Poor Mojo's Newswire

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 deceive the public about the dangers of guns. Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

Newtown residents said many of the ranges in the area have long waiting lists of people eager to join, which has led to the profusion of informal ranges. On High Rock Road, where many gunfire complaints originated, what appeared to be three or more gun ranges were set back from the road. The owner of one, Scott Ostrosky, said he and his friends had been shooting automatic weapons since he bought the 23-acre property more than 12 years ago. It is safe, he said, because his land is sandwiched between two other gun ranges, the 123-acre Pequot hunting club and the 500-acre Fairfield club. The explosions his neighbors hear are targets that are legally available at hunting outlets. “If you’re good old boys like we are, they are exciting,” he said. He said he was distraught at the school massacre but said guns should not be made the “scapegoat.” “Guns are why we’re free in this country, and people lose sight of that when tragedies like this happen,” he said. “A gun didn’t kill all those children, a disturbed man killed all those children.”

iOS: Tired of built-in apps like Stocks and Weather taking up space on your home screen when you've got better third-party alternatives you're using instead? The developers behind Rag3Hack figured out a way to hide them so they're not cluttering up your mobile. Here's how it works: Visit rag3hack.no-ip.org on your iDevice. Tap Hide Apps without Jailbreak. Choose the app you want to hide and tap it. You'll be asked to install a new app/certificate. Confirm that you want to do this. The installation will fail, but that's supposed to happen. Tap "Done" when you receive the failure message. Long press an icon on your home screen to enter "jiggle mode" and go find the app you wanted to hide. You'll now see that the app is blank and has the word "Hide" before its name (e.g. "Hide Stocks"). Tap the "X" in the upper-left corner to remove it.