A local lawmaker plans to offer an amendment to a bill being voted on Friday to strike the federal ban on Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health research into gun violence.  5th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty says ending the “Dickey Amendment” is supported by 68 medical and public health organizations, as well as former Representative Jay Dickey, who authored the current language.

Esty says no other topic is off-limits for federal research.  She says Dickey has said that the ban was a mistake.

The Dickey Amendment was written in 1996 and in essence blocked the CDC from gaining a better understanding of how to prevent gun violence. Esty’s amendment strikes the federal ban on CDC and NIH research into gun violence.  Amendments are not being entertained so Esty says she will keep trying after Congress returns from recess.

She says gun violence must be treated as an epidemic.  She says studies have been done it with cars and smoking, and it must be done with guns.

Esty is Vice Chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.