Congress approves funding for gun violence research. Legislation passed by Congress in December 2019 includes $25 million for gun violence research to be split evenly between the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This marks the first time in more than 20 years that Congressional leaders have acted to support research into the underlying causes of gun violence and evidence-based methods to prevent injury, including crime prevention. The bill was passed on the seventh anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre that killed 20 first graders in Newtown, Connecticut. Firearm-related injuries kill nearly 40,000 Americans a year, and the U.S. firearm homicide rate is 25 times that of comparable developed countries.