Currently, per a 1996 law passed by Congress, the CDC is barred from using funds to “advocate or promote gun control.”  Now, some 100 or more medical organizations want Congress to lift this ban, so they can research “gun violence.”  The letter they’ve written to four Congressional committees making this request can be seen here, and it’s signed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among those 100+.

These groups admit that the ban on using CDC funding to conduct this research does not ban the research, but they claim that the lack of government funding amounts to such a ban.

No.  This is just cynicism: if these guys actually thought the research they propose had any value, they’d go ahead and do it.  They’re just demanding OPM so they don’t have to make the hard choices of priority setting.

Elections have consequences.