We’ve all heard this load of pure, pungent Oscar Mayer processed meat product for decades. Federal law (in the form of the Dickey Amendment) prevents research into “gun violence!” The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex loves to claim that we can’t possibly do anything about the (non-existent) gun violence epidemic in this country if we can’t study it.
That, of course, is a blatant lie. The Dickey Amendment does no such thing. The only thing the Amendment prohibits is the use of any federally funded research to attack Second Amendment rights.
As the Centers for Disease Control’s own website makes clear the Dickey Amendment only says 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.
The CDC can do all of the research it wants and publish its findings until the cows come home. They simply can’t then use their findings as a basis from which to lobby for restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
If the Dickey Amendment actually prohibited “gun violence” research, the deal struck today by the House and Senate — as reported by The Hill — couldn’t have happened.
Federal agencies will receive $25 million from Congress to study gun violence in a government spending deal reached by House and Senate negotiators — a major win for Democrats who have long pushed for dedicated funding to research the issue, a source told The Hill.
Even The Hill acknowledges that the Dickey Amendment never prevented any research in any way, shape or form.
While the so-called Dickey Amendment — named for its author, former Sen. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) — does not prevent agencies from studying gun violence, that was its effect.
That’s because Congress stopped funding the research once the Amendment became law, knowing full well that the CDC couldn’t help itself and would find a way to politicize the results of its research anyway.
While Democrats had tried for years to end the amendment, they shifted their strategy this year, pushing for $50 million in funding while leaving the amendment in place in an attempt to allay concerns that the money could be used inappropriately.
Will the CDC and NIH — which will split the $25 million — be able to restrain themselves from using whatever their research turns up to advocate for stricter gun control laws? Don’t bet on it.
It seems Senate Republicans threw in the towel and threw a few million at the CDC to try to end the endless lies and haranguing about the Dickey Amendment. But if they think Congressional Democrats — let alone the CDC and NIH — will be satisfied with this as a one-time gesture, they’re kidding themselves.
From the AP:
By Matthew Daly
A bipartisan deal on a government spending bill would for the first time in two decades provide money for federal research on gun safety. A law adopted in the 1990’s has effectively blocked such research and prohibits federal agencies from engaging in advocacy on gun-related issues.
The spending bill, set for a House vote as soon as Tuesday, would provide $25 million for gun violence research, divided evenly between the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Nearly seven years to the day after we lost 20 beautiful children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary” in Newtown, Connecticut, “we are finally making progress in Congress to reduce gun violence,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the labor and health subcommittee of the House Appropriations panel.
“The epidemic of gun violence is a public health emergency. Yet, for more than two decades, Congress has failed to provide any meaningful reforms,” DeLauro said in a statement.
The new funding for NIH and CDC “will help us better understand the correlation between domestic violence and gun violence, how Americans can more safely store guns and how we can intervene to reduce suicide by firearms,” DeLauro said.
The agreement follows approval of language last year clarifying that the so-called Dickey Amendment does not prohibit federal spending on gun research, as had been widely argued by gun rights supporters. The 1996 law, named after former Republican Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas, has been the focus of a political fight for more than two decades, and the CDC largely abandoned gun research in the wake of its passage.
Dickey, who died in 2017, argued in recent years that research on gun violence was needed.
Gun control supporters hailed the agreement on gun-research funding as an important breakthrough.
The announcement “is a huge victory in our nation’s commitment to addressing and solving the gun violence epidemic,” said Christian Heyne, vice president of the Brady gun safety group.
“Students graduating from college this spring have never lived in a United States where the federal government studied this issue. That ends today,” Heyne said. The National Rifle Association pushed for the 1996 Dickey law but maintains it does not oppose gun research. Instead the group says it opposes research that is biased, flimsy or aimed at advocacy.
Never cave to the outrage mob.
“It seems Senate Republicans threw in the towel ”
Just when you think the republican senators have run out of towels, they find another one to throw in.
BAN TOWELS NOW!
Since it seems there’s an endless supply of towels, maybe we should replace the Republicans instead.
That or the worthless RINO’s that throw them.
How can we tell if its a rino? So many of them look alike.
Winning bigly.
I’m taking an optimistic view of this development.
First, it stops the argument that gun violence research is banned. They got money and they are ordered to spend it.
