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Committee lays over request to renew state funding for nonpartisan gun-violence research center
Summary
Vice Chair Feist and researchers from the Violence Prevention Project described prior state-funded research into extreme-risk protection orders, homicides and officer-involved shootings; the committee laid over a proposal to provide renewed funding for nonpartisan, public-facing gun-violence research.
Vice Chair Feist presented House File 134, seeking renewed state funding for nonpartisan gun-violence research to inform policy makers, schools and communities. The committee laid the bill over.
Researchers from the Violence Prevention Project, including executive director Jillian Peterson and co-founder James Densley, described recent work funded by the legislature: an evaluation of the state's first-year use of extreme-risk protection orders, a review of homicide drivers during a 2020-21 spike, and a detailed study of officers shot in the line of duty. Densley said the officer-shooting study required extensive case-file review and coding that took many hours per case.
Peterson and Densley said the center's public-facing research helps policymakers design effective interventions and that federal and philanthropic funding is uncertain. They told members the intention is to structure any future state support competitively and that the research is broadly accessible to other states. Committee members asked about the center's independence, grant-competition structure and prior grant spending; witnesses said donations to individual staff members are separate from center funding and said the prior appropriation will be spent under an extension.
The committee laid the bill over for further work on funding structure and competitive-grant language.
