Story highlights Former Rep. Jay Dickey has changed his mind on government funded research on gun violence

"Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution," Dickey wrote in a letter to Congress

Washington (CNN) The former Republican congressman who pushed legislation nearly 20 years ago that effectively banned the federal government from funding research on gun violence is calling on Congress to reverse that law.

In a letter to the chair of House Democrats' task force on gun violence prevention, former Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas called for the government to fund research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine the causes of gun violence in the U.S. and expressed "regrets" for his part in stopping that research.

"It is my position that somehow or someway we should slowly but methodically fund such research until a solution is reached. Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution," Dickey wrote in a letter dated Tuesday.

Rep. Mike Thompson, chairman of the House Democrats' Gun Violence Prevention Task Force that was created in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, released the letter on Wednesday, hours after news broke of a shooting in San Bernardino, California, where at least 14 people were killed and another 17 injured.

Dickey has said in recent months that he regrets the legislative effort he led in 1996 effectively stopped the CDC from conducting research aimed at understanding and preventing gun violence in the U.S.

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