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Yale University academics voiced concern that the federal agencies which fund gun control studies may have to stop bankrolling the politicized efforts under the next budget.
Democrats have often supported funding research into violence with firearms at agencies such as the CDC and NIH, even as Republicans warn that such research seeks to legitimize gun control. One budget bill draft would eliminate funds for “any research relating to gunshot injury or mortality prevention that treats crimes committed with a firearm as a public health epidemic.”
Daniele Poole, the director of research at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, remarked in comments for the official Yale student newspaper that “a lack of federal funds” could indeed stagnate their efforts to advance “gun violence prevention research that can save a lot of lives.”
“This proposal matters because it’s going to zero out all of the money not just on gun violence prevention research but also gunshot injury research,” Poole asserted. “So that’s not just firearm injury prevention. That’s things like traumatic brain injuries, domestic violence, and other types of injuries that have a really important impact on our society and deserve attention.”
Linda Degutis, an epidemiology lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, said that eliminating the funds would ultimately mark a shift from past years in which “you could still talk about it, you could use their money, as long as the research didn’t call for gun control or gun reform.”
Republican lawmakers have indeed pressed House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, to block federal appropriations for gun control studies, even writing a letter earlier this year asking him to nix the research in order to “protect the Second Amendment.”
“Congress had intended for CDC and NIH to conduct research on medical procedures, practices, treatments, medicines, and therapies related to firearm injuries and recovery,” the letter said. “Instead, this funding has been weaponized to promote and advocate gun control.”
The document contended that the Biden administration has approved gun control studies “in total violation” of the Dickey Amendment, a rule which states that no funds at the CDC or NIH may be used “to advocate or promote gun control.” Lawmakers cited several such examples, including a $490,000 study to examine “a state with constitutional carry versus a state with strict gun control” and a $650,000 study to examine “firearm prohibitions and relinquishment.”
