The Centers For Disease Control used to be permitted to conduct statistical research into the causes of firearms related deaths.
This reliance on tangible data and statical science must have alarmed someone. In 1996 Rep. Dickey of Arkansas added legislation to an existant bill that slashed $2.6 Million from the budget of the CDC, the cost of the study. To this day the CDC is still bound by the amendment, and this has had a chilling effect on research into the correlates and causes of firearms violence.
Appropriate, quantifiable data from a high quality source such as the CDC can serve as part of the solution to our national dilemma regarding firearms. Finding the "cause" of firearms violence is both reasonable and meaningful, and can help legislators do their job effectively.