Congressional Democrats are warning that Republicans’ budget plan could threaten funding for gun violence research and prevention.
Senators are expected to vote this week on a stopgap budget — known as a continuing resolution — that would largely extend current federal spending levels through September and avert a looming government shutdown. But Democrats say the GOP’s proposal, which passed the House on March 11, could embolden the Trump administration to shortchange anti-violence efforts.
During a March 12 press conference, three Democratic House members and leaders from a half dozen violence prevention programs warned against the resolution and vowed to fight any attempt to divert funding from reducing gun violence.
“They think it’s a waste of money and time,” Representative Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Illinois, said about her Republican colleagues. “I do not believe life-saving policies are a waste.”
Most at risk is the $25 million Congress has steered toward gun violence research every year since 2019. Split equally between the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the funding has typically not been written into budget bills themselves. Instead, lawmakers include it in “explanatory text” meant to direct agencies on spending. While traditionally followed, the texts are not legally binding to the same degree as a budget bill. The Republicans’ continuing resolution could invalidate the texts, potentially allowing the Trump administration to spend that $25 million elsewhere.
“It allows the administration to have discretion in not funding things or redirecting the money to other priorities than what Congress had originally intended the monies for,” said James Mercy, the former head of the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention. “The firearm research monies would be under threat if this CR is passed.”
Senator Patty Murray of Washington and Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the Senate and House appropriations committees, both released memos last week accusing Republicans of structuring the bill to hand the Trump administration more power. Murray listed gun violence research among the funding categories that would be vulnerable.
An analysis by The Trace last year found that at least $137.1 million in federal money has flowed to studying gun violence since 2020, accounting for 127 projects. The dollars have been a significant boon for the field after Congress in 2019 lifted a more than two-decade-old de facto ban on federal spending for gun violence research.
“If the Trump administration chooses not to use the money for this purpose, it would be an enormous mistake,” said Vanessa Gonzalez, vice president of government and political affairs for the gun reform group Giffords. “Only through sustained research can we effectively protect our communities and save countless innocent lives that would otherwise be tragically lost.”
If federal funding disappears, Mercy said researchers will adapt, but progress will slow.
“We got through 20 years of not having any funding,” Mercy said. “We’ll figure a way around it, how to do this work, but it will be at a much slower pace, and will have to be picked up by foundations and other entities if it’s cut.”
The Republicans’ resolution could also undermine violence prevention programs receiving money through a process known as Congressionally Directed Spending. CDS allows lawmakers to request federal dollars for specific local projects in their districts. Without CDS included in the resolution, community, youth, and hospital-based violence prevention initiatives across several states won’t receive new funding through at least September.
Some funding is likely safe for the time being, including the $1 billion earmarked for community-based violence intervention and crisis intervention programs through 2026. Those dollars, made available by the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, should not be affected by the GOP’s resolution, but the Trump administration could still make administrative changes to block community groups from accessing the program, congressional aides said.
That possibility worries Democrats. “We don’t want to see that go away,” Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida, said at the March 12 press conference. “There’s nothing more efficient than giving the money to the people that are actually doing the work at home and providing results. These are evidence-based solutions.”
Funding for gun violence research was already in flux before the budget uncertainty. In January, the National Institutes of Justice sent emails to researchers canceling all of its funding opportunities. The agency provides most federal funding for criminology and criminal justice research, including on gun violence. The funding opportunities were still scrubbed from the site as of March 12.
The NIH, meanwhile, paused review panels for research grant awards, including reviews of gun violence research proposals. Without the review panels, research grants can’t be processed.
Andrew Morral, a scientist at the RAND Corporation and director of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, said continued funding should be a bipartisan priority.
“Community gun violence remains a problem in red states and blue states,” he said. “The federal government has been making real progress advancing research in ways that address that problem, and I hope that will continue.”