WHEREAS, According to the American Public Health Association
(APHA), gun violence in the United States took the lives of
approximately 33,000 Americans in 2016, and, in addition,
approximately 85,000 other Americans sustained injuries from
firearms; and
WHEREAS, In 2016, gun violence cost the United States
approximately $229 billion, including health care, law
enforcement, insurance, employment and other costs; and
WHEREAS, In the Federal Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations
Bill for Fiscal Year 1997, the Dickey amendment required that
"none of the funds made available for injury prevention and
control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be
used to advocate or promote gun control"; and
WHEREAS, The Dickey amendment has prevented the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from researching gun
violence as it would normally research an epidemic with the same
threat to public health, safety and welfare as gun violence; and
WHEREAS, Under the Dickey amendment, the Congress of the
United States also redirected $2.6 million from the CDC's
budget, the amount of money that the CDC had invested in firearm
injury research during the previous year; and
WHEREAS, A number of organizations have proposed repeal of
the Dickey amendment and treating gun violence as a public
health crisis, but these proposals have not been successful at
the Federal level; and
WHEREAS, Since 1996, the CDC's funding for firearm injury
prevention has decreased 96% to $100,000 out of the total CDC
budget of $5.6 billion; and
WHEREAS, In 2012, former United States Representative Jay
Dickey, the author of the Dickey amendment, announced that he
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