Letter to John Boehner, Speaker of the House, and Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader - Research into the Causes of Gun violence

Letter

As the House Committee on Appropriations develops each of the twelve fiscal year (FY) 2015 appropriations bills, we urge that you ensure the committee's legislation not include harmful legislative language, or "riders," that impact the enforcement of gun laws, the operations of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL), or research into the causes of gun violence and how to prevent it. Gun violence reduction and prevention is an important and sensitive issue. Given the renewed national focus on gun violence prevention, now is not the time to include controversial appropriations riders that negatively impact gun laws.

Instead, such changes to gun policy must be seriously and properly considered by Congress through the regular order. This must be done in an open and transparent process where a full range of options can be frankly discussed and debated by the proper committees of authorizing jurisdiction and the entire House of Representatives. Over the past several years, various appropriations riders related to gun policy have had unintended consequences that could have been prevented had these issues been properly and more thoroughly debated in Congress.

For example, the Tiahrt and Rehberg amendments, among others, have prevented law enforcement from requiring FFLs to keep an inventory of their firearms, prevented law enforcement and academic institutions from using gun trace data to better understand the pattern of crime gun transfers, and chilled unbiased scientific research into the causes of gun violence and the means of preventing it.

As the FY 2015 appropriations process begins through the respective Appropriations subcommittees, we urge you to support the development of legislation that is free of harmful gun-related riders. Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

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