By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland (WA-10), Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), and Representatives Elissa Slotkin (MI-07) and Mark Takano (CA-39) recently introduced the Gun Violence Prevention Research Act to fund Center for Disease Control (CDC) research into the nation’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence.
According to Strickland, gun violence in our neighborhoods and schools can be prevented and believes extensive research and looking at gun violence as a public health crisis can root out this crisis. The legislation would authorize $50 million, each year, over the next five years to boost firearms safety and gun violence prevention research.
“Make no mistake: gun violence is preventable. Republicans actively choose to watch children, mothers, fathers, and Americans gunned down in deference to the gun lobby,” said Strickland. “We must root out the gun violence crisis in our nation. This legislation will simply treat gun violence as the public health crisis it is, and allow us to research it so we can take steps toward saving lives.”
Many experts across the country believe that Congress is not doing enough to help curb the violence and bring about comprehensive gun reform.
“I am outraged and horrified by the massacre in Nashville, which took the lives of three innocent children. We cannot keep living this way, and our children cannot keep dying this way,” said Senator Markey. “From our streets to our schools, it’s clear that Congress hasn’t yet done what it’s going to take to end this fatal crisis.
According to Markey, the gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis that has taken the lives of more than 180,000 Americans in the last 5 years. Currently, the CDC is supporting more than 20 individual research projects dedicated to the study of gun violence prevention, including research on understanding the unique harms posed to young people, mitigating gun violence in highest-risk communities, and stopping firearm suicides among military service members and veterans, and more.
“Stopping the spread of our nation’s gun violence epidemic will require acting on the reforms we already know are essential, like an immediate assault weapons ban, while we simultaneously invest more to study the root causes of violence and develop evidence-based solutions,” says Markey.
“[This] legislation would bolster gun violence prevention research with the help of our nation’s top medical, scientific, and public health researchers, so that we can chart a path out of this public health crisis and save lives,” he concluded.
