The writer is a science commentator
Gun violence in America could have been labelled a public health crisis decades ago. But in 1996, Jay Dickey, a Republican congressman in Arkansas, backed by the gun lobby, was tasked with neutering research into firearm injuries. Mark Rosenberg, former head of the US National Centre for Injury Prevention and Control and a supporter of gun violence studies, was the public health doctor at the sharp end of Dickey’s artful questioning.
Their face-off resulted in the notorious Dickey amendment to a government spending bill, which technically prohibited federal research money being used to promote gun control. In practice, firearm studies virtually stopped. That research chill lasted until 2018, when a report finally clarified that academic inquiry did not amount to political lobbying.