The growing momentum for tighter gun control after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., is highlighting the National Rifle Association's history of aggressively confronting challenges to what it regards as Second Amendment rights.
Federal limits on both research into gun violence and the release of data about guns used in crimes are powerful reminders of the lobbying group's advantages over gun control activists. For decades, the NRA pushed legislation that stifled the study and spread of information about the causes of gun violence.
Last month, Congress passed a spending bill that included languagegiving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the authority to resume gun-related studies, but some researchers are skeptical anything will change without funding. The Democrats wrote that part of the bill in order to reverse the Dickey Amendment of 1996, which many believe virtually halted all research on gun violence.
[For more on this story by SAMANTHA RAPHELSON, go to https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05...un-violence-research]
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