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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
CALLING ON CONGRESS TO REPEAL THE DICKEY AMENDMENT
WHEREAS, on October 7, 1993, a study titled "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home" sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 329 No. 15) concluded that rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance, and that residents in homes with a gun faced a 2.7-fold greater risk of homicide and a 4.8-fold greater risk of suicide; and
WHEREAS, this peer-reviewed published study that analyzed 1860 homicides recorded in 3 U.S. Counties from August 23, 1987, and August 23, 1992, also concluded that although firearms are often kept in homes for personal protection, the practice is counterproductive and that efforts to increase home security have largely focused on preventing unwanted entry, but the greatest threat to the lives of household members appears to come from within; and
WHEREAS, as a result of the publication of this study, the National Rifle Association moved to suppress the dissemination of the results and to block funding of future government research into the causes of firearm injuries. Hence, in 1996, the NRA lobbied to include an amendment to an appropriations bill that removed $2.6?million from the CDC's budget, the amount the agency's injury center had spent on firearms-related research the previous year; and
WHEREAS, named after its author Jay Dickey, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas, the now known as the Dickey amendment, is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1996 federal government omnibus spending bill which mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control"; and
WHEREAS, the Dic...
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