March 13, 2018 – Ahead of the National School Walkout on March 14, Rush Holt of the American Association for the Advancement of Science urged the White House and Congress to lift existing restrictions on federally funded research of gun violence.
In letters sent March 13 to President Trump and congressional leaders, AAAS CEO Holt stated that scientific research on gun violence would provide evidence on risk factors and the impacts of gun policy interventions at federal, state and local levels.
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science — the world’s largest general scientific society — urges Congress and the White House to lift existing restrictions on federally funded research of gun violence,” the letters said. “If permitted to do so, researchers would collect and analyze unbiased data on gun violence, information that is critically needed to help save thousands of lives prematurely taken from our country each year. Our children’s and our nation’s future depends on it.”
Read letters to President Trump and congressional leaders.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The nonprofit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement, and more. For additional information about AAAS, see www.aaas.org.