CHANGE OF HEART
“Jay Dickey, the Republican representative and N.R.A. [National
Rifle Association] member from Arkansas who sponsored the amendment
[in 1996 shifting money away from National Centers for Disease Control
research on guns in the home] came to regret it. Dismayed by the continuing
toll of gun violence, he was eventually persuaded that firearm deaths could
be reduced without violating the Second Amendment. He now believes that
research on gun violence can help prevent it, much as similar work on
highway safety resulted in innovations like seat belts, air bags, highway
dividers, and minimum drinking ages, and prevented hundreds of thousands
of traffic deaths. In December [2015], in a letter to Mike Thompson, the
chairman of the House [of Representatives] Democrats' Gun Violence
Prevention Task Force, Dickey wrote, ‘Research could have been
continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners,
in the same fashion that the highway industry continued its research without
eliminating the automobile.’ He added, ’We should slowly but methodically
fund such research until a solution is reacheD. Doing nothing is no longer
an acceptable solution.’”
Rifle Association] member from Arkansas who sponsored the amendment
[in 1996 shifting money away from National Centers for Disease Control
research on guns in the home] came to regret it. Dismayed by the continuing
toll of gun violence, he was eventually persuaded that firearm deaths could
be reduced without violating the Second Amendment. He now believes that
research on gun violence can help prevent it, much as similar work on
highway safety resulted in innovations like seat belts, air bags, highway
dividers, and minimum drinking ages, and prevented hundreds of thousands
of traffic deaths. In December [2015], in a letter to Mike Thompson, the
chairman of the House [of Representatives] Democrats' Gun Violence
Prevention Task Force, Dickey wrote, ‘Research could have been
continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners,
in the same fashion that the highway industry continued its research without
eliminating the automobile.’ He added, ’We should slowly but methodically
fund such research until a solution is reacheD. Doing nothing is no longer
an acceptable solution.’”
Margaret Talbot, “Obama’s Guns Gambit,”a Talk of the Town
essay in The New Yorker, January 18, 2016, pp: 23-24.
essay in The New Yorker, January 18, 2016, pp: 23-24.
