As the tragic shooting in Colorado last week has reignited the debate over guns, one key public policy question — does gun control save lives? — is almost impossible to answer thanks to a dearth of research on the subject. That lack of research is no accident. It's the product of a concerted campaign by the gun lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill to stymie and even explicitly outlaw scientific research into gun violence in what critics charge is an attempt to... (GunPolicy.org)

Yet another senseless killing spree shocked America this week, as word spread of Monday's tragedy at Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. The pattern is all too familiar: A shooter possessed by pent-up anger or resentment apparently sets out to kill - not necessarily the people who caused his misery, but anyone connected to a place or institution with which it was associated. All of these deaths are tragic, but there is something especially poignant when the setting is... (GunPolicy.org)

It didn't take much effort for the accused gunman in Tucson's Jan. 8 mass shooting to buy a semiautomatic handgun and ammunition - quick trips to the Sportsman's Warehouse and Walmart near his home. It didn't take long - 15 seconds - for him to shoot 19 people, killing six, when he fired 31 rounds using a high-capacity magazine. That's roughly double the standard number for the Glock pistol he used. And even if police could go back in time, they wouldn't have been... (GunPolicy.org)

The horror of sexual violence that has blighted the lives of women and girls in DR Congo is nowhere more apparent than at Panzi Hospital, in Bukavu. The first thing that strikes you is the long queue of women. In some parts of East Congo, three out of four women have been raped during the 14 years of conflict. Panzi is East Congo's leading referral hospital for rape survivors, who constitute over two thirds of its patients. Doctors there began vaginal... (GunPolicy.org)

[Continued from Part 1 of 2] The Best Defense None of the numbers about the risks of keeping a gun in the home was irrefutable. No scientist involved was arguing that the question was firmly settled or that gun research should stop. But in the political trenches, the trend seemed clear. Here's our proof! The gun controllers chorused happily. And they sent spokesmen like Paul Newman out to trumpet it. It's a conspiracy to ban guns! The anti-controllers howled. And in... (GunPolicy.org)

The evangelists of "injury control" believe that scientific knowledge and public health activism can break America's cycle of firearms mayhem. But can they survive the treacherous politics of gun control? Trigger Points It's a gray winter morning and Brian Wiersema is steering his Mazda Navajo east on Landover Road en route to Prince George's County police headquarters. He drives past Jimmy's Crab House and some other places familiar from the local crime reports ("A... (GunPolicy.org)