[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 3, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E201-E202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL GUN VIOLENCE RESEARCH ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 3, 2021

  Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, today I am introducing the 
National Gun Violence Research Act.
  As Chairwoman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, I 
am committed to elevating the voice of science in the consequential 
deliberations taking place in this body. In our efforts to develop 
fair, effective, and sustainable policy solutions to the challenges 
facing the American people, we must ensure we are drawing from a strong 
base of evidence. My fellow Committee Members and I are dedicated to 
ensuring that the U.S. scientific enterprise is equipped with the 
resources it needs to derive that evidence. As the COVID-19 crisis has 
clearly demonstrated, there are enormous benefits to having a thriving 
research ecosystem in place that is poised to respond when called upon.
  Gun violence is a threat to our national welfare. The Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report reviewing the 
latest gun mortality data last month entitled A Public Health Crisis 
Decades in the Making. And the numbers are stark. For the past three 
years in a row, nearly 40,000 people were killed by guns in the United 
States. The vast majority of these deaths, 86 percent, were males. 
Tragically, one in ten were children and teens. Put another way, guns 
were the leading cause of deaths for Americans age 1 to 24. After years 
of slow, but steady decline, gun homicides are on the rise, accounting 
for one third of gun deaths in 2019. Black men are more than 20 times 
as likely as White men to be victims of firearm homicide. The majority 
of firearm deaths are suicides. The rate of suicide fatalities has 
steadily increased over the past decade, with white men more than twice 
as likely to die by firearm suicide than non-white men.
  And the stressors associated with the COVID-19 crisis have not 
helped. Early research suggests that the rate of gun violence

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has risen dramatically during the pandemic, with factors such as 
increased unemployment, increased alcohol consumption, and increased 
firearm purchases potentially playing a role.
  The fact is that gun violence is rampant in our society and lives 
will continue to be lost unless we act decisively to stem this tide. I 
commend my colleagues in the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for 
their leadership in advancing the policy discussions surrounding this 
issue. I was thrilled to see the appropriations committees approve $25 
million for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to 
support gun violence research, finally putting an end to the de facto 
ban on federal funding for this important area of study.
  We are heading in the right direction, but there is much more to be 
done. We must take a bold, comprehensive approach to grow the field of 
gun violence research. We need to attract more students to careers in 
gun violence research and support interdisciplinary collaboration to 
connect experts in public health with those in criminology and the 
social and behavioral sciences. We need to support the translation of 
research into effective policy interventions. We need better 
coordination among key agencies like the CDC, NIH, the National Science 
Foundation, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, and 
the Department of Justice.
  The National Gun Violence Research Act takes a whole-of-government 
approach to addressing the paucity of federal funding for research on 
gun violence by directing the President to establish a six-year 
National Gun Violence Research Program. To carry out the program, 
funding is authorized for the National Science Foundation ($15 M), the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology ($1 M), the Department 
of Health and Human Services ($25 M), and the Department of Justice ($3 
M) to conduct or support gun violence research. In addition to awarding 
individual research grants, the National Science Foundation is directed 
to establish a much-needed national center for violence research to 
encourage multidisciplinary collaboration and train the next generation 
of gun violence researchers. Research enabled by this legislation will 
improve our understanding of gun violence so we can advance effective 
solutions and save lives.

                          ____________________