Second, what are CDC and NIH going to do with the money? Just spend it but publish nothing? We can criticise them if they try that.
Will they publish a gun-control report? They would be violating the law.
Will they publish opinion without data? We can criticize them for doing so.
Will they do faulty research and publish warped data? We can criticise them for academic dishonesty.
When CDC researched DGUs in 1996, 97 and 98 they found data that supported an estimate of 1 million DGUs/year. So they didn’t publish it. Kleck discovered it an analyzed it.
I’m hoping that this money will produce another result analogous to the CDC ’96-98/Kleck outcome. Independent researchers will have official government data to analyze and comment on.
“Second, what are CDC and NIH going to do with the money? Just spend it but publish nothing? We can criticise them if they try that.”
The CDC has already done that.
“Will they publish a gun-control report? They would be violating the law.”
Not true. They would violate the law if they publish (or indeed, simply do the research) intended to promote gun control.
It helps if you define your TLA (Three Letter Acronym) at least once.
If you need help defining CDC, NIH, and DGU on this website, I’m not sure it would do any good.
“Will they publish a gun-control report? They would be violating the law.”
A law which specifies what institutional and individual civil and criminal penalties for violators, exactly?
Face it, without consequences, they’re just going to take the money and run with their anti-gun advocacy; the very same way they all flout the toothless Second Amendment. Funding this B.S. to “end the endless lies” will only fuel the proliferation of the lies.
“Good morning, I’m Chris Cuomo, a new CDC study shows that gun ownership causes cancer and herpegohnesyphilaids. This is CNN.”
Can fund research, but the results are not supposed to be used to infringe on gun rights…
so they will find old white guys commit suicide by guns out of proportion to their percentage of the population…
and young brown men commit crimes with guns way out of proportion to their percentage of the population
…..and then?
Gathering facts is fine. Promoting policy, like “.. therefore disarm OWGs when they hit 60 so they don’t off themselves” is not. On the downside, Bloomie and Gifford will cherry pick any facts and present only the ones that bolster their case while wrapping in the authority of CDC.
Most people think they like the Constitution but are against it. Most people are anti gun and most people believe in privileges not rights.
I don’t see things improving for rights. How ever technology, medicine, and other stuff keeps improving. Hopefully we can use technology to bring enough people to the side of freedom.
Hopefully at some point people realize background checks don’t work. Self preservation is an absolute basic human right that cannot be maintained without the right to bear arms.
95% of the government is not supposed to exist under the framework the founders set up.
Wait until they discover that guns do not cause drugs or gangs! If they don’t they will be frauds.
Of course they will be frauds. They will find nothing but “evidence” that guns are evil and bad and cause nothing but bad health conditions, and it will all be useable by the gun control types to further restrict the rights of Americans because of “safety.”
So the CDC only tells the truth about vaccines? The same CDC that owns vaccine patents and sells billions of dollars worth of vaccines per year? And the same CDC that a senior CDC researcher claimed destroyed data showing an MMR vaccine and autism connection? Greta, I mean Geoff, what do you think?
Is there a vaccine against Vaccine Derangement Syndrom?
PeeGeeTwo,
Yup. All research at the CDC is politicized or controlled by medical-care industries. No different than any other government agency. We all know the CDC ‘doctors’ its gun research to accommodate political and financial influencers. Why would anyone believe all their other research is not similarly tainted?
I have, 3 times now, sat with Brian Hooker, who had direct access to the data provided by the CDC whistle blower and independently found the signal the CDC was covering-up. There is no question of fraud by the CDC in their vaccine research as well as their firearms research.
The people who want to take away our medical freedom are the same people who want to take away our guns.
The ONLY reason Anti vaccines is a thing is because we haven’t watched a baby cough itself to death in decades.
The ONLY reason there is a vaccine-autism connection is the indicators of autism appear at about the same time in life as the vaccines. Age two
MNP,
Respectfully, I have studied this for two decades. That means going to conferences, listening to both sides, reading books, taking classes, even getting deep into the biochemistry. There is a problem with the way we make, market, and administer vaccines in this country. I am not going to argue those points here on TTAG. Please, visit the National Vaccine Information Center site with an open mind.
This is bigger than vaccines; it is the fight for all of our rights, freedoms.
