Humans are inherently curious creatures. We came down from the trees and started trying to figure out how the whole universe works almost immediately, even if we started small with things like how to create fire, or how can we tell which plants are safe to eat, which ones let us converse with God, and which ones just kill you?
We’ve come a long way from those days, to say the least. Now, we wrestle with bigger questions, but not all of them are on a cosmic scale, and not every researcher can be trusted to look for truth, rather than to advance his or her own politics. That’s especially true in the gun space of research, where we’ve long seen massive problems with the quality of the research that gets churned out.
Now, though, one congresswoman wants the CDC to essentially put its stamp of approval on this shoddy research and create a database of it that the public can access.
U.S. Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.) introduced legislation that would put the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in charge of creating a publicly accessible federal database of “gun violence prevention” research.
The Gun Violence Prevention and Public Safety Database Act of 2026, listed as H.R. 9274, would direct CDC to build and maintain an online database of research related to “gun violence” and public safety. It would also authorize $5 million in taxpayer money each fiscal year from 2026 through 2030 to carry out this goal.
That is not neutral housekeeping. It is a taxpayer-funded effort to create a federal clearinghouse for a gun control agenda that begins with a goal — create more restrictions on law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment rights — then searches for the “right” data to justify it.
Don’t be shocked that we’re extremely skeptical of this scheme. Just look at the track record.
A Federal Stamp for Gun Control Research
Rep. Foushee’s bill would require CDC to include research from federal public health data systems, peer-reviewed journals, research organizations and information issued or commissioned by federal, state or local government agencies. It would also require CDC to publish inclusion criteria and update the database every six months.
That gives federal officials broad discretion to decide what research is elevated, what receives the implied credibility of a CDC platform and what lawmakers, media outlets and gun control activists will later cite as “the science.”
Now, in theory, this shouldn’t be a problem. If the feds are neutral and create objective criteria for inclusion, then research from both sides should have no problem making the cut, and it would simply be a storehouse for research data.
The issue is that the CDC has a history here, and it’s one that can’t be overlooked. This is the same entity that took a law prohibiting them from using taxpayer money to fund gun control advocacy to mean they couldn’t fund any research into so-called gun violence. The only logical way someone can conflate the two is if they know that the purpose of said “research” was to advocate for gun control policies.
So even if there’s actual unbiased research out there that can be trusted, I’m not exactly willing to believe that the folks at the CDC will actually pay any attention to that over the kind of thing that gets churned out by anti-gun academics.
Then, what’s included in the database will be considered the gold standard, the only research that should be considered as relevant for discussion, even if better constructed studies show something different than those included by the CDC.
And there’s another issue.
But, as we’ve seen over and over and over again, “gun violence prevention” is not a neutral phrase for a sizeable contingent in Washington, D.C. It is the preferred branding of gun control groups and activists to promote bans on commonly owned firearms, magazine limits, waiting periods, firearm retailer liability schemes, firearm purchase delays and government-funded programs that target the lawful firearm industry instead of violent criminals.
Go figure Rep. Foushee’s own announcement says the bill is endorsed by Brady, Everytown for Gun Safety and the Safe States Alliance. That’s not incidental, that’s the point.
Exactly. The reason these groups broadly support it isn’t that they’re hungry for access to the research. It’s not that hard to find, after all. It’s not all in one place, but it’s not hard to find it, either. I do it all the time, and I’m not an academic. It’s just not that difficult for people who do this for a living to know that they might want to take a look at PubMed, for example, or check out other repositories for research.
I mean, literally every other field does this. Why does “gun violence prevention” research deserve special treatment?
The answer is that it’s not about science. It’s not about making data accessible for people. It’s about creating a system that punishes gun rights and gun rights advocacy while providing a rubber stamp to one side of the debate.
The upside is that there’s almost no chance of this passing the House right now, much less the Senate. President Trump would probably not sign it if the midterms turn out to be bad for Republicans, so for the next couple of years, this is a dead bill in all practical sense.
At least for now.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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