MONDAY, Jan. 18, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Mass shootings have prompted agony, anger and angst in the United States, causing citizens to ask why these events continue to happen and what can be done to stop them.

There are precious few answers to those questions, and there's at least one strong reason why: For nearly two decades, the U.S. government has declined to fund research into gun violence. Without that funding, experts say, crucial questions on gun safety and gun violence have been left unanswered.

"People will tell you that we've got lots of laws regarding guns, and they're just not being enforced," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "In my mind, that argument falls short, because we're not doing the research to evaluate how those laws are doing, to see how to best enforce them or how they should be tweaked if there's a hole in those laws."

Other important topics that have been left unstudied include design changes that could make guns safer, the number of nonfatal firearm injuries that occur each year, and the effectiveness of safety training for firearms, experts said.

https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/centers-for-disease-control-news-120/thousands-die-as-u-s-ban-on-gun-research-continues-706534.html