Last week, 22 Democratic senators and independent Angus King of Maine sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid to keep the Dickey rider out of the new budget. They stated:

Specifically, the rider provides that none of the funds available to the CDC may be used “to advocate or promote gun control.” Unfortunately, this rider has been misconstrued as a ban on supporting scientific research into the causes of gun violence and has chilled practically all research efforts.

As Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik has reported, “The real blow was delivered by a succession of pusillanimous CDC directors, who decided that the safest course bureaucratically was simply to zero out the whole field.” In other words, CDC officials feared, with good reason, being harassed by members of Congress if it looked into gun violence.

The real culprit in this, as is so often the case when it comes to even the mildest proposed gun-law reforms, is the National Rifle Association. In 1993, the New England Journal of Medicine published “Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home.” The study conducted by Arthur Kellerman and his colleagues showed that rather than protecting families, having a gun at home increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance. Incensed at this, the NRA leadership demanded elimination of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which had funded the NEJM study. The Dickey rider was the chosen alternative.

In committee Thursday, DeLauro, a longtime advocate of gun reform, said: “The fact is, the gun lobby has a lock on this Congress, and they have continued to block this research at every turn. They’ve taken away our ability to protect the public from gun violence.”

They’re obviously determined to keep doing so.