Congress Still Bans CDC Scientists From Studying Gun Violence

In the wake of another mass shooting (among
many this year), we are asking again: What
causes gun violence? Is there a causal
relationship between gun ownership and gun
violence? We might know the answers to these
questions, or at least have a body of empirical
evidence getting us closer to the answers, if
government scientists were allowed to study
them.
But they’re not.
In June, the Appropriations Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives rejected an
amendment that would have repealed a ban on
scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) conducting research to study
the relationship between gun ownership and gun
violence. Supporters of the ban, including
current House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
argue that the CDC shouldn’t study these
questions because “a gun is not a disease.”

Arguably, though, CDC researchers have studied
other kinds of environmental factors that play a
role in human health and in human behaviors
with implications for human health. Are alcohol,
tobacco, and other drugs of abuse diseases? Is a
faulty ventilation system, of the sort that might
provide a hospitable environment for the
bacterium that causes Legionnaire’s disease? Is
a hurricane? If you think, given its scientific
mission, that the CDC is the wrong group of
government scientists to study the connection
between gun ownership and gun violence, fine.
Allocate funding to the right government
scientists, those working in the appropriate
scientific disciplines to conduct the research.
Establish research grants to support academic
scientists studying this question. Do something to
mobilize scientists to address this problem.
Or, admit that the point of the ban is that you
don’t want scientists to work on these questions
at all.
Why wouldn’t you want scientists to look into
connections between gun ownership and gun
violence?
Perhaps you think the question has already been
decisively answered by existing research. This
would make spending additional money, on
research to answer an already-answered
question, wasteful. If this is where you stand,
show us the study .