State Senator Lois Wolk (courtesy sd03.senate.ca.gov)

Press Release:

The Senate Education Committee voted 7-2 today [March 17] to approve legislation to establish a Firearm Violence Research Center at the University of California, filling the gap left by Congressional restrictions on firearms research . . .

“As the 8th largest economy in the world, and home the one of the most prestigious public research universities in the world, including highly regarded researchers on firearm violence, we have the capacity to do what Congress has failed to do – get the facts, apply sound scientific methods, and find answers that lead to solutions,” said State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis), author of Senate Bill 1006.

Firearm violence research was once the responsibility of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was funded by the federal government along with research on all other public health issues, including diseases, accidental injuries and deaths, food safety and environmental health.

However, in 1994, at the request of the National Rifle Association, Congress passed the “Dickey Amendment” that put an end to firearm violence research at the CDC.  As a result, although some research has continued through foundation and other sources, the lack of CDC funded research has left a gaping hole.

“We as policymakers are often left with insufficient data and evidence to determine the most effective policies to reduce the number of deaths and injuries resulting from firearm violence. Fortunately, California is well situated to fill this research gap,” Wolk said.

SB 1006 is strongly supported by the public health community, law enforcement, gun violence reduction advocates, and a growing list of bipartisan coauthors in the State Legislature.

Among those testifying in support of the measure was Dr. Kevin Jones, an emergency physician at Sutter Medical Center speaking on behalf of the American College of Emergency Physicians’ (ACEP) California Chapters, which is co-sponsoring SB 1006 with the American Academy of Pediatrics, California (AAP-CA).

“We are pleased the Senate has taken this important first step toward studying the public health epidemic of gun violence,” said Dr. Jones.  “Research on firearm injuries is vitally needed so that evidence-based prevention measures can be implemented to reduce the number of gunshot victims my colleagues and I treat on a daily basis.”

“Pediatricians support strong, unbiased, nonpartisan research, as called for in SB 1006, to identify reasonable and effective policies to stem  the epidemic of  firearm-related homicide, suicide and accidental deaths to  California’s children and youth,” said Dr. Dean Blumberg, speaking for AAP-CA.

Other supporters of the bill include US Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congressman Mike Thompson, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, and former member of Congress and NRA member Jay Dickey (R-Arkansas), the author of the Dickey Amendment.

Congressman Dickey has come out strongly in favor of more research, including the proposal in SB 1006.

“Our nation does not have to choose between reducing gun-violence injuries and safeguarding gun ownership… States can serve as democracy’s laboratories for firearm violence prevention research, as they do for other major health and social problems,” Dickey wrote in a letter of support he coauthored with Mark Rosenberg, the former Director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “This is particularly true for California, where well-qualified researchers already work with uniquely rich and valuable data on research that simply cannot be done elsewhere.”

The bill, which will next be heard in the Senate’s Public Safety Committee, is coauthored by Senators Kevin de León, Richard Pan, Ben Allen, Marty Block, Steven Glazer, Isadore Hall III, Loni Hancock, Robert Hertzberg; and Assemblymembers Bill Dodd, Bill Quirk, Catharine Baker, Jim Cooper, Cristina Garcia, Lorena Gonzalez, Marc Levine, Kevin McCarty, Miguel Santiago, and Philip Ting.

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57 COMMENTS

  1. So California is going to establish a propaganda center to manipulate and cherry pick information to lobby against civilian firearm ownership. What the Ivy’s weren’t enough for them?

  2. ah yes, California, where all intelligence is checked at the border, next to the sign “Welcome to California.”

    • Right? Give me the old “f u arm bar”, will ya? I’ll crap on your damn face.

      Metaphorically of course

    • So, I’m not the only one who noticed that she seems quite proud of her obscene gestures?

      Wolk you, too, Bitch.

    • I think the correct caption for that lady is, “Time for all firearms owners to bend over and get ready to take THIS up their @$$.”

  4. “we have the capacity to do what Congress has failed to do – get the facts, apply sound scientific methods, and find answers that lead to solutions,”
    We already have The Truth About Guns. Or did you mean get the data, apply methods to make it support your agenda, and find the conclusions that lead to political action?
    Okay, I don’t know these people but I don’t really have good reason to trust either California or universities, or anything that uses the term “gun violence” to provide accurate research on anything gun related.

  6. This is a direct money funnel to a handful, read one or two, ‘researchers’ at UC Davis. And if you buy a gun in California, you’re paying for it.

    Don’t we already pay for the UC system? They need MORE money for this? It’s a pay off scheme like most public projects in California, plain and simple.

    • Right.

