Durbin Calls for End to Ban On Centers for Disease Control Gun Violence Research

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today called for the end of a longstanding prohibition on federally funded gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The provision blocking public health research on ways to combat the gun violence epidemic in the United States dates back to an appropriations rider initially passed by Congress in 1996. The original author of that rider, former Congressman Jay Dickey (R-AR), has expressed regret for that rider and called for a resumption of CDC research on gun violence. Last week Durbin and 17 Senate Democrats sent a letter to formally urge the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee to schedule a hearing on appropriating funds for the CDC to conduct this research.

"The gun lobby's war on federal gun violence research has caused lasting harm. There are some private sources of research funding, but they can't match what the CDC can do in terms of large-scale and long-term studies," Durbin said. "Congress needs to act, by stripping the gun violence research ban out of the CDC spending bill. After we get rid of the research ban, we should pass a bill that I am cosponsoring that would specifically authorize $10 million per year in gun violence research by the CDC. Federal agencies spend about $60 million per year researching highway and vehicle safety- surely we can spend at least one-sixth of that amount researching gun violence."

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