The Republican Thread

[Balta1701]

Actually you'd probably want to bring in doctors, researchers and pharmacists in who are familiar with the effects certain drugs have on the body.

Or we could do what we do with guns and ban doctors, researchers, and pharmacists from doing that research.

[witesoxfan]

Or we could do what we do with guns and ban doctors, researchers, and pharmacists from doing that research.

 

No, you just bring in an unbiased parties to research, who is going to look at the number of guns owned versus the number of intentional shootings in the United States.

 

They'd likely come to the conclusion that the economical way to handle the situation would be to do nothing.

 

For the record, I have no problem with additional steps being required for gun ownership, but there's simply no reason to take guns away, including automatic weapons.

[StrangeSox]

Most of that sort of research is conducted directly by the government or with government grants. The federal government is legally prohibited from such research related to guns, nor is there any reason to assume that the CDC or NIH would be biased in their research.

[Balta1701]

No, you just bring in an unbiased parties to research, who is going to look at the number of guns owned versus the number of intentional shootings in the United States.

 

They'd likely come to the conclusion that the economical way to handle the situation would be to do nothing.

 

For the record, I have no problem with additional steps being required for gun ownership, but there's simply no reason to take guns away, including automatic weapons.

Which is why the NRA has worked so hard to prevent anyone from doing that research, because they don't want anyone doing research that supports their case?

[witesoxfan]

Which is why the NRA has worked so hard to prevent anyone from doing that research, because they don't want anyone doing research that supports their case?

 

You're kidding me. There are millions upon millions upon millions of guns, and the amount of gun murders is at like, what, 10,000 per year, give or take, right? And you are talking about roughly 270,000,000 guns owned in the United States, right? So you are talking about .0037% (or less) of guns cause murders, and that's if you simply divy out 1 murder per weapon, which, as we've found out, is not correct either.

 

Even in the most lenient of scenarios, you are talking 1 in 300 guns causing a murder, and even that is not realistic. It's

Edited January 25, 2013 by witesoxfan

[StrangeSox]

So why has the NRA worked so hard to prevent any sort of data-gathering and analysis?

[witesoxfan]

So why has the NRA worked so hard to prevent any sort of data-gathering and analysis?

 

To preserve personal liberties, to prevent numbers from being skewed and misquoted, whatever, I have no idea. I'm not a member of the NRA, don't particularly care for the NRA, and I wish they'd be a little more willing to negotiate and compromise.

[Reddy]

No, you just bring in an unbiased parties to research, who is going to look at the number of guns owned versus the number of intentional shootings in the United States.

 

They'd likely come to the conclusion that the economical way to handle the situation would be to do nothing.

 

For the record, I have no problem with additional steps being required for gun ownership, but there's simply no reason to take guns away, including automatic weapons.

 

i could give you at least 26

[witesoxfan]

i could give you at least 26

 

I'm sure you can.

[StrangeSox]

To preserve personal liberties, to prevent numbers from being skewed and misquoted, whatever, I have no idea. I'm not a member of the NRA, don't particularly care for the NRA, and I wish they'd be a little more willing to negotiate and compromise.

 

They're preventing the numbers from even existing in the first place. Worrying that someone might misconstrue the results of a study is not a good reason to prevent that study from ever taking place.

 

Why do they work so hard to make it nearly impossible to enforce what weak gun laws we do have?

 

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[witesoxfan]

<!--quoteo(post=2754761:date=Jan 25, 2013 -> 09:11 AM:name=witesoxfan)-->

<!--quotec-->To preserve personal liberties, to prevent numbers from being skewed and misquoted, whatever, I have no idea. I'm not a member of the NRA, don't particularly care for the NRA, and I wish they'd be a little more willing to negotiate and compromise.

 

They're preventing the numbers from even existing in the first place. Worrying that someone might misconstrue the results of a study is not a good reason to prevent that study from ever taking place.

 

Why do they work so hard to make it nearly impossible to enforce what weak gun laws we do have?

 

!!!!

