THOMPSON: CONGRESS SHOULD END FEDERAL BAN ON GUN VIOLENCE RESEARCH IN OMNIBUS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5), Chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, released the following statement calling on omnibus negotiators to end the 19-year-long ban on federal research into the causes and best ways to prevent gun violence:
"Doctors agree, medical professionals agree, even the author of the amendment agrees: it's time to do away with the Dickey Amendment and let our experts do what they do best – conduct research that will save some lives. For nearly 20 years, experts at the CDC have been prohibited from reaching the causes and best ways to prevent gun violence. The omnibus bill gives us a chance to fix this. Republicans should listen to Jay Dickey himself who said, ‘Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution.'"
On December 1st, former Republican U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey sent a letter to Thompson in which he called for the Dickey Amendment to be repealed, and for federal research to be conducted on the causes of gun violence, provided that nothing is done to infringe the rights of gun ownership. The Dickey Amendment, authored in 1996, effectively blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from carrying out the necessary research to better understand how to prevent gun violence.
The full text of Dickey's letter is below.
GUN VIOLENCE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH NEEDED
December 1, 2015
Many years ago the highway industry took on studying from a scientific viewpoint how head on collisions could be reduced. They didn't include in their scope of study the elimination of the automobile, which would have been a simple solution, but what came out of this were three or four foot barricades that are placed in between lanes of traffic in our interstate highway system. We have all seen these fences, but what isn't generally known is how overwhelmingly successful this project has become.
Back in 1998, I took part in cutting off gun violence research dollars at the federal level because of what was considered a misapplication of the dollars by the CDC. I have recently expressed my regrets that we didn't continue that research with the provision that nothing shall be done in this project to infringe the rights of gun ownership as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution in the Second Amendment.
Research could have been continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners, in the same fashion that the highway industry continued its research without eliminating the automobile.
There is no ready answer to the question "How are we going to accomplish the desired result of reducing gun violence under these circumstances?" For sure the same dilemma faced the scientists in the highway industry some years ago. The highway industry answered the question of how to reduce traffic fatalities through scientific research. In the same way, scientific research should help answer how we can best reduce gun violence.
Even though my opinion and the opinion of my colleague, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, have been spread to media outlets all over our country, there has been only one member of Congress who has expressed any support for this endeavor. I can tell that member that though there is no groundswell of agreement, at least I have not been tarred and feathered and run out of town…yet.
To sum this up, it is my position that somehow or someway we should slowly but methodically fund such research until a solution is reached. Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution.
Jay Dickey
Member of Congress, 1993-2000
Congressman Mike Thompson is proud to represent California's 5th Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Thompson is also a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and chairs the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus.
# # #