“That means going to conferences, listening to both sides, reading books, taking classes, even getting deep into the biochemistry.”
OK there, Mike Hughes.
Strych9,
I do not understand your ‘Mike Hughes’ comment.
Total bullshit. If vaccines were safe and effective, vaccines wouldn’t be a “thing”. But they’re not, and never have been. That’s why they’re a “thing”.
I’m still waiting to hear the opinion on the Samoan measles outbreak. Over 5200 cases and 73 deaths. Vaccinations were made mandatory.
Will peegeetwo blame it on miasma, tainted meat, or god’s wrath?
It doesn’t fit his reality, so he’ll ignore it.
It’s a very ‘special’ world of delusion he lives in. He’s actually convinced I invented I Haz A Question’ and when he and I converse, it’s actually me speaking to myself… 😉
Greta, to avoid you going into one of your teenage girl temper tantrums, I’ll answer this question, again, for the 3rd time on TTAG. Samoa is the result of medical mistreatment if not straight up malpractice, and nutritional neglect. And maybe you didn’t know there was no measles outbreak until UNICEF delivered some 100,000 vaccines the month or 2 prior to the outbreak.
@Geoff,
Wait, what?
@Haz, (S)he’s mistaken as usual. I’ve never accused her/him of using your profile. When Greta, Er Geoff, loses control of itself on this forum, and gets called on it, Gretaff suddenly goes quiet while several other profiles suddenly come to life defending his “How dare you” temper tantrums. You’re not one of those profiles, I never stated you were.
I’ll do the research for 1.5 M USD. That will save NIH and CDC some time and effort they could use to focus on things like public sanitation in San Francisco. Maybe they could find time to alleviate medical mistakes that cause lives.
“cost”?
* cost
A huge problem with bias in this type of BS is that they only look at firearms as instruments of death and destruction and never give a thought to the self defense aspect and the amount of lives that they save and preserve from great harm which largely goes unreported because simply the presence of a firearm stops most threats cold.
You could incarcerate a few known violent offenders for $25 million a year, what do you think Chicago?
But it would be flashier to study whether states with “strong” gun laws have less gun violence where violence includes self defense, suicide, police shootings… and how many kids are killed by guns, where “kids” includes gang members.
Sounds good, but the antis didn’t like the results the last time the CDC researched “gun violence” in 2013.
So they ignore it.
What if this new study shows similar results?
Ill say how I feel in French so we all can understand it all. “What a crock of bullshit.” If any one thinks this money isnt used for political purposes.
As I have said before the Republicans threw in the towel because they do indeed pay attention to gun surveys i.e. the latest that show 90 per cent of Republican Voters want such things as Universal Background Checks. If you think that after the 2020 elections , even if Trump wins, that there will be no new gun restrictions you living in a fantasy world and ignorant in regards to the current political reality in the U.S.
As Far as the new Federal Research , private research has already given most people a window in regards to seeing what the new research will reveal and that is that Robert Reich and his reference to over 30 gun studies has shown that areas with high gun ownership does indeed lead to much more violence and murder. Stick a gun in the wrong persons hand and he is going to use it against someone and the new research on the Federal Level will be far more influential at the Congressional level than the 30 some private surveys and research that was already done even though both will yield the same results i.e. that since anyone can buy a second hand gun with no vetting that this is one of the major problems enhancing gun violence in the U.S.
In 2020 no matter who is President both the Democrats and Republicans will be passing Universal Background Checks. To deny this is to be dumb enough to deny the sun will rise tomorrow and dumb enough to believe Trump when he says Global Warming is a deep state conspiracy hatched by all the leading scientists in the world and confirmed by them. But sadly the Far Right Believed Hitlers rants as much as the Far Right today believes the Rants of our increasingly mental deteriorating Fake 45
I think this started just short of his 11th birthday, when his school signed him up for a library card. Before this, we would not let him use electronics, but once he discovered how to use the library computers, he discovered his passion for trash talking, and now has been engaging in similar behavior since 2008, I don’t know when this weird leftist streak began though.
Hey Junior your mother is calling you for supper. Quite bothering adults on the internet punk. You need your ass spanked kid.
Relatively high on my list of parental regrets, is not doing that to you.