 

As I said, I don't know, I'm not a member of the NRA, I don't particularly care for the NRA, and I wish they were more open to negotiation and compromise.

[Jenksismyhero]

What's stopping a private institution from doing this research? Medical research isn't confined to government entities or government grants, they do it privately all the time (in fact i'd guess most is privately funded).

 

[Reddy]

What's stopping a private institution from doing this research? Medical research isn't confined to government entities or government grants, they do it privately all the time (in fact i'd guess most is privately funded).

 

that guess would be horribly wrong. most research comes with grants from the government or the gov't footing the bill. independent research is mucho $$, thus if someone wants to do it and foot the bill, they probably have a bias one way or the other - wouldn't you think?

[Balta1701]

What's stopping a private institution from doing this research? Medical research isn't confined to government entities or government grants, they do it privately all the time (in fact i'd guess most is privately funded).

What private institution has an economic benefit in doing that? No drug or medical research group is going to do that. That leaves charities...those aren't really reliable, they certainly don't fund a lot of basic research, and they have the NRA and their lobbyists to deal with if they try to put out such a study.

 

When the CDC tried to do research on the subject in the 1990's, the government banned the CDC from doing so.

 

When the NIH funded that study in Philadelphia that showed quite clearly that if you're carrying a gun, you're much more likely to die in a crime than if you're not carrying a gun, the Congress expanded that regulation to ban the NIH from doing more research.

 

You seriously want to take on the NRA as a small charity?

[StrangeSox]

What's stopping a private institution from doing this research? Medical research isn't confined to government entities or government grants, they do it privately all the time (in fact i'd guess most is privately funded).

 

This would be wrong! Development of specific drugs might be undertaken by private companies, but virtually (or maybe literally now?) all basic research and public health research is done or funded by the government.

 

The sort of research done privately is done in order to develop a marketable and profitable product. There's not much incentive or motive for the type of public policy research in question here.

[Jenksismyhero]

that guess would be horribly wrong. most research comes with grants from the government or the gov't footing the bill. independent research is mucho $$, thus if someone wants to do it and foot the bill, they probably have a bias one way or the other - wouldn't you think?

 

Lol, you crack me up man. You're so sure of yourself and so wrong most of the time. Don't you think there's also much $$ to be made by the private sector?

 

Government funding for medical research amounts to approximately 36% in the U.S.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science

 

No cite for this, but it comes from wikipedia so it must be true!

 

Here's another that says the NIH accounts for 30% of all medical research, so I think less than 50% from government sources is accurate.

 

The impact of even small NIH budget cuts is severe: The agency funds about 30 percent of all medical research in the U.S., according to the Journal of American Medical Association. The cuts likely will mean fewer research grants from an already increasingly parsimonious agency.

 

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicag...s.aspx?id=83157

[Jenksismyhero]

What private institution has an economic benefit in doing that? No drug or medical research group is going to do that. That leaves charities...those aren't really reliable, they certainly don't fund a lot of basic research, and they have the NRA and their lobbyists to deal with if they try to put out such a study.

 

When the CDC tried to do research on the subject in the 1990's, the government banned the CDC from doing so.

 

When the NIH funded that study in Philadelphia that showed quite clearly that if you're carrying a gun, you're much more likely to die in a crime than if you're not carrying a gun, the Congress expanded that regulation to ban the NIH from doing more research.

 

You seriously want to take on the NRA as a small charity?

 

We're not talking about curing cancer, we're talking about doing a study on the impact of guns. A small research firm could handle that task pretty easily. One of your liberal think tanks should be able to do that pretty easily. There's absolutely no reason why the government "must" get involved with that.

 

And yes, the NRA doesn't want it to be researched because the only conclusion is guns kill people when used improperly (shocking!) So of course that's going to sound awful. Biden and Obama and their counterparts will stand up and talk about how guns are killing children and innocent people, and they'll leave out that little statistic about it happening less than 1% of the time. It's absolutely a no-win situation for the NRA or gun advocates so I don't blame them.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

This would be wrong! Development of specific drugs might be undertaken by private companies, but virtually (or maybe literally now?) all basic research and public health research is done or funded by the government.

