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Tide may be turning to free up funding to study gun violence

Modern Healthcare: Dr. Marian Betz, a University of Colorado emergency medicine researcher, is studying how to counsel suicidal adults and their families on the best way to store their guns and reduce easy access. The two-year, $800,000 study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, will evaluate whether such decision-support aids reduce suicide gun deaths.

Such federal grants to study gun violence and how to reduce it have been rare since 1996 when a law was enacted barring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from collecting data to advocate for gun control. Betz was able to get her grant only because in 2013, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Connecticut, President Barack Obama restarted limited federal funding for such research.

Now there's guarded hope for a bigger resumption of funding among gun violence researchers, who say there are many fundamental questions that must be answered before policymakers can craft effective, comprehensive strategies for reducing accidental injuries and deaths, suicides, and homicides by firearms.

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