BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SJR 20|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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|327-4478 | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SJR 20
Author: Hall (D), et al.
Amended: 3/28/16
Vote: 21
SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE: 5-2, 4/5/16
AYES: Hancock, Glazer, Leno, Liu, Monning
NOES: Anderson, Stone
SUBJECT: Gun violence: research
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This resolution urges the Congress of the United States
to promptly lift the prohibition against publicly funded
scientific research on the causes of gun violence and its
effects on public health, and to appropriate funds to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other relevant
agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services to
conduct that research.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law generally regulates the use, possession and sale of
deadly weapons in California. (Penal Code § 16000, et. seq.)
This resolution:
1)Provides that:
a) Every day, gun violence destroys lives, families, and
communities;
b) From 2002 to 2013, inclusive, California lost 38,576
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individuals to gun violence, of which 2,258 were children;
c) In 2013 alone, guns were used to kill 2,900
Californians, including 251 children and teenagers, and
hospitalized another 6,035 Californians for nonfatal
gunshot wounds, including 1,275 children and teenagers;
There were over 350 recorded mass shootings in the United
States in 2015;
d) Since 1996, Congress has adopted annual policy riders,
known as the "Dickey Amendment" and "Rehberg Amendment,"
that effectively prohibit the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies under the
federal Department of Health and Human Services from
conducting publicly funded scientific research on the
causes of gun violence or its effects on public health;
e) The author of the original Dickey Amendment, former
Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), has stated repeatedly
that he regrets offering the amendment and thinks it should
be repealed;
f) Despite Representative Dickey's comments and President
Obama's executive action in 2013 directing the CDC to
resume gun violence research, Congress has provided no
funding, and the restrictive language remains in place;
g) Since 1996, the federal government has spent $240
million per year on traffic safety research, which has
saved 360,000 lives since 1970;
h) During the same period there has been almost no publicly
funded research on gun violence, which kills the same
number of people every year;
i) Recently, 110 Members of the Congress of the United
States signed a letter urging the leadership of the House
of Representatives to end the longstanding ban on federal
funding for gun violence research, and over 2,000 doctors
in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia did the
same;
j) Although Members of Congress may disagree about how best
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to respond to the problem of gun violence, we should be
able to agree that a response should be informed by sound
scientific evidence; and,
aa) Whether it is horrific headline-generating massacres or
unseen violence that occurs every day - the innocent child
gunned down in crossfire, the mother murdered during a
domestic dispute, or the young life cut tragically short
during the heat of a petty argument - the call to action is
now clear.
2)Resolves by the Senate and Assembly of the State of California
jointly:
a) That a comprehensive evidence-based federal approach to
reducing and preventing gun violence is needed to ensure
that our communities are safe from gun violence;
b) That federal research is crucial to saving lives, having
driven policy to save lives from motor vehicle accidents,
sudden infant death syndrome, lead poisoning, and countless
other public health crises;
c) That the Legislature urges the Congress of the United
States to promptly lift the prohibition against publicly
funded scientific research on the causes of gun violence
and its effects on public health, and to appropriate funds
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other
relevant agencies under the Department of Health and Human
Services to conduct that research; and,
d) That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the President and Vice President of the
United States, to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to
each Senator and Representative from California in the
Congress of the United States, and to the author for
appropriate distribution.
Background
According to the American Psychological Association:
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In 1993, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
published an article by Arthur Kellerman and colleagues,
"Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home,"
which presented the results of research funded by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study
found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly and
independently associated with an increased risk of
homicide. The article concluded that rather than confer
protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an
increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or
intimate acquaintance. . .
The 1993 NEJM article received considerable media
attention, and the National Rifle Association (NRA)
responded by campaigning for the elimination of the center
that had funded the study, the CDC's National Center for
Injury Prevention. The center itself survived, but Congress
included language in the 1996 Omnibus Consolidated
Appropriations Bill . . . for Fiscal Year 1997 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." Referred
to as the Dickey amendment after its author, former U.S.
House Representative Jay Dickey (R-AR), this language did
not explicitly ban research on gun violence. However,
Congress also took $2.6 million from the CDC's budget - the
amount the CDC had invested in firearm injury research the
previous year - and earmarked the funds for prevention of
traumatic brain injury.
