The Congressional Ban on Gun Violence Research

In June of 2009, when I was the superintendent of schools in a suburban district just north of Manhattan, I was held hostage by an armed gunman who threatened to execute me. A year later in the same district, a 13-year-old drew a gun on his teachers. In both instances the district went into lockdown, and fortunately, no one was injured. These were not my only dealings with guns on a school campus. As a building principal for fifteen years, I confiscated handguns, rifles, and ammunition. I have also attended the funerals of teenagers who took their own lives with guns, including the son of an employee.

I was principal of a large middle school during Columbine—the beginning of the nation’s awakening to campus gun violence. After Sandy Hook I naively believed that this tragedy would lead to change in how the nation’s leaders—members of Congress—would respond. While advocacy groups, such as Sandy Hook Promise or Everytown, began to coalesce to understand causes and find solutions, political leaders debated the extent to which sensible laws to prevent future tragedies should be legislated. Yet, any rational decision-making was impaired by a limited body of research.

A few days after the February 2018 tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) published a statement calling for the lifting of a ban—the Dickey Amendment—that essentially prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from conducting research on gun violence and warns: “None of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.”