Hours before news broke Wednesday of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., doctors in white coats delivered a petition with the signatures of more than 2,000 physicians to Congress demanding that it lift a ban on federal funding for research into gun violence.
The Dickey amendment, which dates back to 1996, effectively barred researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying gun violence. The doctors who delivered the petition spoke out about the “public health epidemic” of gun violence and were joined by Democratic lawmakers, according to a report from the Washington Post.
Doctors agree: It’s time to #EndTheBan on @CDC and @NIH research so we can find solutions to the gun violence crisis pic.twitter.com/XDD6hGWBbj
— Doctors for America (@Drsforamerica) December 2, 2015
Later that afternoon, a man and a woman opened fire at a holiday party for county employees in San Bernardino. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, his wife or fiancee, are suspected of killing 14 people and injuring 17 others. Farook and Malik were later killed in a shootout with police.
Just hours after I stood w/ @Drsforamerica to #EndTheBan, another mass shooting in San Bernadino. #gunviolence is a public health crisis!
— Hemant Sindhu, MD (@CIRPres) December 2, 2015