No, The CDC Isn’t Poised To Research Gun Violence
The Dickey Amendment, passed by Congress in the 1990s, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t use federal funding to advocate for gun control.
Pixabay
Headlines announced last week that a line in a congressional spending bill had freed Atlanta’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to resume gun research that halted in the ’90s.
However, that doesn’t mean new research starts anytime soon.
Back in 1996, Congress passed what’s known as the Dickey Amendment. It said the CDC can’t use federal funding to advocate for gun control. At the same time, under pressure from the National Rifle Association, Congress cut the $2.6 million it had been sending the CDC for gun violence research.
There have been hints lately that Congress might be ready to reinterpret the Dickey Amendment as less of a ban on gun research and more of a guideline: Fine, do the science, but don’t be gun-control activists.
“If we do it well, we will find those things that protect gun rights that don’t take guns away from everyone,” Mark Rosenberg said. He was fired as head of the CDC’s injury prevention center when gun violence funding was cut in the ’90s. He thinks the signs from Congress are step one to relaunching that work.
“The next step, and a very important one, is to get an appropriation for the CDC to do the work,” Rosenberg said.
The next step is money. Rosenberg thinks somewhere between $20 million and $200 million.
“The $200 million is what Congress appropriated to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the 1960s when there was an epidemic of young people dying in crashes on highways,” he said. He added that $20 million would at least be a start.
Rosenberg believes that scientific research could help figure out how to make guns safer, just like we did with cars. He’s very hopeful the money will be in the next spending bill in September.
Former Democratic Georgia Congressman Buddy Darden is less sure.
“The Congress appears to be getting further and further and further behind in its appropriations,” Darden said.
He says leadership is also an issue. Darden pointed out the secretary of Health and Human Services is brand new, so is the director of the CDC, and the Trump administration has shown it has strong views about the Second Amendment.
“Since the process now is so unwieldy, that shows you how unpredictable what Congress will do insofar as any special legislation but especially one like this,” Darden said.
Rosenberg says if the CDC does get gun violence research funds, we wouldn’t begin seeing the first results for at least five years.
Related
Top Stories
