Democrats in the House and Senate have proposed legislation that would carve out $60 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research firearm safety and gun violence prevention over the next six years.
The bill is likely to draw opposition from Republicans, who have rejected the idea that gun violence is something that needs to be treated as a disease or a public health issue that can be studied by the CDC.
President Obama lifted a ban on federal research on gun violence in 2013, but the CDC has faced funding obstacles since then, which has prevented any significant work in this area.
The legislation, from Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., would provide that funding and authorize the CDC to spend $10 million on gun safety research per year through fiscal year 2021.
“A few extremists…oppose basic public health research to help us understand why gun violence has reached epidemic proportions,” Maloney said.
“The epidemic of gun violence in America is not preordained, it is preventable,” said Markey. “In the 21st century, we should use research and advances in technology to our advantage and save lives from tragic and needless gun violence.”
Maloney and Markey also proposed another gun bill on Tuesday, one that would provide federal grant money to help develop the technology to produce handguns that can be programmed so they are only useable by the owner and other designated users. That bill would also mandate that all newly made guns are made with this technology after five years.
Supporters of the bill say both changes are a necessary response to shootings that have taken place across the country over the last several years. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in late 2012 is what prompted Obama to lift the ban on federal gun violence research.
