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- Sep 15, 2010
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Congressman Whose Amendment Ended Federal Gun Research: 'I Have Regrets'
In 1996, Rep. Jay Dickey (R-AR) spearheaded a piece of legislation that effectively put an end to government-funded research of gun violence. Now 75, the retired congressman admitted in aHuffington Post interview, “I have regrets.”
Dickey said his mind was changed after years of watching people lose their lives in mass shootings, like the massacre at Umpqua Community College last week that left 10 people dead.
“I wish we had started the proper research and kept it going all this time,” Dickey said.
You see, in order to understand a problem you have to first analyze the problem....Which this guy stopped...
His namesake amendment eliminated the $2.6 million that the Center for Disease Control spent on researching the effects of firearms ownership on public health. Passed by a Republican-dominated Congress, the NRA-backed amendment explicitly stated that, “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Dickey now finds himself at odds with the current crop of conservatives in Congress, who he says are over-interpreting his law. He told the Huffington Post that safety barriers along highways are the kind of common-sense life-saving measures that research can produce.
"If we had somehow gotten the research going, we could have somehow found a solution to the gun violence without there being any restrictions on the Second Amendment," Dickey said. "We could have used that all these years to develop the equivalent of that little small fence."
In 1996, Rep. Jay Dickey (R-AR) spearheaded a piece of legislation that effectively put an end to government-funded research of gun violence. Now 75, the retired congressman admitted in aHuffington Post interview, “I have regrets.”
Dickey said his mind was changed after years of watching people lose their lives in mass shootings, like the massacre at Umpqua Community College last week that left 10 people dead.
“I wish we had started the proper research and kept it going all this time,” Dickey said.
You see, in order to understand a problem you have to first analyze the problem....Which this guy stopped...
His namesake amendment eliminated the $2.6 million that the Center for Disease Control spent on researching the effects of firearms ownership on public health. Passed by a Republican-dominated Congress, the NRA-backed amendment explicitly stated that, “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Dickey now finds himself at odds with the current crop of conservatives in Congress, who he says are over-interpreting his law. He told the Huffington Post that safety barriers along highways are the kind of common-sense life-saving measures that research can produce.
"If we had somehow gotten the research going, we could have somehow found a solution to the gun violence without there being any restrictions on the Second Amendment," Dickey said. "We could have used that all these years to develop the equivalent of that little small fence."
