Let's "shoot" this sucker down

One would think there would be some sort of information on a subject like the risks or benefits of having a gun in the home. But such information is scarce. Funny that.

Kellermann found people turned those guns on themselves and others in the house far more often than on intruders. "In other words, a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense," he says.

That's a research finding conducted through funding from the CDC. And it is shocking, and demonstrates that the long-pushed notion of keeping a gun at home to be a very, very poor decision in many cases. Well we cannot let that kind of knowledge out.

Lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — held back some money from the CDC and made clear that no federal funds should be used to promote gun control.

Not good enough...

In 2003, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, added language to the Justice Department's annual spending bill. It says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can't release information used to trace guns involved in crime to researchers and members of the public. It also requires the FBI to destroy records on people approved to buy guns within 24 hours.

No data, no research. America, ignorant by law -- and heavily armed.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]