06 ahswtini wrote:

the US obviously did give a fuck, otherwise they would have called it the Assault Rifles Ban. instead they had to invent an equally scary sounding name because assault rifles are already by definition banned there, and have been since 1968 or something like that

u also clearly didnt read what i wrote

On December 04 2015 00:35 Bisu-Fan wrote:

I think he's separating rifles from weapons. An assault weapon can be anything you wrote whereas an assault rifle has already been defined. small things...

I just saw this thread title, and I think it's sad that it's so true in many ways.

On December 04 2015 00:15 Djzapz wrote:

Help me understand then

You say: those are not assault rifles. assault rifles have a clear definition - they must be capable of select fire (ie. capable of automatic or burst fire), they must have a removable magazine, and they must fire an intermediate cartridge (more powerful than a handgun round, but less than a "full power" rifle round)

Yet the US says semi-auto rifles are assault weapons. So I'm reading what you said, and reading it again, I don't see what I misunderstood. Yes I read what you said. Make yourself clear now.

On December 03 2015 22:42 Djzapz wrote:
Assault rifles are basically semi-automatic rifles with a certain appearance and large magazines or something like that. From my understanding, the definition is convoluted but yeah they were most likely semi-automatics with large magazines.

On December 04 2015 00:09 Plansix wrote:

There is an amazing interview with a police chief for a city talking about the Star Trek phaser and that it is the police officers dream. He talks about how it is accurate, doesn’t make loud noises when fired, can be used on crowds or to pick out a specific person. It is an amazing interview and the guy make such a compelling argument for lots of non-lethal options.

Sadly, the police have not embraced nonlethal armament that why I had hoped they would.

On December 04 2015 00:01 Plansix wrote:
The ban on assault weapons is sort of silly because they based it on a number of characteristics that go beyond that capabilities of the gun. Like if it can use a tri-pod and the number of bullets it holds. It can take a .22 rifle used to shoot small game and turn it into an "assault weapon". A .22 is the opposite of an "assault weapon" in every way.

But despite those criticisms of the law being valid, the gun lobby wants to completely remove it, rather than rewrite it to address the capabilities of the fire arm and provide reasonable restrictions.

And, as the GAO found, a number of them do: Between 2004 and 2014, suspected terrorists attempted to purchase guns from American dealers at least 2,233 times. And in 2,043 of those cases — 91 percent of the time — they succeeded.

On December 04 2015 01:00 ahswtini wrote:

yes, i'm saying that assault weapons and assault rifles are DIFFERENT. assault rifles have an internationally agreed definition. the clinton administration, when they wanted to ban scary modern-looking semiauto rifles (like the AR15), realised they couldn't use the term assault rifle when referring to them, so they invented the term 'assault weapon'. which is similar to the term 'assault rifle' and just as scary. which is perfect because your average journalist or member of the public wont know the difference and will be assuming that the government wants to ban the evil fully automatic assault rifles used in war.

YOU said:

i am pointing out that you are wrong. and no, it's not pedantry or a technicality to point out the difference.

On December 04 2015 01:09 Plansix wrote:
If people want to get really upset, dig into the restrictions on the FBI, ATF and other agencies on conducting background research into gun purchasers and criminal back ground checks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/16/why-the-nra-opposed-laws-to-prevent-suspected-terrorists-from-buying-guns/

Like the fact that you get purchase a fire arm while on the terrorist watch list.



Remember, the NRA is about gun owners right, not profits for the people who make guns.

On December 04 2015 01:15 Djzapz wrote:

Next time you feel the need to be a dick, instead of pointing out why someone is wrong, point how and why. Make yourself useful.

I'm not the only one who was confused by the bullshit. Like I said, the idea that a rifle which is an assault weapon is not necessarily an assault rifle doesn't go without saying. It's political maneuvering and plays on words, which deserves some explaining. So don't just throw shit at me and speak your mind next time.

Fucking weird to me that full grown adults feel the need to fiddle around like you did.