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What's the quickest, easiest thing Congress could do right now to help prevent future gun massacres? The least they could do right now? Repeal the Dickey Amendment that prevents the CDC from doing research into gun violence when they pass an omnibus spending bill later this month. Will the Republican Congress do the least thing here? Of course not.
Republicans are intent on preserving the so-called Dickey amendment, which prohibits the CDC from advocating on gun control, POLITICO's Jennifer Haberkorn reports. […]
Opponents say the Dickey amendment has had a chilling effect on CDC research into gun deaths. But Republicans say they don’t want to add additional controversy to the upcoming spending bills by eliminating it.
"I don’t know why you'd want to mess up a $1 trillion appropriations bill with something that's controversial when the HHS director already says he has the authority do the research," said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) chairman of the Senate Labor-HHS appropriations subcommittee, citing public comments from Secretary Alex Azar. His House counterpart, Rep. Tom Cole, has said the same.
Azar's belief that the CDC is only prevented from taking an advocacy position in the gun debate isn't reflected in the work the CDC itself has been able to do and the chilling effect the Dickey ban has created. That and the fact that Congress has cut funding from the CDC's injury center in gun violence research.
The lack of rigorous study into gun violence that has resulted is pointed out in the RAND Corporation study just released. The head researcher on the gun policy initiative, Andrew Morall, says that the ban has led to confusion and conflicting information. "The studies that have been done often reach opposite conclusions to each other," and the lack of research "creates this kind of fact-free environment in which people can cherry-pick any study that happens to support what their priors are on the effects of the law."
A lack of clarity is exactly how the Republicans—and their NRA overlords—like it.