Andrew Morral

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

So damaging to our scientific organizations and young scientists trying to get started in this environment.

I am one of those early career researchers (described at the end of this piece) whose work has been possible because of these projects. I’m grateful for the risk folks took to prioritize such investments. This is a huge loss.💔

RAND Is Sunsetting Its Gun Violence Research Initiatives Amid Trump’s Cuts Experts lamented the think tank's closures as a loss for policymakers, advocates, and researchers who have relied on the data to prevent shootings.

These projects have been immensely important to me, and I'm sorry to see them come to an end. But so long as gun violence remains a leading cause of death and grief in this country RAND will work to bring evidence and policy solutions to address it.
www.thetrace.org/2026/02/rand...

New ML-based interactive tool on how rates of homicide, death by suicide, and firearm violence vary (dramatically) among states + how those differences correspond with state characteristics.

Enables more data-informed conversations on root causes of gun violence🧪🛟

www.rand.org/research/gun...

Firearm Mortality and State Characteristics Rates of homicide, death by suicide, and firearm violence vary dramatically among U.S. states. This tool allows users to investigate how these differences correspond with state characteristics.

The methods are pretty interesting, and I think useful for thinking through what covariates may be important to control for in gun policy analysis. We wrote them up here (and thanks to my coauthors, Greg Midgette and Terry Schell!). www.rand.org/pubs/tools/T...

Example: How much do demographics correlate with state firearm suicide rates? FL, MT, AK, WY and other states have MUCH higher firearm suicide rates than other states with similar demographics. Whereas SD, CA, NC and others have much lower rates than states with similar demographics.

My plumber is using a chatBot for problem characterization, scheduling and account management and it works great. I can call any time, day or night. It has handled complex requests well. very impressed.

A state legislator once told me the ’”only reason” his state had such a high suicide rate was because of its large Native American population. This tool suggests that’s not correct.

Similarly it raises questions about many arguments you might hear about root causes of violence.

Firearm Mortality and State Characteristics Rates of firearm mortality vary dramatically among U.S. states. This tool demonstrates how these differences correspond with state characteristics, such as demographics and political climate.

We just launched a new interactive tool that allows you to explore these questions state-by-state:

www.rand.org/research/gun...

many thanks to @arnoldventures.bsky.social for supporting this work!

Huge state differences in suicide/homicide rates are often explained away by, for instance, economic conditions, demographics, firearm ownership rates, political lean, etc. How plausible are those claims, and what portion of state mortality rates cannot be so explained? ‎‎‎[1/2]

What 30 years of US gun policy research actually reveals 30 years of research suggest only a small number of gun laws show consistent, measurable effects, according to a new RAND analysis.

An excellent review of our Science of Gun Policy report released last week by Gina Napoletano.

www.wearethemighty.com/military-new...

Thanks, Dru! And yes, you should be able to order a print copy

We are very grateful to @arnoldventures.bsky.social for supporting this work over the past 8 years!

This work has been incredibly important to me. When we started, there was remarkably little evidence on gun policy—despite enormous stakes. Here’s a look at what a decade of focused research has achieved:
www.rand.org/research/gun...

Informing the Gun Policy Debate New resources from RAND's decade-long Gun Policy in America initiative include a visualization tool that allows users to explore how state-level firearm mortality rates relate to a range of social and...

We just released our last scheduled update to The Science of Gun Policy, our review of the evidence on the effects of gun laws. {thread}
www.rand.org/research/gun...

Worth repeating (for no particular reason)

Sorry Dru. Hope she had a good life.

THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S COOK BOOK EDITED BY RUTH BEROLZHEIMER

Roast Opossum recipe

Turtle and terrapin recipes

Roast squirrels recipe

I just found this cookbook in a little free library. Boy have things changed in the past 85 years.

The CDC Injury Center faces cuts in FY 2026. Senate bill = full funding. House bill = elimination of ICRCs + firearm violence prevention.
Your voice matters—urge your Rep to support Senate funding!
Read more + act now: buff.ly/Lh7Npll
#InjuryPrevention #PublicHealth

Thank you Andrew! Very honored! We really enjoyed putting this paper together and are very pleased by the response it has gotten. Huge thanks also to the NCGVR for the funding for the fifth wave that made this and other recent work possible.

Very honored by this; thank you Andrew! Wish I could have made it to the conference this year to celebrate! Also, important to note this research was made possible with funding from the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research for the PHDCN's fifth wave.

The paper is published in Science Advances, and is open access. Find it here: science.org/doi/epdf/10....

They also document a period-specific rise in adult carrying, 2016-2020, which coincides with broader social insecurity and a liberalized carry environment, suggesting that policy solutions must look beyond adolescent violence to address risks posed by durable adult-carry culture.

They highlight two pathways to concealed gun carrying: adolescent carrying, which tends to be short-lived and triggered by direct exposure to gun violence, and adult-onset carrying, which is persistent, increasingly legal, and less tied to immediate victimization.

I also want to congratulate @clanfear.bsky.social, David Kirk and Rob Sampson, whose paper “Dual pathways of concealed gun carrying and use from adolescence to adulthood over a 25-year era of change” was one of two selected for honorable mention by the 2025 Greenwald Award Independent Review Panel!

This suggests an urgent need to mitigate gun theft and lost police effectiveness when loosening carry laws, since these indirect harms—not actions by permit holders themselves—appear to fuel the observed crime increase.

They find that violent crime rises when states adopt right-to-carry handgun laws, an effect driven in part by a sharp increase in gun theft (50%) and diminished police performance in solving violent crimes.

Why do right to carry laws increase violence? Effects on gun theft and clearance rates Since the 1970s most state restrictions on carrying handguns in public have been eased or eliminated. Several of the early impact evaluations of these…

Congratulations to John J. Donohue and colleagues, whose paper, “Why do right to carry laws increase violence? Effects on gun theft and clearance rates,” was one of two selected for honorable mention by the 2025 Greenwald Award Independent Review Panel! sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Here is the Independent Review Panel's full commendation for this award-winning paper: