by Kaitlin Washburn
Association of Health Care Journalists
April 22, 2026

It’s a regular struggle on the gun violence beat to find good data that’s up-to-date and comprehensive — a reality we frequently cover on this page. A recent webinar from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center laid out several useful tips and sources for good gun violence data.

… [Jeffrey] Butts, of John Jay, also discussed the state of federally funded gun violence research. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, millions of dollars in funding for gun violence research has disappeared. “The state of federally sponsored gun research is really poor right now,” Butts said. “There are a lot of committed researchers still endeavoring to shed light on this problem and find effective solutions. So the workforce has not gone away, but the support for it has been slashed badly.”

Butts said his colleagues at the John Jay Research and Evaluation Center and other institutions lost some funding they’d been awarded or had to make do with less funding than they’d applied to receive. And applying for funding has become even more competitive, he added. He’s heard stories of funders putting out requests for proposals and getting many more applications than previously. “Fewer people are being awarded funds, fewer studies are going on, which is a burden on the non-federal sector,” Butts said. “So projects and research funded by foundations and by state and local governments have become more important now, and we hope that that keeps up.”

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