Donald Trump’s Justice Department on Tuesday canceled hundreds of grants to community organizations and local governments, including funding for gun-violence prevention programs, crime-victim advocacy and efforts to combat opioid addiction, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.
Many of the grants rescinded involved efforts to quell gun violence through intervention programs, focused on identifying and providing resources to people considered likely to commit or be victims of violent crimes. In 2022, Congress approved the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which included new gun restrictions and $250 million for the Justice Department to distribute over five years to such programs.
The Justice Department typically distributes grants over a three-year cycle. These cancellation notices came midway through the cycle, potentially creating massive funding shortfalls for these programs. It is unusual for an administration to rescind a grant after it has already been awarded, effectively reneging on the government’s pledge to fund a program for a certain number of years.
In other (bad) Trump Administration news, experts say US Department of Health and Human Services cuts and proposed changes to the federal budget threaten firearm violence research. This study from researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, found that an emergency department treats a firearm injury every 30 minutes.
The study, published last week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, says that firearm injury visits are not evenly distributed. There were more firearm injury presentations at night, on the weekends and on some holidays, like Independence Day and New Year’s Eve. While those results are hardly surprising, experts say the findings from this analysis—which the authors say is the largest of its kind to use timely data in urban and rural areas—can inform staffing to provide better care in trauma centers.Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US. Emergency medical service encounters for firearm injury spiked in 2021 and remain higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic. Firearm suicides have continued to rise and are now higher than at any other point in the past 50 years.
