What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#2Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#3Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
Public health hazard.
[Edit] The author, Gary Klek, is a firearm-ownership supporter.
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#4Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
Epidemiologist study epidemics
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#5Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the leading national public health institute of the United States. (source: wikipedia).
People dying is a health issue, and it's CDCs job to investigate how to prevent / minimise deaths. Doesn't matter if the health issues come from viruses or guns. They also investigate deaths related to motor vehicle crashes etc.
And IIRC they can ask about anything, just not publish it themselves (what a stupid law the americans came up with). So other people getting their hands on those numbers and publishing themselves, why not…
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#6Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
The "main goal" of the CDC "is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and internationally" [1]. Guns cause injury and disability.
The CDC's work around guns has been an area of "partisan dispute" [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#7[deleted]
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#8I would like to know the contexts behind these defensive gun usages before I come to a conclusion. It could be that a significant portion are "empty" uses (e.g. brandishing a gun when scared by a weird noise at night when nobody was there), not actually defensive / used in a situation where the gun greatly escalated the situation (e.g. someone cuts you off in traffic and you "defend" your space), etc. - even though these wouldn't technically count according to the wording of the survey, we are still relying on respondents' interpretations of the questions. The author mentions that if anything the rate was underreported, but knowing gun users personally, I find it just as likely that they were willing to overstate their gun use or the utility of their gun as a type of bragadocious machoism.
It's true the CDC was obviously quite biased, but the study could have still been flawed
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#9Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
They shouldn’t be, but it’s not new. The big fuss about the CDC and guns happened in 92/93/94 when Clinton came in and wanted ammo for his upcoming gun ban proposals. Funded some absolutely junk science that had been almost all entirely discredited. Such gems as “you are X % more likely to die of a gun if you own one” that was based on police reported deaths only where the victim owned a gun then applied to all citizens. The data for these “studies” was never fully released.
The 1996 congress came in and slapped the CDC down from being used as a propoganda tool again. The Dickey amendment never banned research as many like to claim - but did ban advocacy of gun bans - imagine that once they couldn’t be used as a tool the junk science stopped.
Should the CDC be focused on guns? Explicitly no, but it’s not new. Of the studies since 96, none have found a link to guns and violence or gun ownership and higher death rates.
Edit: downvotes for truth, please don’t turn into reddit.
Re: What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?
#10Why was the CDC asking about firearms?
The "main goal" of the CDC "is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and internationally" [1]. Guns cause injury and disability. The CDC's work around guns has been an area of "partisan dispute" [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...
Guns don’t cause injury and disability more than they prevent it. Sorry, but that’s the truth.
We have 340,000,000 people, more guns than that. And 10,000 homicides where the vast majority are drug and gang related.
We have a problem, but it’s not with guns.
Edit: more truth, more downvotes. I’m curious as to why there is such effort against an enumerated right - when putting even 1/10th the effort into fighting heart disease which kills 700,000 a year would have such a greater impact?