The University of California-Davis has received a $5 million, 5-year grant from the state to establish what it calls the state’s “first ever gun violence research center” at the UC Davis Medical Center. The center will be run by UC Davis professor Garen Wintemute, who defends the center against claims of bias by saying, “We are driven by data, not by a policy agenda.”
Perhaps—but just who is backing this effort? Sen. Lois Wolk, who previously authored legislation turning California college campuses into gun-free zones, proposed the center; the California legislature, which just passed a package of the most draconian gun-control laws in the nation, passed the grant measure; Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed that package into law; and the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics, both of which back every gun-control scheme imaginable. Oh, and let’s not forget the president of UC Davis—former Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department once warned that returning veterans might constitute a terrorism risk.
Professor Wintemute, your new center contains more than a faint whiff of a hidden agenda.