The U.S. federal government does not fund research into gun violence and few private groups are providing any funds for such research. This means that with little funding, basic research on gun violence and injuries is not being done.
The amount of funding for research into the causes and prevention of gun violence may be under $5 million a year, according to the Associated Press. In comparison, a single grant for one study for cancer or HIV would be more than that.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are among the top five causes of death for people aged 1 to 64. There are about 32,000 deaths caused by guns in the United States each year; nearly half occurring in the South. The rates for gun murders and unintentional shooting deaths have been falling, but the rates for suicide have been rising, with suicide accounting for 60% of gun deaths. Nonfatal shooting injuries are at their highest level since 1995.
State and federal officials frequently debate gun laws or consider violence prevention programs, but finding out what programs are actually effective takes the type of research that is not being done.
Many young researchers are not choosing to conduct research because they believe Congress will not fund the research, according to the Associated Press. Anyone who does study gun violence often receives death threats. Some young researchers are put off by the idea that their findings could be politicized.
U.S. health researchers began to look at gun violence about 30 years ago. The CDC started to research violence. But in 1996, lawmakers sympathetic to the National Rifle Association (NRA) took the CDC money budgeted for firearm injury research and earmarked it for traumatic brain injury. Congressional Republicans directed that no CDC funding on injuries could go to research that might be used to advocate or promote gun control.
After the shootings in Newtown, CT, the White House directed the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. But Congress did not budget money to the CDC for gun violence research and did not change the legislative language against research on guns.
The Associated Press made several requests for comments to the NRA, which did not respond.
