WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, applauded on Thursday language included in the FY18 Omnibus Appropriations bill to help reduce gun violence. The bill includes Murphy’s bipartisan Fix NICS Act and clarifies the decades-old law that has prevented the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from researching the causes of gun violence. The omnibus bill also includes language from the STOP School Violence Act, legislation Murphy cosponsored that would fund school security improvements and invest in early intervention and prevention programs to stop school violence before it happens.

“The politics around guns is changing fast and Republicans are scrambling to catch up. The small steps forward on gun safety in the budget bill, including the Fix NICS Act that I co-authored, are good news. But let's be honest – the NRA still has veto power over the Republican-led Congress. Republicans still won't schedule a debate on guns in the Senate, and if the small provisions in the budget are all that they are willing to do, that would be a tragic insult to all the kids who are rising up across the country demanding that Congress end the gun violence epidemic.” 

Murphy and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Fix NICS Act to ensure federal and state authorities accurately report relevant criminal history records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Gun violence, a leading cause of death in the United States, has historically been underfunded and understudied, due in part to the Dickey Amendment, which has effectively banned federal funding for research on the issue at the CDC since 1996. Murphy joined U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in introducing S.834, legislation to provide $60 million in funding for the CDC to conduct or support research on firearms safety and gun violence prevention.

Murphy has repeatedly stated that the Fix NICS Act should be a starting point for Congress to pass a much more comprehensive set of bipartisan measures – such as expanding background checks, implementing court protective orders to take guns away from dangerous people, and limit magazine sizes – to reduce gun violence.