Repeal the Dickey amendment

When I heard about the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Fla., I was overcome by familiar feelings of deep sadness and frustration.

It is appalling that, in the 19 years since Columbine, with roughly 30,000 gun deaths per year in the United States and an apparent increase in mass shootings, we continue to see the same types of tragedies. It is also tragic that so many calls for action have dissolved into partisan deadlock.

While I doubt there will ever be an easy answer to reducing gun violence, I suspect most people across the political spectrum would agree we have to do more. The question is how?

If we’re serious about making change, we need better information. As hundreds of scientists have suggested, I believe we need increased nonpartisan research on gun violence to help us address the issue as the public health crisis that it is. If we have better facts about what works to reduce such violence, we just might be able to follow them past divisive arguments and toward ways to reduce the bloodshed that claims far too many young lives on our streets, in schools and other public places.

To start this journey, we will need to open up federal funding for research on firearms-related violence. That means repealing the Dickey amendment, which banned the use of federal funds for gun control, and which its namesake legislator ultimately advocated changing.

Adam Foxman

Greendale