(WXYZ) — In 2019, President Donald Trump signed legislation that funded research on gun violence through the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the first time in two decades.
It led to the creation of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan.
7 Action News spoke with a senior at Oxford High School who went to Washington Wednesday to push for more federal funding.
“What we are advocating for here on Capitol Hill: research on gun violence. This will allow us to address gun violence as the issue that it is,” said Dylan Morris, an Oxford High School senior.
Morris says after a classmate opened fire killing four classmates, he felt compelled to act. He now is the executive director of No Future Without Today, advocating for gun regulations.
“I survived a mass shooting and the moment the shooter gained access to the unsecured firearm — something that could have been so preventable — and used it to kill four of my classmates and injure seven others including a teacher. That is the moment I lost my childhood," Morris said.
“Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for people under 21. That is not politics. That is just fact,” U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D- Michigan, said.
Slotkin invited Morris and MSU student Devin Woodruff, who both survived separate school shootings in her district, to stand with her as she talked about a bill to fund research.
The Democratic congresswoman also introduced a bill that would prohibit the transfer of a gun to someone convicted of a misdemeanor in which the firearm was used for three years and another that would require a one-week waiting period before you could receive a firearm.
“Why not throw money and really figure out what is happening out there?” said Ramy Hijazi, attorney and owner of Point Blank Firearms in Dearborn Heights.
Hijazy says he agrees with funding research, but says other proposals go too far. He says crime victims should not have to wait a week to buy a gun for protection.
“If you feel you and your family are threatened and you don't own a firearm, you have to wait a week now to get a firearm. You are in trouble in that situation,” Hijazi said.
