Is it proper for a "scientist" to be seen with an advocacy group

[friendly_iconoclast]

40. I noticed that you did not refute what he said, but chose to play the "right-winger" card

Lets do a little fisking, shall we?:

"gun violence charities"?

Who do they give financial assistance to? (hint: themsleves)
...and people that say things they want to hear, like Hemenway and Josh Sugarman

Training? (no-one)
However, they are more than happy to complain about the NRA's Eddie Eagle program- without doing anything along the same lines, I might add:
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/eddiekey.htm

Assist law enforcement agencies? (Not that I've seen)
IIRC, the ATF had to tell Mike Bloomberg (Mayor 0.1% and Lord High Poo-Bah of MAIG) to quit running his James O'Keefe-style antigun stings

Who gives them funding? (1%-ers)
They *have* to get funding from the 1%ers, as they are as astroturf as the global warming deniers you mentioned- the Brady Campaigns
membership is outnumbered ca. 80:1 by the NRA's

What do they do with it? (lobby {read-bribe} politicians, i.e. they are a "special interest group&quot
and pay for mailings, etc.- FSM knows they don't actually make very many campaign contributions...

What are (their) goals. (control other people they don't like)
They've got Anslinger-Wertham syndrome something fierce- unfortunately for them, the concomitant moral panic mongering played out years ago
as is obvious to those who have enough brain cells to track political trends and enough honesty to see where they are going...