“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis foolish to be wise.” In 1996, Congress inserted the Dickey Amendment into the omnibus spending bill. The amendment, in part, says “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” This had the chilling effect of stopping all studies into the causes of gun violence. Subsequent transfer of existing gun violence funding to traumatic brain injury studies made the intent clear.
Twenty-two years later, in a report accompanying the 2018 omnibus spending bill was clarifying language which states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can, in fact, conduct research into gun violence. That’s a start, but the amendment still stands. Researchers who study gun violence are unimpressed. “There’s no funding. There’s no agreement to provide funding. There isn’t even encouragement,” says Garen Wintemute, professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, Davis.
With over 300,000,000 guns in American homes, and 15,549 (excluding suicides) people killed by guns last year (2017), don’t you think it’s about time we knew why? Repeal the Dickey Amendment, fund the studies.
Dennis Read Hanks, Salt Lake City