NRA: Don’t use tax dollars to promote gun control

Problem is researchers who are unable to drop their anti-gun bias

In the wake of the tragedy in Parkland, Fla., the media are claiming that the NRA and our supporters in Congress are opposed to government-funded research on criminal violence perpetrated with firearms. Nothing could be further from the truth. We, along with a majority of Americans, believe that research is important in identifying the root causes of violence.

To be clear, Congress did not restrict the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying firearms and violence. Instead, it restricted government funding from being used to advocate or promote gun control. In the 1990s, when this restriction was passed, that’s exactly what the CDC was doing — advocating for gun control under the auspices of “research.” One CDC official was even quoted in 1994 that he envisioned a public campaign to make guns like cigarettes, “dirty, deadly — and banned.”

The NRA’s position at the time, which has not changed, is that tax dollars should not be used to take sides in a policy debate. This violates the most basic principle of science, in which objective research should be the goal, rather than a biased policy position against individual firearm ownership.

Click here to read the entire op-ed in USAToday.com.