Gun Control & RKBA

In 1996, amid backlash to two major federal gun laws — the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban — Congress passed the ****ey Amendment, named for its sponsor, Rep. Jay ****ey (R-Ark.). That measure stipulated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” In the years since, headlines have described a federal funding “freeze” or “drought,” or claimed that “gun violence research has been shut down for 20 years.”

In terms of dollar amounts, this was a huge blow to gun research. Nevertheless, federally funded gun research marched on — just not from a public health perspective. Instead, criminal justice approaches have dominated federally funded gun research, with the National Institute of Justice leading the way in terms of the number of studies funded and the amount funded, as my co-author Rina James and I discuss in a forthcoming study. (I know firsthand that the federal government funds such research: I receive funding from the National Science Foundation to study how survivors experience the aftermath of gun violence in California and Florida.) It matters not just whether the federal government funds gun research but also how: A criminal justice-focused approach crowds out other ways of thinking about, and crafting public policy regarding, guns rights and gun harm.