 

The sort of research done privately is done in order to develop a marketable and profitable product. There's not much incentive or motive for the type of public policy research in question here.

 

I guess show me a cite for this. My wife works daily on this very task - she gets rich people to give Rush money so that they can develop/research new medicine/tests/whatever. My mom works at Northwestern in the oncology unit doing her own research and her grant was privately funded. There are large health initiatives funded by the government, i'm not denying that. But the majority of medical innovation comes from chasing the almighty dollar - if you come up with a better machine/pill/test/whatever, you get rich.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[Jake]

We're not talking about curing cancer, we're talking about doing a study on the impact of guns. A small research firm could handle that task pretty easily. One of your liberal think tanks should be able to do that pretty easily. There's absolutely no reason why the government "must" get involved with that.

 

And yes, the NRA doesn't want it to be researched because the only conclusion is guns kill people when used improperly (shocking!) So of course that's going to sound awful. Biden and Obama and their counterparts will stand up and talk about how guns are killing children and innocent people, and they'll leave out that little statistic about it happening less than 1% of the time. It's absolutely a no-win situation for the NRA or gun advocates so I don't blame them.

 

Pertinent data must be available from the government to have a crack at a useful study

[StrangeSox]

Lol, you crack me up man. You're so sure of yourself and so wrong most of the time. Don't you think there's also much $$ to be made by the private sector?

 

Not for basic research or public policy research, really. There's some independent research e.g. Brookings, but there's still no good reason to expressly forbid the CDC or NIH from researching it.

[Jenksismyhero]

Pertinent data must be available from the government to have a crack at a useful study

 

You need FBI records and criminal records, both available publicly. What else would you need?

[StrangeSox]

I guess show me a cite for this. My wife works daily on this very task - she gets rich people to give Rush money so that they can develop/research new medicine/tests/whatever. My mom works at Northwestern in the oncology unit doing her own research and her grant was privately funded. There are large health initiatives funded by the government, i'm not denying that. But the majority of medical innovation comes from chasing the almighty dollar - if you come up with a better machine/pill/test/whatever, you get rich.

Coming up with a better machine/pill/test/whatever is coming up with a marketable product. Supporting that technological research and development is the wealth of basic research and development, which is done primarily via government facilities or grants. Bell Labs and some others used to do private-sector versions, but they've all been shuttered. Can't justify multi-million dollar research budgets that won't show a return for decades, if ever. So, yes, that technological innovation comes from profit-seeking, but they're standing on the shoulders of giants.

[Balta1701]

You need FBI records and criminal records, both available publicly. What else would you need?

Actually the government has also banned the FBI from collecting and sharing most types of data involving guns. They can keep the most general statistics (like total number of incidents) but they can barely record anything else and they're limited in what they can share with even local law enforcement.

[StrangeSox]

We're not talking about curing cancer, we're talking about doing a study on the impact of guns. A small research firm could handle that task pretty easily. One of your liberal think tanks should be able to do that pretty easily. There's absolutely no reason why the government "must" get involved with that.

 

And yes, the NRA doesn't want it to be researched because the only conclusion is guns kill people when used improperly (shocking!) So of course that's going to sound awful. Biden and Obama and their counterparts will stand up and talk about how guns are killing children and innocent people, and they'll leave out that little statistic about it happening less than 1% of the time. It's absolutely a no-win situation for the NRA or gun advocates so I don't blame them.

 

Researching public and health policy as it relates to guns is a "no-win" for the NRA, ergo their efforts to block such research from ever happening are justified?

[Balta1701]

Researching public and health policy as it relates to guns is a "no-win" for the NRA, ergo their efforts to block such research from ever happening are justified?

Just remember, if anything they ever said about guns being useful in keeping people safe was true...they'd be funding enormous amounts of research on their own to make that case. They'd want the government doing that research.

 

They're not dumb. They know the answer is going to be "you're 10x safer if you're unarmed". They'd rather not have the answer.