U.S. significantly boosts funding for gun violence research

The federal government has put millions into gun violence research since 2020 following decades of minimal support.

The U.S. Congress passed an omnibus bill in 1996 that included the "Dickey Amendment," which effectively stifled government-funded research on gun violence for several years.

At the time, the CDC considered firearm violence to be a public health issue and funded studies that aimed to reduce firearm deaths and injuries. But the Dickey Amendment put a stop to that, preventing the use of federal funding to advocate for or promote gun control.

As a result, gun violence research between 2004 and 2015 was substantially underfunded and understudied relative to other leading causes of death, according to a 2017 study. If that research was funded relative to other public health issues, researchers found, it would receive roughly $100 million.

But after several years of partisan gridlock, Congress passed a bipartisan bill in 2019 that began allocating $25 million each year to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health to revive gun violence research.

September marked four years since the first projects received funds, according to The Trace. The newsroom conducted an analysis to see how much money has been doled out, how it's been spent, who is getting the most and what is being studied.

The Trace learned that at least $137 million has been distributed since 2020 for 127 projects. Most of the federally funded studies have focused on youth gun violence, firearm suicide prevention and community violence intervention.

Of all the grants, 57 - nearly half - address gun violence among children, The Trace found. Another 36 projects research firearm suicide, and nine of those focus on suicide within active duty military members and veterans. Other projects are looking at suicide among people of color and young people. Community violence and hospital-based interventions are also getting a large share of the funding.

Several studies are looking into the root causes of crime and whether it's possible to change someone's behavior and risk level, according to The Trace.

The Trace pointed out that some aspects of gun violence got more funding than others. Only six grants were awarded to research investigating guns and intimate partner violence. None of the funded projects are investigating the origins of guns used in crimes and how they get diverted from legal commerce into the black market.

The lion's share of the money went to researchers in just seven states, The Trace learned. About $88 million of the money, or 64%, went to projects in California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The University of Michigan was the single largest recipient with $31.5 million, or 23 percent of the total. The university has one of the country's longest-running gun violence research programs.

While there's a push to get more funds allocated and cover more aspects of firearm violence, researchers told The Trace that infusion has made a difference.

The increased funding has "basically breathed life back into the field," Cassandra Crifasi, co-director of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told The Trace. She was given a $1 million grant to study whether permit-to-purchase laws reduce youth violence and intimate partner violence.

We've covered two studies that received NIH funding. They examined how local media reports on gun violence revealed that Philadelphia TV news stations are failing to produce public health coverage of firearm violence. And they found that these stations routinely overreport on shootings involving children, mass shootings and shootings that happen in wealthier areas with majority white residents.