The RAND Corporation is sunsetting two major gun violence research initiatives, a move experts say is a “significant loss” that could become more common as many organizations face fewer federal dollars for research. This should trouble reporters because these resources benefit our reporting and offer expert analysis and understanding of gun violence.
The two initiatives ending are the Gun Policy in America project and the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, according to The Trace.
The Gun Policy in America project started a decade ago to evaluate how researchers conducted their studies and what they learned. Experts told The Trace that the project was “the most sweeping and reliable synthesis of evidence on the effectiveness of various gun laws, from background checks on gun sales to assault weapons bans.”
The project published its final Science of Gun Policy report on Jan. 29.
RAND’s other cut research initiative, the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, has poured more than $33 million to fund 74 research projects nationally on gun violence prevention.
Funding and support for gun violence research has never been a sure or steady reality. But it’s become even more precarious as federal support has nearly disappeared under the Trump administration.
In November, the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research awarded grants to three research projects examining Extreme Risk Protection Order laws, or red flag laws.
The awards were likely the initiative’s last, Andrew Morral, a RAND senior behavioral scientist who led both initiatives, told The Trace.
Morral told The Trace the initiatives ended because of a combination of issues. Federal funding for a range of issues — gun violence, health care, climate change — has been slashed during Trump’s second term. That’s made philanthropic dollars for that research even more competitive.
Some philanthropies have also become reluctant to support gun violence research in the current political climate.
“Research on gun policy has always been very third-rail-ish,” Morral told The Trace. “There are very few willing to wade into the trouble they might face for supporting research on this topic.”
Resources remain
While RAND is no longer continuing the initiatives, the many years of analysis and research isn’t going away.
“All of these resources have been developed to make the best available evidence on gun policy accessible to everyone,” Morral said in a Jan. 29 news release from RAND. “Our hope is that this foundation will continue to support constructive, fact-based dialogue and guide future research that can help reduce gun injuries and deaths in the United States.”
Here’s a breakdown of RAND’s work on gun violence that can benefit your reporting, resources that are all free to the public:
- Gun Policy in America established “a shared set of facts about the effects of gun laws to improve public discussions and support the development of fair and effective gun policies,” according to its website. The resources from that initiative include:
- The new firearm mortality and state characteristics visualization tool that shows how mortality rates differ among states with similar demographic, economic, political and geographic profiles.
- A review of gun policy research, which involved examining studies to “find all available evidence for how 18 different gun policies affect outcomes such as violent crime and mass shootings.”
- RAND just published its fifth and final edition of this review, titled The Science of Gun Policy. That latest paper edition incorporates findings from 207 studies and assesses the effects of 18 types of gun policies on outcomes such as suicide, violent crime, mass shootings, defensive gun use and hunting and recreation.
- A longitudinal database of historic state gun laws to “support improved analysis and understanding of the effects of such laws.”
- A database on firearm injury hospitalizations, which features state-level estimates of inpatient hospitalizations for nonfatal firearm injury between 2000 and 2022.
- Estimates of how many guns Americans own, which is cataloged in a longitudinal database of state-level estimates of household firearm ownership from 1980 to 2016.
- The National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research has supported several studies on gun violence. Here are some of those studies:
- One study found that women living with handgun owners were nearly 50% more likely to die by suicide compared with women living in gun-free homes. A similar study also determined that people living with a gun owner were more than twice as likely to die by homicide than those living in gun-free homes.
- Another study determined that the odds of an active shooting in gun-free establishments were significantly lower than in non–gun free establishments.
- Another study looked at a police training program that encouraged officers to consider multiple interpretations of situations. That led to improved decision making and fewer uses of force, discretionary arrests and arrests of Black civilians. The program also maintained officer activity levels and reduced officer injuries.
