Another day, another mass shooting. I don’t write that to be glib.  We’ve had 1,044 mass shootings in 1,066 days.  We are almost literally averaging a mass shooting per day in this country. Yet, despite this damaging statistic and an overwhelming majority in favor of strong gun control measures, we have been unable to enact any meaningful measures to try to reduce gun violence. I’m under no illusion that another mass shooting will lead to change (if killing our children in their classrooms didn’t motivate change, I’m not sure anything will). However, I do think there is one thing that we can do now to actually do something: it is time for research to study gun violence.

By law, the federal government is essentially banned from studying gun violence.

Representative Jay Dickey led a legislative effort in 1996 to cut off funds for research that would infringe on Second Amendment rights.

(Former Rep. Dickey now says he regrets his role in stopping the research and advocates the Centers for Disease Control to study gun violence).

After each shooting, two things occur and we’ve had many times to practice this.  First, we send our thoughts, prayers, and condolences to the victims and their families.  Second, we say that we don’t know why this happens or how we could possibly prevent it.

When we don’t know what causes a disease or how to cure it, we fund the best university scientists in the world to study the disease and find a treatment.

When the number of deaths in automobiles was rising, we commissioned studies to build safer cars.

I don’t know what would reduce the gun violence in this country.  I don’t know anyone that can reasonably claim to know how to solve this issue.

I do know who I would put my money on to save my future and the future of my children.

University researchers.

I want our nation’s best doctors, engineers, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, lawyers, and education professors studying the issue.

I want our universities engaged in this fight.

And I want my government to fund their research.

Instead, we are wasting time debating whether or not to allow campus carry. What an utterly useless waste of time. We have faculty arguing to keep guns out of their classrooms instead of helping to save people’s lives.

The best scientific, medical, and technological advances in our nation’s history have come from university research.

It is time for research to study gun violence.

No.

It is past time.