“Relatively high on my list of parental regrets, is not doing that to you.”
I would like to see you try sometime junior boy. Go eat supper now kid your foods getting cold and if you do not its your mother that is going to spank your ass.
Hahahaha. This keeps getting better and better. Thanks Vlads dad. Well, not really, for creating such an abysmal creature, but you know what we mean.
I think someone missed their bottle today
You just failed Data Analysis 101. Correlation does not prove causation. I would say “nice try”, but, really, it wasn’t even that.
What are they going to produce with any of these ‘studies’ that we haven’t learned in the last thousand years of having guns? Seems to me, we already have enough data collected to make wise choices. What we don’t have is enough people making wise choices.
This money will be used to further O’Rourkes desire to take guns from everyone but the bad guys. I am completely convinced of that.
Exactly. All the research – pro, con, neutral – is already out there and available on the internet. For a 10% slice of that 25 million, I’ll spend a few days and pull it all together in one place for the CDC. They can go spend the rest of the money on something useful.
Like vaccines against antivaxxer syndrome.
What is the mechanism to get back the $25 Million when they hide the research results that go against the GUNS = BAD agenda. Plenty of poorly done studies out there already that “officials” like to site. If they are going to use Federal funds there should be felony penalties for fudging the numbers.
I see trouble with this down the road with $10’s of millions needed to challenge resulting data.
I propose a compromise. Let’s get rid of the Dickey Amendment and the Hughes Amendment.
Toss in NFA 1934 and it’s a deal.
Bloomberg literally has billions and wasted 300 million on Johns Hopkins aka Daniel Webster’s fun prohibitionists propaganda.
Republicans want to steal millions of citizens’ property to help the communists? Sounds right for a modern conservative/socialist. They always like to act as if they are not socialists although they call for a larger military and police force whilst also passing Democrat written gun control throughout the states.
Once the socialist gun control moves many feet forward, and counties are lost to the communists, the average “conservative” finally gets angry and makes a futile resolution without any actual substance or true resistance when things continue to march on as they have. All sore loser talk while Republicans they voted for hand the communists what they want without resistance.
After all the Republicans have to be softcore Democrats because the nation’s majority are leftists. The tipping point happened in 2001, but only now are the old people noticing their reality.
Hey look it’s Miner/Arc/vlad/chief.
You’re a retard.
I hereby object to MY money being wasted on the production of biased garbage that will be quoted as gospel truth by the likes of Bloomberg and will by default be accepted as “science” by the brain dead masses..
What’s wrong??
We Compromised!
I’m sure….totally completely 100% sure….that now the lefty gun grabbers will completely be satisfied and stop all future gun grabbing attempts.
All will be fine…
Trust me….
signed,
with total honesty,
Michael Bloomberg
Last time Trump shutdown the government for Wall funding.
Trump is compromised. Bump stock ban. No wall. No Muslim ban. Obamacare is still here.
Trump betrayed us.
Please don’t cyberbully me for supporting the NRA on this (((blog))).
#supportnra
#nralifemember
Methinks we may be bitching too early. Certainly there will be differing approaches to increasing “gun safety”, right? Of course the usual suspect, confiscation, should be studied thoroughly, to include the probable duration of the civil war and the number of liberals likely to die in the conflict, or during the trials afterward. But I am certain, CERTAIN I tell you, that there will also be consideration of the cost and effectiveness of education, from grade school through high school graduation, in the safe use and handling of long and short firearms, including hands on live fire. How could it be otherwise? Pretty teenaged girl from Barnard recently murdered has been confirmed to have fought back against 3 attackers, pretty much guaranteeing she would be alive if she had simply been armed.
Who do you think will get the money and do the research?
The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) uses grants and cooperative agreements to fund research and non-research public health programs that advance the agency’s public health mission domestically and abroad to keep Americans safe and healthy where they work, live and play. In fiscal year 2018, the Office of Grants Services (OGS) supported 4,548 grant awards to 1,305 recipients. These awards generated 10,954 actions that placed more than $5.4 billion into public health programs and research around the world.
https://www.cdc.gov/grants/index.html
So, I admit that I don’t understand the sturm und drang here. The Dickey Amendment never prohibited such expenditures. Personally, I’ll be happy to see that particular leftwing talking point debunked permanently.
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