Two violent acts on Wednesday — the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the shooting of two high school students in Colorado — crystallize the threat gun violence poses to public health. Yet the Trump administration just shut down its biggest programs devoted to preventing such violence.

For decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led public health research and initiatives on the cause, persistence, and prevention of firearm violence. Cuts to budgets and the workforce have thrown the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention into disarray, with funding withdrawn then renewed, reductions in force paused and then made final last month.

Experts say in the absence of the CDC expertise and support of local public health initiatives, government agencies’ messaging on gu

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