      This is the ‘give state funding to Garen Wintemute’ bill. I’ll leave the quick name search on him to the interested reader. (See also “Ring of Fire”)

      • Yes thank you. I couldn’t remember or spell his exact name but most people will recognize it if they read about guns in the press

        • Garen Wintemute (a/k/a: Ellsworth Mocton Twoohey) (D)bag.

          NICS checks are not public info subject to FOIA, and if the information is released, then those doleing out that info need to get goregoogle mapped as they are excessively dangerous.

  7. And Here’s the scientific equation motivating behind this new University of California research effort.

    Firearm Violence Research Center:FVRC::GIGO: Garbage IN Garbage Out or more succinctly

    FVRC=GIGO=UCalB.S.

  12. I’m assuming she thinks she’s recreating the original poster and not making an obscene gesture….And BTW, if the CDC’s “research” was shut down by legislation that, by its terms, is limited to de-funding only gun control “advocacy”, what does that say about the nature of the CDC’s “research”?

  13. “States can serve as democracy’s laboratories for firearm violence prevention research”

    Yes they can. I will choose a laboratory that is experimenting with constitutional carry rather than one experimenting with how best to make us all victims.

    • I would submit enough evidence is already available from which a truly objective observer could put together the true relationship. It does not need to be studied more, except is as much as they don’t like the clear results. They’ll study it until they can find a way to steer the results more to their liking.

  14. Keep telling people. Human and civil rights are not safe so long as CA has states rights. CA state .gov needs to be dismantled at the point of fed.gov bayonets for criminal civil rights violations.

    CA pols have long since proven they cannot be trusted to function legally. It’s time, for the nations sake, to stop them.

    • jwm,

      What we have to change is public perception that:
      (1) Several dozen nicely dressed people who gather in a capital building are “gods”. That includes both the people who won election and their appointed agents.
      (2) Everything those “gods” do is okay as long as 50.00001% of the populous supports them.
      (3) Only “gods” from Washington D.C. can hold them accountable.

  15. Research is fine. Propaganda is not.

    What is the penalty, should this center be found to produce propaganda, rather than research?

  16. It would be wonderful if this backfired spectacularly and turned out exactly the opposite type of data then what they’re looking for. Of course what are the odds of that…

    • I would say the odds are great. What the odds are completely against is that they would accurately report what the data actually showed.

    • That’s the “problem” they are trying to fix. All the evidence shows that violence in this country is an artifact of minorities in Democratically controlled cities. Their goal is to create research that shows that the problem is created by rural conservative whites.

      • “Their goal is to create research that shows that the problem is created by rural conservative whites.”

        That part is easy: rural conservative whites created the problem because they resist sharing half of their wealth with urban minorities who don’t work. If those rural conservative whites shared their wealth, those poor urban minorities wouldn’t have to beat, rob, rape, steal, and kill to survive. Hence the rise of the “white guilt” meme.

  17. So, taxpayer money going to fund “researchers ” that will in turn recommend that the law abiding citizens having guns is the problem. Got it.

  18. Castle Coin and Conscience. California is full of Judas’es selling your rights for silver.

  19. The California Legislature has had no difficulty passing every piece of anti-gun legislation that is proposed, whether it makes sense or not, whether it supported by logic or (most likely) not, whether or not there is any science to support it. In the last session, they passed (and sadly Brown signed) a bill banning all ccw on school campuses without the express authorization of the school administrator–even though there has not been a single case in the entire state EVER of a licensee committing a gun crime on a school campus.This session they are doing everything they can to pass bills banning ARs and AKS (and even more semi-auto weapons such as the Ruger Minis), as reported on this site requiring massive video surveillance and permanent record keeping in all gun stores and in all areas, including outside the building, banning kitchen table FFLs, etc., for the sole and only purpose of forcing gun dealers out of business, extending the handgun 1 in 30 day rule to all firearms, and so forth and so on. To say nothing about Newsome’s voter initiative to require licensing and record keeping for all ammo sales. This useless bill is just another way to make the cost of owning firearms prohibitive, in the mistaken belief that fewer guns will mean fewer gun crimes. They don’t need no science to prove what they already believe, even if the crime rate skyrockets as a result.

  20. As a scientist, why do I get the feeling they will apply very little to no scientific method to churn out their propaganda? Oh yeah, because the facts don’t support their “hypothesis” about guns.

  21. Nothing like impartial research institutes showing their partiality before they even receive their grant money. Ethics mean nothing to liberals.

  22. remember california is a sanctuary state full of illegal thinking people supporting who knows what . to this old lady up yours ma i outta know living in los angles

  23. The NRA did an excellent write-up on the failure of prior studies of gun violence by the CDC -http://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2016/1/26/lab-accident/

  25. Sheeit!
    http://tinyurl.com/hw7hton
    Here are the stats for New York City, another large and diverse metropolitan area. A staggering 97.5 percent of those arrested for shootings in New York City in 2014 were Black or Hispanic.

