Congress reached an agreement on Monday to allocate $25 million toward research on gun violence and gun safety, the first time federal funding has been allocated to such research in more than 20 years.
If the bill is passed, $25 million would be split evenly between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund research on “Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention.”
“Given violence and suicide have a number of causes, the agreement recommends the CDC take a comprehensive approach to studying these underlying causes and evidence-based methods of prevention of injury, including crime prevention,” the bill states, with the same language later repeated for the NIH.
The Dickey Amendment of 1996, named after former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.), stated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the [CDC] may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The law was the focus of a political fight for more than two decades, and after it passed, the CDC largely abandoned gun research.
Barr’s announcement came shortly after back-to-back shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed more than 30 people. Speaking shortly after the shootings, Trump said that he is committed to working with Congress to “stop the menace of mass attacks,” adding that public safety is the No. 1 priority.