Small beginnings

Congress Agrees to Devote $25 Million Towards Gun Violence Research

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health will each receive $12.5 million for research on the topic.

Congress agreed to devote $25 million towards gun violence research, the first federal funding the topic has received in over 20 years, ABC News reports. According to the bill, two agencies—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health—will each receive $12.5 million for research on the “underlying causes” of violence and suicide using guns along with “evidence-based methods of prevention of injury, including crime prevention.” While the final number is only half of the $50 million the House of Representatives approved for gun violence research earlier this year, the money is the first major funding the topic has received since the 1996 passing of the Dickey Amendment—which prohibited federally-funded research that would “advocate for or against gun control.” In 2018, lawmakers clarified the amendment’s language to permit research into gun violence’s causes but the move came with no funding. According to JAMA Internal Medicine, the publication of gun violence research declined 64 percent during the years following the Dickey Amendment.