(MCT) — ATLANTA — Do guns make people safer or less safe? Are some guns simply too lethal to be abroad in the land? At one time, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was at the forefront in that debate, dedicated to addressing gun violence as a matter of public health. But gun rights advocates cried foul, accusing the CDC of practicing politics rather than science, and Congress agreed, stripping the agency of funding for gun-related research.

Now, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, echoes of that old battle are part of the renewed hue and cry over the place of guns in American society.