The massacre in Orlando spurred the American Medical Association on Tuesday to formally call gun violence "a very public health crisis," and say the organization will "actively lobby" Congress to end a funding ban on federal health research into the problem.

The move by the largest group of doctors in the United States, during a meeting in Chicago, came days after a gunman slaughtered 49 people and wounded 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday morning with a legally purchased .223-caliber Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle.

"With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," said the AMA's president, Dr. Steven Stack. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries."