It’s not every day that a federal agency loses 10,000 jobs and the country breathes a sigh of relief. But here we are.
The Trump Administration has announced plans to cut roughly 10,000 federal employees under the Department of Health and Human Services, including a significant number tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you’re wondering what the CDC has to do with gun rights, let’s just say they’ve spent the last decade trying very hard to act like firearms are a communicable disease—and that gun owners are patient zero.
For years, the CDC has used your tax dollars to churn out “research” aimed squarely at one thing: justifying gun control. These aren’t neutral studies. They aren’t done in pursuit of objective truth. They’re carefully constructed efforts to produce numbers that can be spun by gun-ban groups like Brady and Giffords into talking points for press conferences and fundraising emails.
So naturally, the moment word got out that these cuts could reduce the CDC’s involvement in gun-related “research,” the gun control lobby threw a collective tantrum. And as usual, they didn’t hold back.
Brady, formerly known as Handgun Control Inc. (they rebranded when “Control” started polling poorly), called it a “public health catastrophe.” That’s how Kris Brown, Brady’s president, described the move, accusing Trump of trying to “consolidate information control.” She claimed the cut was a direct assault on the CDC’s WISQARS system, a data tool they say helps the country understand “America’s gun violence epidemic.”
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Trump personally went to Atlanta and smashed their servers with a sledgehammer.
The press release went on to warn that without CDC injury data, we’d be “cast into the dark” about gun violence—the so-called “number one killer of kids in this country.” Let’s set aside the fact that this claim is, at best, based on highly selective definitions and deeply flawed categorizations. The truth is, the CDC hasn’t exactly been a beacon of impartiality. They’ve been grinding an ideological axe for years, and now that someone’s finally taken away the whetstone, they’re crying foul.
Not to be outdone, Giffords labeled the cuts “reckless” and warned that “we’re all at risk.”
Of course, people who actually value the Second Amendment saw this move for what it really is: a long-overdue course correction.
Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive VP of the Second Amendment Foundation, said it best: “With these reductions, the government is no longer treating gun ownership as a communicable disease.” And he’s exactly right. For far too long, unelected bureaucrats at the CDC have operated under the assumption that law-abiding gun owners are somehow a public health threat, and they’ve spent millions trying to “prove” that in ways that conveniently align with gun control narratives.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about “hiding data” or “ignoring science,” as the left would have you believe. It’s about pushing back on taxpayer-funded activism. The CDC didn’t just research gun-related injuries or fatalities—they editorialized them. They published conclusions that always seemed to reinforce the idea that the solution to violent crime wasn’t locking up violent criminals, but disarming peaceful citizens.
They rarely, if ever, studied defensive gun uses—despite the fact that the CDC’s own quietly released report in 2013 confirmed millions of defensive gun uses per year. That inconvenient truth didn’t make it into their funding proposals, and certainly not into the news releases the Brady Campaign likes to circulate.
Gottlieb pointed out the obvious: despite all this “research,” not one violent crime appears to have been prevented by the CDC’s efforts. And he’s right again. These reports aren’t stopping criminals. They’re just being used by anti-gun politicians and media allies to argue that “something must be done”—and that “something” always seems to be aimed at restricting the rights of people who haven’t broken any laws.
The problem isn’t science—it’s narrative manipulation. When you start with the conclusion that guns are bad and then build a study around it, that’s not science. That’s propaganda with a peer review.
Gun control groups are upset because they’ve grown dependent on the CDC’s data machine. It’s been their favorite go-to when trying to sell America on bans, registries, and restrictions. Now, with a smaller CDC staff and fewer resources devoted to promoting their agenda, they’re losing a valuable ally. And like anyone watching their influence shrink, they’re making as much noise as possible.
But the rest of us see this as a win for common sense.
We don’t need our public health agency dabbling in political activism. We need them focused on actual diseases, not demonizing gun ownership. We need them studying COVID, not AR-15s. If anti-gun groups want to do their own research, fine. Let them fund it privately, subject it to rigorous peer review, and then let the chips fall where they may.
But using taxpayer dollars to paint every firearm as a public health menace? No thank you.
The bottom line is this: gun owners in America are tired of being treated like suspects. We’re tired of being used as political pawns. And we’re tired of federal agencies playing footsie with activist groups behind the scenes.
If this move means that the CDC is finally stepping back from the gun control soapbox, then it’s a step in the right direction. We’re not afraid of research. We’re afraid of bias masquerading as research. There’s a difference—and it’s high time Washington remembered that.
