Disengaged probe By John R. Lott Jr.
Special to the (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram

Isn’t it obvious that the government
should fund academic research? Yet
as clear as the benefits seem, there
is a downside: Government officials simply cannot resist
injecting politics into anything they touch.
[...]
But there is a more insidious problem from government funding:
Politicians want research that supports their positions. Only
certain types of questions get to be studied, with funding
restricted to select, pre-approved researchers or institutions.

Take the new National Academy of Sciences panel set to
study firearms research. The panel, meeting for the first time
last week was started during the last days of the Clinton
administration. Its report is scheduled to be released right
before the 2004 elections.

The project scope set out by the Clinton people was carefully
planned to examine only the negative side of guns. Rather than
compare how firearms facilitate both harm and self-defense,
the panel was asked only to examine “firearm violence” or how
“firearms may become embedded in (a) community.” It is
difficult to come up with a positive spin on terms like “embedded.”
[...]
http://web.star-telegram.com/content/fortworth/2001/09/09/opinions/fw0314
01-0909-XF001-guns.htm