(Christine Jamieson, Gun violence research: History of the
federal funding freeze, American Psychological Association,
February 2013, http://www.apa.org
/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx.)
This resolution urges the Congress of the United States to
promptly lift the prohibition against publicly funded scientific
research on the causes of gun violence and its effects on public
health, and to appropriate funds to the Centers for Disease
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Control and Prevention and other relevant agencies under the
Department of Health and Human Services to conduct that
research.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:NoLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified4/6/16)
Americans for Responsible Solutions
Bend the Arc
Brotherhood Crusade
California Black Health Network
California School Boards Association
California Chapter of the American College of Emergency
Physicians
California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence
California Children's Hospital Association
California Communities United Institute
California State Conference of the National Association for the
Advancement of
Colored People
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
City of Long Beach
Coalition Against Gun Violence
Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County
Courage Campaign
Doctors for America - California
Eric Garcetti, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles
Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Health Officers Association of California
Nevada County Democrats
Rainbow Services, Ltd.
Peace Over Violence
Physicians for Social Responsibility, San Francisco Bay Area
Chapter
Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles
Youth Alive!
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Two individuals
OPPOSITION: (Verified4/6/16)
California Sportsman's Lobby
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership
Firearms Policy Coalition
National Rifle Association
Outdoor Sportsmen's Coalition of California
Safari Club International
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT:
The California Children's Hospital Association states:
Every day, gun violence destroys lives, families and
communities. From 2002 to 2013, California lost 38,576
individuals to gun violence. In 2013 alone, guns were used
to kill 2,900 Californians, including 251 children and
teens. That year, at least 6,035 others were hospitalized
or treated in emergency rooms for non-fatal gunshot wounds,
including 1,275 children and teens.
Since 1996 the United States Congress has continually
adopted annual policy riders known as the "Dickey
Amendment" and "Rehberg Amendment." These riders have
effectively prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), and other agencies, from conducting
publicly funded scientific research on the causes of gun
violence or its effects on public health. Data is crucial
to developing and measuring the effects of public policy
interventions to save the lives of our children.
Federal research is crucial to saving lives from motor
vehicle accidents, sudden infant death syndrome, lead
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poisoning and countless other public crises. It is time for
Congress to end the prohibition on publicly funded
research, and treat gun violence as the public health
crisis that it is. Therefore, CCHA supports SJR 20 (Hall),
which urges the United States Congress to promptly lift the
prohibition on publicly funded scientific research on the
causes of gun violence and its effects on public health.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION:
According to the National Rifle Association:
SJR 20 would urge the Congress of the United States to lift
a prohibition against publicly funded scientific research
on the causes of gun violence and its effects on public
health.
Let's be clear, the NRA is not opposed to research that
would encourage the safe and responsible use of firearms
and reduce the numbers of firearm-related deaths. Safety
has been at the core of the NRA's mission since its
inception. But that is not the goal of the gun control
advocates who are behind SJR 20.
Statistics and data linked to firearm-related violence are
complex and frequently skewed by those who oppose gun
ownership. Firearm research generally speaks only to the
alleged possible risks associated with gun ownership, never
to the benefits that law-abiding gun owners provide to
society as a whole. It frequently finds only one option:
more gun control, which plenty of respected researchers
have found to be ineffective. For example, the
congressionally-mandated study of the federal "assault
weapon" and "large" magazine "ban" concluded that "the
banned guns were never used in more than a modest fraction
of all gun murders" before the ban, and the ban's 10-round
limit on new magazines wasn't a factor in multiple-victim
or multiple-wound crimes.
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There are simply many other factors that drive high violent
crime rates. In fact, the FBI, the nation's top law
enforcement agency, lists 13 contributing factors for why a
city or state has a high violent crime rate - and nowhere
on that list is weak gun laws.
The NRA does not - and will not - support efforts that do
nothing but attempt to convince Californians that lawfully
owned firearms are a public menace. The basic point is that
this isn't about problem solving through science, it's
cloaking a pre-existing political agenda in the mantle of
science.
Prepared by:Jessica Devencenzi / PUB. S. /
4/6/16 14:46:55
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