Jay Dickey, the former GOP congressman who spearheaded an effort that ultimately banned the federal government from funding research on gun violence nearly 20 years ago, is calling on Congress to reverse that law. In a letter to the chair of the House Democrats' Gun Violence Prevention Task Force on Tuesday, Dickey called for the government to fund research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine gun violence while expressing regret for his role in stopping that research.
The letter was publicly released Wednesday by the task force's chair, Rep. Mike Thompson, hours after news broke of the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that left at least 14 dead and another 17 injured.
"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," Dickey's letter reads in part.
Back when the aptly named "Dickey Amendment" was tacked onto a 1996 appropriations bill, Dickey had argued that CDC research would push policies that would infringe on American's Second Amendment rights, reported CNN. Twenty years later, Dickey realized that potential research and gun rights are not mutually exclusive and don't have to interfere with one another.
"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," the former congressman conceded in his letter.
In light of the legislation, the CDC has refrained from engaging in research related to gun violence, even when called upon by President Obama to do so following the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, in order to avoid losing funding. As a result, gun violence research has been largely left undone and the unchecked violence has cost the United States $229 billion annually, according to a Mother Jones report.
Thompson praised Dickey for in a statement Wednesday, saying, "I commend Jay Dickey for taking this stand."
Thompson continued in the statement: "As gun owners, we want to protect the Second Amendment. But at the same time, we recognize the fact that we can safeguard those rights while also allowing our expert scientists to conduct research on how to best prevent gun violence."
