Exclusive: Rep. Andrew Clyde Urging Speaker Johnson to Protect 2A in Appropriations

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) is urging House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to protect the Second Amendment in FY 2024 appropriations.

In a letter signed by 31 other House members, Clyde warned that monies for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are being used to conduct studies that actually jeopardize legal gun ownership.

The letter, which Breitbart News possesses, says, “We write to you today to urge you to protect the Second Amendment in the upcoming appropriations package from attacks by a partisan and weaponized CDC and NIH—which has become a dangerous threat to gun ownership under the Biden Administration.”

Clyde and the 31 other House members used the letter to remind Johnson that the CDC and NIH have previously used an anti-gun “study” to “[recommend] the implementation of unconstitutional gun control, [including] a national gun registry and a ban on unregistered handguns.”

The letter includes examples of funds used by the CDC and NIH to push gun control:

1. $518,000 “to enhance policy implementation” of “expanded background checks,
   [and secure] firearm storage requirements” and gun confiscation laws in Michigan.
2. $650,000 to study “firearm prohibitions and relinquishment.”
3. $349,000 to find out if state gun control “firearm laws reduce mortality.”
4. $1,200,000 to run a study including “in person and telehealth wellness check-ins” which explicitly include “safety (e.g., guns at home…).”
5. $3,600,000 to study “firearm retirement” for senior citizens which “will strongly parallel key (but not all) aspects of driving retirement.”
6. $428,000 to study how “episodic crime reports… that depict violence as a ‘crime’
   issue… can lead audiences to blame victims [and] reinforce racist stereotypes.”
7. $126,000 to find out why Black Americans are six times more likely “to experience an assault-related firearm injury” as White Americans.
8. $2,100,000 “to inform evidence-based interventions that prevent firearm injury risks involving Asian Americans” caused by their mere “firearm possession.”

In the past, Congress has used the Dickey Amendment to block funding the CDC could use to push gun control, and Clyde and his fellow House members are urging Johnson to use the Dickey Amendment to protect the Second Amendment now.

The letter to Speaker Johnson concludes, “We the undersigned members of Congress urge you to not only include the Dickey Amendment in the FY 2024 appropriations for the CDC and NIH but also to block any further funding for these anti-gun ‘studies’ which are designed and intended to be weaponized against firearm owners and our cherished Second Amendment.”