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| Paola Grizi, sculpture : “courtain,” 201 | 5 |
A proposal to honor
the last wishes of Representative Jay Dickey and research gun violence and
implement appropriate gun control legislation under the banner of public health
and safety as we do vehicular safety regulations.
Gun Control used to
be classified as a health issue and gun violence was researched by the CDC (Center
for Disease Control) until 1996.That year, Jay Dickey, a Second Amendment
Rights advocate in the House, authored an amendment to strangle gun violence
research funding to the CDC.
Complying with the priorities
of the NRA, the Dickey Amendment eliminated $2.6 million from the CDC budget to
research gun violence. Since then, the NRA has continued to prevent research
into the cause and effect of firearm related violence.1
Inspired by Caroline
O.’s excellent article,2 I looked up Dickey to find out more about
him. It turns out that he was a Republican, a life member of the NRA and
represented Arkansas in the House from 1993 to 2000. However, in 2012, sixteen
death-strewn years after his original amendment, Dickey wrote a paper with Mark
Rosenberg that *reversed* his position on gun violence research.
Rosenberg was
president and chief executive of the Task Force for Global Health and director
of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention from 1994 to 1999.
Dickey’s reversed position
on gun violence research as written
after the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting of 2012, states:
***************************************************************************
"It’s vital to
understand why we know more and spend so much more on preventing traffic
fatalities than on preventing gun violence, even though firearm deaths (31,347
in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available) approximate
the number of motor vehicle deaths (32,885 in 2010). 3
**************************************************************************
Jay Dickey, author of
the Dickey Amendment of 1996 still used today to deny CDC funding on gun
violence and gun control, died on April 20, 2017. But his legacy should not be
the amendment he first authored, but rather his plea of July 28, 2012 to reverse
that amendment to prevent firearm deaths by considering gun control a
legitimate concern of CDC research for the sake of public health just like vehicular
safety.
If the name CDC,
Center for Disease Control, is semantically repugnant, given that traffic
fatalities, mass shootings and airport security are public health concerns that
are not technically diseases, why not rename the agency the “Center for Demise
Control”? Then, Congress won’t even have to change the logo on the signage and
instead can focus on sound policy to assure public safety and welfare.
1. Luo,
Michael (January 25, 2011). "N.R.A. Stymies Firearms Research". TheNew York Times. Accessed 2/16/2018.
2. Caroline
O., “How the NRA Silenced the Science of Gun Violence Prevention” (June 19,
2017). Medium. Accessed 2/16/2018
3. Dickey,
Jay and Rosenberg, Mark (July 28, 2012) "Wewon't know the cause of gun violence until we look for it."The Washington Post. Accessed 2/16/2018
Photo: Paola Grizi, sculpture : “courtain,” 2015 –
collezione privata, Venezia, scultura in terracotta policroma, paolagrizi.com.
#GunControlNow #FewerGunsFewerDeaths #GunViolenceHealthIssue
#GunControlHealthIssue #WhatWouldDickeyDo
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