Democrats are ramping up pressure on the GOP to fund gun violence research for the first time in two decades.
Congress put pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back in 1996, when conservatives feared the agency was promoting gun control and led to threats to defund the agency. Congress banned the CDC from gun advocacy, and CDC adopted a self-imposed ban on research, and to this day says it has no dedicated funding to resume gun violence research, as Congress has rejected requests by President Obama to supply the funds.
Eighteen Senate Democrats have written to Appropriations Committee leaders urging them to schedule a hearing on appropriating funds to the CDC for research into the causes and prevention of gun violence in the United States. Such research is more desperately needed now than ever before, they wrote, with more than 32,000 people dying from gun violence every year.
The request also comes on the heels of several executive actions Obama announced this week to require more gun sellers to obtain licenses, and expand background checks for more buyers.
“Gun violence continues to plague our country,” wrote Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and colleagues. “Mass shootings, like those in San Bernardino, Roseburg, Lafayette, Chattanooga, Charleston, Newtown and Aurora have become incomprehensibly commonplace … the troublesome persistence of shooting incidents only underscores the continued need to support peer-reviewed research.”
