Well, the deterioration of the CDC over the past 40 years is heartbreaking, but there is a germ of an idea in the above quote.
It's not the behavior of gun owners that's a problem of course, but behavioral epidemiology of the Chicago shooters would be a very fruitful topic of investigation.
They won't do it, of course, but the toll of "gun violence" IS, at the root, a behavioral problem that has demographic and other characteristics that can be studied.
Yes, it would be useful, but perhaps not through the CDC. And, I guess I should have couched my statement with the proviso that “gun ownership.....” be “legal gun ownership..”