House Democrats are pushing $50 million in annual funding to add academic researchers to the current gun control push.

The Hill reports that Democrats are claiming a “public health emergency” and trying to secure funding in light of it.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said, “We should not be afraid of research. Gun violence is a public health emergency.”

Democrats presented the $50 million in annual funding as a way to let the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) get involved in gun violence research. However, Crime Prevention Research Center’s John Lott points out that the CDC has not been barred from doing research heretofore, and the millions upon millions of dollars that Democrats want to pump into research will just serve to expand the already relentless gun control push.

In addition to the danger of expanding gun control advocacy to academia and medical research, Lott explains that there is also the ever present danger of wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Writing for Fox News he said, “I have been an academic for most of my life and can’t fathom how one could legitimately spend that much money on the small studies that came out of the grants. But no one seems to worry whether this federal research money – money taken from pockets of American taxpayers – is being wasted.”

House Democrats have already passed legislation to criminalize private gun sales and to add a minimal 10-day extension to the process of getting an instant background check for a gun purchase.

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. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.