Tangled Web

What A Tangled Web They Weave

(Posted by: Cam Edwards, 9-20-07) CamEdwards.com is the online magazine written by Cam Edwards, a veteran talk show host currently hosting “Cam and Company” on NRAnews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio. “Cam and Company” airs weeknights 9-midnight Eastern/6-9 p.m. Pacific.

This is just sad. On Wednesday, the International Association of Chiefs of Police held a big press conference on Capitol Hill to release a new report on “gun violence”. They had 39 specific recommendations, but you’ve heard them all before. Ban the .50 caliber rifle. Ban “assault weapons”. Institute one-gun-a-month laws. No transactions without it going through a federally licensed firearms dealer. It’s a Christmas wish-list for gun banners. Which is no surprise, given that this report was bought and paid for by the anti-gun Joyce Foundation.

I’m sure there’ll be plenty of news stories on this report, but I’d be shocked if any of them contained the following information.

In 2006, the Joyce Foundation doled out $375,000 to the IACP to convene the “Great Lakes States Summit on Gun Violence”. That conference was held in April of this year. This is in addition to the $174,788 the Joyce Foundation also paid to IACP to develop and plan the summit.

Today’s report, according to IACP, comes from that summit.

Among the report’s “contributors” is a fellow named Matthew Miller, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Coincidentally, Harvard University’s School of Public Health received a $700,000 grant from the Joyce Foundation in 2005, in part to “conduct policy-relevant firearms research”. Among the other “contributors” to the report are Mary O’Connell (Dir. of Communications for the Joyce Foundation), Tom Diaz (Senior Policy Analyst at the Violence Policy Center), Kristen Rand (Policy Advisor at the Violence Policy Center), and Roseanna Ander (Program Officer at the Joyce Foundation). The report writers were Christine Allred (who doesn’t work for IACP, or at least isn’t listed as a staff member in the report) and Valerie Denney, who runs a PR firm in Chicago that lists the Joyce Foundation as one of their clients.

Oh, by the way, the Violence Policy Center? Yeah, it also received $450,000 in 2005 and a whopping $700,000 in 2006 from the Joyce Foundation.

Now, just a couple of notes. There is not one identifiable pro-2nd Amendment individual associated with the writing or contributions for this report. That’s fine. No one’s saying anti-gunners should be forced to put pro-gunners in their little play groups. But the media will not report this as “An anti-gun group today released a new report on gun control”. They will report this as “Today our nation’s law enforcement officers, together with some of the biggest names on Capitol Hill, called for more common sense gun laws to reduce violent crime.”

That’s baloney. This is an anti-gun report bought and paid for by an anti-gun foundation, assembled by anti-gunners from the Joyce Foundation, Harvard, and the Violence Policy Center. I’ve seen more serious studies written by Carrot Top and Larry the Cable Guy.

And one other note… don’t be surprised if in the near future, we hear something from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health about this report. The Joyce Foundation gave them $175,000 this year to “study two Midwest-based law enforcement initiatives focused on preventing firearm violence”. In other words, “we’ll pay you to critique the gun control report we just bought”. Gee, you think the Johns Hopkins study will be critical of IACP’s report?

If you do, can I interest you in some land I have for sale in Arizona? It’s got some great oceanfront views…