Gun control advocates successfully pressured the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to hide one of its own studies on the defensive use of firearms, leading to lawmakers wonder where the agency’s loyalties lie.
The CDC removed from its website a study that estimated as many as 2.5 million defensive gun uses in the US after months of pressure from gun control advocates, who said the data point was “ misleading” and made it more difficult to pass new restrictions, according to the emails. revealed by The Reload.
But after months of emails from gun control advocates and a half-hour meeting with them in September, that was replaced with a statement that because the estimates have “wide variability … an investigation is necessary additional”.
Criminologist Gary Kleck, whose research established that high-end estimate, told The Reload that the CDC edit was “blatant censorship.”
“CDC is just aligning itself with gun control advocacy groups,” Kleck said. “It’s just saying, ‘we’re their tool, and we’re going to do their bidding.’ And that’s not what a government agency should be doing.”
In an email disclosed by The Reload, the CDC attempted to justify the edit. The agency told a reporter from The Trace that the estimate’s “very wide range” could “raise more questions than it answers.”
Senate Republicans reacted to The Reload’s report Thursday, sending a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky saying the agency’s “credibility” was at stake. Five senators signed the letter requesting records of the virtual meeting and details on how the change was made.
“The CDC did exactly what the gun control organizations wanted, rejecting the science,” the letter said. “This is a dereliction of duty on the part of the CDC.”
The Trace first reported in June that the change had come about due to prolonged lobbying by gun control advocates. New emails obtained by The Reload showed how the CDC met and discussed the numbers with gun control activists like Bryant and Devin Hughes, as well as Newtown Action Alliance President Po Murray .
“That number of 2.5 million must be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive, wrote in an email to officials from the CDC after the meeting. He added that although it had been “debunked repeatedly,” it was still being used by “gun rights” as a “blunt instrument against gun safety regulations.”
The CDC had consistently pushed back against advocates, telling them that officials “are behind our fact sheet.” But after a virtual meeting with all three in September 2021, a CDC official told Hughes that the agency would “make some modifications” to the fact sheet to “address the concerns that you and other partners have raised.”
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