WASHINGTON — As the Senate considers Fiscal Year 2017 appropriations legislation, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), led by U.S. Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.), joined 20 of their Democratic colleagues in urging Senate leadership to remove from appropriations legislation any anti-gun violence prevention research riders, including a rider that is commonly known as the “Dickey amendment”. A 1996 Republican appropriations rider authored by former Congressman Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) prohibits federal funds from being used to “advocate or promote” gun control. Many have misconstrued the rider as banning federal research into the causes of gun violence. Rep. Dickey (R-Ark.) has publicly stated that he now supports funding gun violence prevention research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

“Only the United States government is in a position to establish an integrated public-health research agenda to understand the causes of gun violence and identify the most effective strategies for prevention,” write the Senators in the letter to Senate Leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid. “As the Senate considers FY2017 appropriations bills, we urge you to remove this and any other anti-gun safety policy riders, and to support potentially life-saving funding for gun violence prevention research.” 

A copy of the letter can be found HERE. 

The letter was also signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeffrey A. Merkley, (D-Ore.) Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Angus King (I-Maine), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) Tim Kaine, (D-Va.) Mark Warner, (D-Va.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.)