GVRC Blog

Welcome to the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center (GVRC) blog!  My name is Mike Anestis, and for the past five years, I have had the privilege of serving as the Executive Director of the GVRC.  I took this job in the hopes of having a bigger impact on my area of expertise – suicide prevention –and my experience here has far exceeded my most optimistic vision.

In this first post, I want to quickly tell you about the GVRC – what we do and some of the things we’ve accomplished – while also letting you know about the difficult moment we’re facing.

The work at the GVRC spans the full range of gun violence, including suicide, community violence, intimate partner violence, patterns in firearm purchasing and storage, and so much more.  Like any research center, the GVRC conducts scientific research studies, publishes our results in peer-reviewed journals, presents our work at professional conferences, and pursues external grants.  Those kinds of tasks are the backbone of science, and we take that part of our job seriously. 

One thing that sets us apart is that, unlike other research centers, we also serve as a funding agency.  In other words, scientists from outside the GVRC submit applications to us and, each year, we award grants for the most promising projects.  In this particular moment, with the federal government politicizing and canceling research grants, our role as a grant funder is incredibly important.  Over the past few years, we have funded approximately $2.5 million in grants and we are thrilled about these investments, not only because the science is rigorous and informative, but also because our funds have helped encourage young scientists to enter the field of gun violence prevention and build a career around preventing firearm injury and death.

For decades, the federal government was essentially banned from funding gun violence research, which not only meant that there was less research on that topic, but also that countless bright young minds were redirected away from this field.  That kind of damage is catastrophic to the field, so in addition to conducting and funding science, we also place a heavy emphasis on training early career scientists who, in turn, will hopefully have careers in this field that span decades and which will include the training of additional young gun violence prevention scholars.  That type of exponential growth creates strength that is better able to withstand moments like today, when the federal government is yet again dismantling the tools we use to prevent firearm injury and death.

Last, but certainly not least, our center sets itself apart through our core value of broad science communication.  Scientists generally do a terrible job of sharing their work outside of the Ivory Tower, and when they do so, they often do it in a way that is hard to relate to and which makes the work feel unimportant or irrelevant to the lives of the communities it is intended to serve.  We firmly believe that it is our duty to make sure the results of our studies are available to the communities that could most benefit from them, and this blog is just the latest example of those efforts.

All of this information is just a surface level description of the work we do at the GVRC, but the bottom line is that we are a busy team that cares deeply about helping folks across communities and regardless of political leanings.  As proud as we are of this work, however, it is important to note that it is currently under threat. I have already alluded to the Trump administration’s war on science.  Because of federal actions, the meager gun violence prevention research dollars available annually through the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) are no longer available, scientists have had existing grants canceled, and groups dedicated to ending community violence have lost their funding.  What makes the situation worse, however, is that Governor Murphy’s administration has proposed to cut the GVRC’s funding by $1 million in the upcoming New Jersey annual budget.  This cut – should it go through – will prevent us from funding grants, limit our ability to train young scientists, and diminish the magnitude and amount of scientific research we conduct at the GVRC.  At a time when our field needs the state to step up and fill the void left by the carnage of the Trump administration, New Jersey is proposing to align themselves with the current anti-science environment.  We have been humbled by the immense and generous support offered to us by advocacy groups and our fellow scientists, many of whom have reached out to the Murphy administration, encouraging them not to go through with this cut.  We have also spoken with legislators who support our effort to restore our budget, and those conversations were captured well in a recent article by the Trace.

We remain cautiously optimistic that our funding will be restored, but we cannot assume that will be the case, and we cannot let up on our pursuit of restoration unless and until it becomes official.  In the meantime, we hope you will consider voicing your concerns about this cut – reaching out to the administration and expressing your hope that they reverse course.  New Jersey has been a leader in gun violence prevention, and Governor Murphy is one of the primary reasons for that.  Now is not the time for them to sully that legacy by arbitrarily and catastrophically cutting our funds.

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Michael Anestis, PhD, is the Executive Director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.