SPRINGFIELD ‒ Weeks after calling on Senate leaders to consider funding federal gun violence research, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., will join other chamber Democrats and top researchers this week to again make the case for such appropriations.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who recently penned a letter to a Senate panel on funding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gun violence research, will team up with U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., for a Thursday morning news conference at the Capitol building.

Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis; April Zeoli, an associate professor at Michigan State University who researches the role of firearms in intimate partner violence; and Jeffrey Swanson, a professor at the Duke University School of Medicine who has authored several publications on the epidemiology of violence and serious mental illnesses, will also join lawmakers for the event, Markey's office announced.

Senate Democrats who signed onto Markey's letter argued that funding federal gun violence research could help identify ways to prevent what they called "senseless" firearms-related deaths, adding that the issue "has never been more pressing."

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/01/us_sen_ed_markey_other_democra_1.html