Guns and public health: research funds available again

 Here's the story, from the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Gun Violence Researchers Are Making Up for 20 Years of Lost Time by Alicia Ault, JAMA. Published online August 4, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.11469

"By late July, the Gun Violence Archive reported 25 370 US firearm deaths in 2021, putting the year on track to surpass last year’s 43 559 deaths. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data showed that 39 707 people lost their lives to gun violence in 2019. It was the third consecutive year in which US gun violence deaths approached 40 000 and the end of a decade in which the death rate from gun violence increased by 17%, from 10.1 to 11.9 deaths per 100 000 population. The rate has remained above 11 per 100 000 population since 2015.

"Although the CDC gathers firearm mortality data, its gun violence research had largely been dormant since 1996 when the Dickey Amendment prohibited the agency from using its injury prevention funding “to advocate or promote gun control.” The amendment technically didn’t prohibit gun violence research, but the chill was numbing.

"In 2019, however, Congress authorized $25 million in spending on gun violence research, to be split evenly between the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Although the amount is nearly 10 times greater than the $2.6 million that the CDC was spending on gun violence prevention studies when the Dickey Amendment took effect, a leading expert said the field is still woefully underfunded.