Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) and 14 other representatives are urging Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end CDC and NIH spending on gun control.
In an April 10, 2025, letter posted by Gun Owners of America, Harshbargar opened by writing, “We write today to urge you to protect the Second Amendment from attacks by a partisan and weaponized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes for Health (NIH)–which became a dangerous threat to gun ownership under the Biden administration.”
She pointed out:
Congress restricted the use of funds to lobby for gun control because of the weaponization of the CDC and NIH in the 1990s, but these critical appropriations safeguards have been ignored in recent years. The intent was to protection gun owners from weaponization by the Clinton Administration. Then CDC-spokesman Dr. Mark Rosenberg had been promoting and advocating gun control…
Harshbarger added, “The same CDC also issued an anti-gun ‘study’ recommending the implementation of unconstitutional gun control…”
She said that the Dickey Amendment, which is the law of the land, forbids the use of CDC and NIH funds to “advocate or promote gun control.”
The lawmaker from Tennessee then listed CDC and NIH monies that have been misappropriated for gun control.
The misappropriated NIH grants she cited include:
- $3.6 million for “firearm retirement” for senior citizens
- $1.2 million for “check-ins” on “guns at home”
- $2.1 million to study “firearm possession” by Asian Americans
- $1.1 million on “gun ownership and risk”
- $333 thousand to “promote effective” gun confiscation laws & wait periods
- $518 thousand on “firearm storage” & confiscation laws
- $490 thousand to compare states’ “gun policies”
- $349 thousand to show if “firearm laws reduce mortality”
Harshbarger and her fellow signatories are calling on Secretary Kennedy to cancel and/or block these misappropriations of funds.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, a Pulsar Night Vision pro-staffer, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly:
