The gun lobby can't have its cake and eat it too [View all]

[BlueMTexpat]

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-congress-gun-control-20160622-snap-story.html

We can't get studies about firearm violence to be funded at the national level, but CA is stepping up.

Wintermute says that gun deaths nationally have remained roughly the same in recent years, but have fallen more than 20% in California since 2000. That’s true for both homicides and suicides, he says.

“Why is that?” he asks rhetorically. “What are we doing right? Are we not doing something wrong that’s being done in other states? We need to know.”

We won’t find out from the federal government. The NRA persuaded Congress to kill off federal firearms research two decades ago, arguing the studies amounted to a gun control plot.

Finally, the Legislature last week allocated $5 million to create a firearm violence research center at the University of California, the first such state entity in the nation. Gov. Jerry Brown has promised to OK the budget item.

This is a good read, with some specific proposals already.