Academics Renew Calls for Research on Gun Violence

(from Inside Higher Ed) This week's mass shootings in Las Vegas have prompted university scholars to renew efforts calling for shifts in federal policy to fund research on gun violence. In more than 40 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded only three grants on gun violence, far fewer than the number of grants studying diseases like cholera, rabies, polio and diphtheria, which have affected a tiny fraction as many people. A major cause for the inaction has been restrictions by federal policymakers, mostly Republicans, blocking research into gun violence prevention.

Scholars from organizations including the American Educational Research Association, the American Anthropological Association and the American Sociological Association have issued statements calling on Congress to lift restrictions. Such efforts in the past have failed, however — even in 2013, when the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School prompted President Obama to urge Congress to fund research into gun violence. In the meantime, lack of federal support has spurred programs outside of government. In June, the University of California, Davis, opened the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center. 

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