Access Denied: How the Gun Lobby is Depriving Police, Policy Makers, and the Public of the Data We Need to Prevent Gun Violence
Homeland Security Digital Library Blog 2013-01-15
Summary:
Mayors Against Illegal Guns released a report titled, Access Denied: How the Gun Lobby is Depriving Police, Policy Makers, and the Public of the Data We Need to Prevent Gun Violence. The new report investigates "the efforts by the gun lobby, with the cooperation of Congress, to suppress data and research funding on gun violence, making it difficult to study the causes of gun violence and to hold the firearms industry accountable for their role in the epidemic."
Among the shocking details highlighted in the report: "Americans murder each other with guns at a rate nearly 20 times higher than people in other high-income countries." Despite this, "the federal government conducts almost no scientific research on how criminals get and misuse guns, or what policies are effective at stopping them." The report goes on to examine the "ways in which the Washington gun lobby has kept the country in the dark about gun violence," and how restrictions placed on scientists, law enforcement, doctors, and military leaders have produced "dire consequences for public health and public safety."
Click here for access to more resources related to this report, including a statement from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a way to send a message to the president via Twitter, and an interactive map on where states stand on the issue.