Why the Gun Violence Research Ban at the CDC?

As tragic mass shootings and rates of gun violence murders have surged, places like California have been able to successfully implement sensible weapons policy reforms and regulations, while other states, such as Georgia, are aggressively working to dismantle even the most basic gun control measures to allow firearms everywhere.

To accurately understand which laws and policies actually work to lower gun deaths, relevant scientific research on what is effective is needed; but for decades the Center for Disease Control has been prevented from doing any research on the issue whatsoever. Thanks in large part to the NRA, all federal funding for academically studying gun violence in the United States has been frozen since 1996.

Gun Violence Research Ban

The desperate efforts of some Republicans to prevent the CDC from ever doing any public health research on preventing gun violence is most strange indeed. Georgia Republican Jack Kingston is a senior member of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, and stated that our nation’s 2015 federal budget will not include the $10 million requested to fund much needed scientific research on lowering gun violence rates. The confused politician recently told the public interest journalism site Pro Publica that the Obama Administration’s proposed scientific study was somehow really just a desire to create anti-gun propaganda:

“The President’s request to fund propaganda for his gun-grabbing initiatives though the CDC will not be included in the FY2015 appropriations bill.”

Here is an excerpt from Pro Publica’s Republicans Say No to CDC Gun Violence Research article on this public health issue::

In a statement to ProPublica, Kingston said he would oppose a proposal from President Obama for $10 million in CDC gun research funding. “The President’s request to fund propaganda for his gun-grabbing initiatives though the CDC will not be included in the FY2015 appropriations bill,” Kingston said. 

Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), the vice chairman of the subcommittee, also “supports the long-standing prohibition of gun control advocacy or promotion funding,” his spokeswoman said. 

CDC’s current funding for gun violence prevention research remains at $0. 

As gun violence spiked in the early 1990s, the CDC ramped up its funding of firearms violence research. Then, in 1996, it backed off under pressure from Congress and the National Rifle Association. Funding for firearms injury prevention activities dropped from more than $2.7 million in 1995 to barely $100,000 by 2012, according to CDC figures. 

After the Sandy Hook shootings, Obama issued a presidential memorandum “directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.”

Following Obama’s instructions, the authoritative Institute of Medicine put together a report on priorities for research on reducing gun violence. Among the questions that need answers, according to the report: Do background checks — the most popular and prominent gun control policy proposal — actually reduce gun violence? How often do Americans successfully use guns to protect themselves each year? And — a question that Kingston himself had raised repeatedly — what is the relationship between violence in video games and other media and “real-life” violence?

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who led the CDC’s gun violence research in the 1990s, said that the National Rifle Association and other opponents of funding have often fueled a misconception: that Americans can be for guns or for gun research, but not both…

You can read the entire Pro Publica here.

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