The California Department of Justice can continue to provide data to gun violence researchers following a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, state Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
With the ruling, places like the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis and other research institutions can continue to be given information such as gun sales data collected by the DOJ, according to Bonta.
The case stems from Assembly Bill 173, which was signed into law in 2021 to require the state DOJ to share its firearm data with researchers. Text of the bill outlines a need to make up for a lack of firearm impact studies on the federal level.
“Federal funding for firearm violence research through the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been virtually eliminated by Congress since 1996, leaving a major gap that must be filled by other sources,” reads the bill.
In the late 1990s, the so-called federal “Dickey Amendment” passed with large backing from the National Rifle Association. The amendment, named for late U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas, stipulates that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
So though it doesn’t entirely bar the CDC from studying firearm data and statistics, the amendment cut most funding to do so.
Advocates for the amendment, including Dickey, said funding to the CDC would be a slippery slope leading to taking away people’s guns.
Within a few months after AB 173’s effective date in California, five registered gun owners known only as Jane and John Does sued to ask the court to issue a preliminary injunction to halt it. The case was dismissed and then that dismissal was upheld on appeal in a unanimous decision.
The Does argued that the law violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights, among other claims. The appeals court found that DOJ gun data regarding purchasers of firearms and ammunition, or applications for permits are not “intimate personal information” covered by an individual’s right to privacy. The court also found that the Second Amendment does not protect gun data from being shared.
According to UC Davis, the California Firearm Violence Research Center studies the nature of firearm violence and the societal determinants that drive it, the consequences of gun violence, and prevention measures that can inform policies.
“The information shared under AB 173 is pivotal. … It enables groundbreaking research that supports informed policymaking aimed at reducing and preventing firearm violence and saving lives.” AG Rob Bonta
For example, one study at UC Davis showed that between 2005 and 2015, firearm homicides in California had dropped 30 percent compared to a 3-percent drop nationally. Researchers attributed much of the decline to a reduction in gang violence.
The center also compiles gun violence data based on race, gender and age.
“The information shared under AB 173 is pivotal,” said Bonta in a statement released by his office Wednesday. “It enables groundbreaking research that supports informed policymaking aimed at reducing and preventing firearm violence and saving lives.”
Bonta said that the state DOJ has been collecting firearm sales data since the 1950s and UC Davis has been using those numbers since “at least” 1989 but was not required to receive them until the passage of AB 173. The California Firearm Violence Research Center was launched in 2016.
