Letter: We need hard facts to make progress against gun violence

Cars don’t kill people, people kill people. Sound familiar? Decades ago it was commonly accepted that the negligent and careless driver, the nut behind the wheel, was the cause of the extremely high level of traffic fatalities that was occurring in this country; that it had nothing to do with the cars themselves. It was only after dedicated study and data analysis that cars were required to incorporate many of the design features that they have today, resulting in a dramatic decline in traffic deaths in the ensuing decades. Studying the problem led to measures to help fix it. The familiar part of course, is that today we hear that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. We are living with an epidemic level of gun violence in this country. Sensible gun safety legislation can only be written if we truly understand the problem. Where are criminals getting their guns, do guns in the home keep us safe, what effect does concealed carry have on homicide rates? Waiting periods, red flag laws, assault weapons bans, are these effective measures? If they are, we have a right to know. If they are not, we need to know that, too. The Dickey Amendment in 1996 served to restrict the use of Centers for Disease Control research and funding to study and advocate for gun safety. Again in 2003, the Tiahrt Amendment precluded gun trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from being used in academic research on […]

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