Gun Violence Researchers Becoming an Endangered Species

NEW YORK— Amid the bloodbaths of 21st-century America, you might think that there would be a lot of research into the causes of gun violence, and which policies work best against it.You would be wrong.Gun interests, wary of any possible limits on wea...
Gun Violence Researchers Becoming an Endangered Species
FILE - In this Wednesday, April 23, 1975 file photo, Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., left, chairman of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on juvenile delinquency, and David MacDonald, assistant secretary of treasury, look over a display of guns prior to hearings on gun control in Washington. Republican President Richard Nixon also favored gun control. Bayh says that the NRA helped prevent his 1972 bill banning "Saturday night special" handguns from getting through Congress. AP Photo/Henry Griffin
|Updated:

NEW YORK—Amid the bloodbaths of 21st-century America, you might think that there would be a lot of research into the causes of gun violence, and which policies work best against it.

You would be wrong.

Gun interests, wary of any possible limits on weaponry, have successfully lobbied for limitations on government research and funding, and private sources have not filled the breach. So funding for basic gun violence research and data collection remains minuscule—the annual sum total for all gun violence research projects appears to be well under $5 million. A grant for a single study in areas like autism, cancer, or HIV can be more than twice that much.

There are public health students who want to better understand rising gun-related suicide rates, recent explosions in firearm murders in many U.S. cities, and mass murders like the one this month at an Oregon community college, where a lone gunman killed nine people.

Many who study gun violence report receiving angry emails and death threats from believers in unrestricted gun ownership.