Researchers: Trump win alters conversation on gun violence

BOSTON (AP) — Leading public health researchers and gun safety advocates concede that Republican Donald Trump's election as president changed the national conversation on firearms, but they're urging gun owners and manufacturers to be included in the effort to reduce deaths and injuries from firearms.

With an estimated 300 million guns in circulation in the United States, authors of the editorial called for a "business plan" that stresses the enormous medical and social costs of firearms injuries, estimated at $230 billion annually, in contrast with a more polarizing focus on gun ownership.

The editorial points to a "critical dearth" of scholarly research on the scope and causes of firearms violence, blamed in part on language Congress added to the federal budget two decades ago that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies interpreted as a prohibition on federally funded gun research.