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Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said Thursday that he would allow his department to conduct research into the causes of gun violence, a major Democratic priority. Democrats on Thursday pushed for lifting a provision that restricts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from conducting research into gun violence as part of their response to the mass shooting at a Florida school on Wednesday. (Sullivan, 2/15)

Azar told an Energy and Commerce subcommittee that a provision passed two decades ago limiting the CDC's work on gun violence only prevents it from taking an advocacy position — not from doing research. "My understanding is that the rider does not in any way impede our ability to conduct our research mission," he said. "We're in the science business and the evidence-generating business, and so I will have our agency certainly working in this field, as they do across the broad spectrum of disease control and prevention." (Cancryn, 2/15)

Congress should reexamine a policy that bars the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from studying gun violence as a public health issue, the GOP chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Thursday. “If it relates to mental health, that certainly should be done,” Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), a staunch Second Amendment advocate, said Thursday during an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers." (Wong, 2/15)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday called on Congress to look into issues related to gun violence less than 24 hours after 17 people were killed in a school shooting in Florida. “I will say, personally, I think the gun violence — it’s a tragedy what we’ve seen yesterday, and I urge Congress to look at these issues,” Mnuchin said at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing. (Paletta, 2/15)

For a brief moment after the Las Vegas massacre last fall, Republicans and Democrats in Congress talked about taking a rare step to tighten the nation’s gun laws. Four months later, the only gun legislation that has moved in the House or Senate instead eases restrictions for gun owners. The October deaths of 58 people in Las Vegas and other mass shootings have sparked debate but have had scant impact on the march toward looser gun laws under the Republican-controlled Congress. There’s little sign that the shooting deaths of 17 people at a Florida high school Wednesday will change that dynamic. (Daly, 2/15)