  26. This might actually be a good thing.
    1. They perform honest research and truthfully report their findings.
    Or
    2. They churn out propaganda and we shut them down in a humiliating manner just like the CDC

    • This bill would go to fund Garen Wintemute. He’s been churning out biased, anti-gun schlock he tries to pass off as impartial research for decades. So, no,

        • He is a criminology professor at UC Davis, and has regularly filed expert declarations in control cases fought in California. He was the one who proclaimed that there was truth to the rumor (not studies or evidence) relied upon by the Sheriff and the Chief of Police of Los Angeles that “more guns means more gun crimes,” and that therefor it is a wise policy to strictly regulated the carrying of concealed weapons in public. (Los Angeles is a virtually “no issue” county unless you are very rich, an actor (or both) or politically connected. Or maybe a precious stones dealer with lots of cash. Everyone else can fugedaboudit.)

  27. “As the 8th largest economy in the world, and home the one of the most prestigious public research universities in the world, including highly regarded researchers on firearm violence, we have the capacity to do what Congress has failed to do – get the facts, apply sound scientific methods, and find answers that lead to solutions,” said State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis), author of Senate Bill 1006.

    and then skew the data to hell and back so it fits our narrative

  28. The bill would declare the intent of the Legislature that the Regents of the University of California establish the California Firearm Violence Research Center to research firearm-related violence.

    … …

    14231. (a) It is the intent of the Legislature to establish a center for research into firearm-related violence. It is the intent of the Legislature that the center be administered by the University of California pursuant to the following principles:

    I.E. We aren’t paying you people’s hard earned money to tell us that rapes will increase if guns were banned, or that suicide rates aren’t going to change by taking people’s guns away. We certainly don’t want to hear about rights or liberties. You need to focus on Gun violence, and that no guns = no gun violence, obviously.

    (5) It is the intent of the Legislature to support the center’s activities by funding the center with an appropriation to a Firearm Violence Research Center Account. The center may also seek additional federal, state, and private funds.

    Yep. So because the Democratic Party has the majority votes in the state, all tax payers in California get to pay for this.

    …All research funds shall be awarded on the basis of scientific merit as determined by an open, competitive peer review process that assures objectivity, consistency, and high quality.

    I.E. – Produce some high quality results we like and you’ll get more money. We aren’t paying you to tell us that guns aren’t the root cause here – we are paying you to tell us what we would like to hear and if you would like more funding, you need to make that happen.

    …Its research shall extend to firearm violence as a form of terrorism.

    I.E. We have already labeled the NRA as terrorists – we want to stay on this level.

    …States can serve as democracy’s laboratories for firearm violence prevention research, as they do for other major health and social problems – Dickey

    I.E. Let’s have states experiment on people’s civil rights and see what happens. Come on – it’s a great idea!

  29. The Feds won’t interfere with California’s Demo-commie-crats because, if you haven’t noticed the Justice Department is run by Obama’s Demo-commie-crat Appointees.

    Reading through the list of “supporters” starting with Di-Fi, it is composed pretty exclusively of the chief gun-haters in California.

    If enacted they will use their “data” to support gun control in the rest of the Country at Federal and State levels. The California University System is a paradigm of Über Left thinking and has great prestige with the Progressive Statists and the Leftist controlled MSM. They will be overjoyed to quote the “findings” from the University of California as they work to destroy Americans’ gun rights.

    Yes, this is not a good development. So, the old hag in the photo is signaling what this group intends to do to American gun owners, metaphorically, of course.

    I suggest we all work to elect Ted Cruz POTUS next Fall, since he’s the only one we know to have made and eaten Machine Gun Bacon and is most likely to put the Justice Department back to enforcing the Laws fairly.

    • I have tried to tell other people about Mr Cruz. It seems the noise of the Donald has managed to drown out most of the legitimate information. Evidently there is some heat between The Donald and Cruz. I fear the republican candidates are going to succeed and destroying each other to the point that the nominee will be ripped to shreds before the general election even begins to take shape. I really wish they would has their arguments on their plans and their merits, not their personal lives.

      • I have already publicly committed to vote “not-Hilary” in the general election Nov. 6, but I am voting Ted Cruz in the California Primary on June 6. I’ll vote for Trump if that’s who the Republicans finally nominate, but I hope it’s Cruz. So many people say they absolutely will not vote for Trump and the prospect of Hilary Clinton becoming the next POTUS is too sickening to risk.

  33. This is s great example for reducing the education budget. Interesting how freedom goes away and california becomes a slave state. While in southern states freedom grows.
    There needs to be a cultural change in California. Just as there was a cultural change in the south.
    It will take a very, very long time for that to happen.

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