KLEPPER: The Center for Disease Control helps keep America safe
with vital research into everything from polio
to Ebola to car accidents and food safety.
And, for a while, they also studied gun violence.
But that ended 20 years ago with a congressional bill
known as the Dickey Amendment.
OBAMA: Congress prohibits us even studying,
through the Center for Disease Control,
ways in which we could reduce gun violence.
KLEPPER: To find out why scientists
need to keep their nerd hands
off our guns, I sat down with columnist
and Pixar animation character Jazz Shaw.
They are pushing an agenda
to come up with documentation
to support gun control legislation in congress.
Right, the famously agenda-driven CDC.
-Mm-hmm. -With the agenda of
eradicating diseases and...
-Gun control. -Right.
Exactly. Scientists use numbers and facts
and something called peer-reviewed studies
to do one thing: destroy the Second Amendment.
Even ex-CDC director Mark Rosenberg
can't deny that fact.
The CDC does have some biases, but those biases
are in favor of preserving life,
of promoting well-being.
Yeah, liberal causes.
CDC has the largest collection
of professionals working on violence prevention.
And it had the potential of being
what would get us out of the problem of gun violence.
KLEPPER: Fortunately, that's not gonna happen.
Because, if you remember, former Arkansas congressman
Jay Dickey pulled a total dickey move
and helped pass the Dickey Amendment.
ROSENBERG: That Jay Dickey guy-- that congressman--
said we're gonna take that money away from CDC
and we're gonna put language that's gonna govern
how you spend all of your money.
I thought of him as this archenemy,
this devil incarnate.
KLEPPER: Ooh, that guy sounds like a freedom-loving badass.
To bring about gun control advocacy...
KLEPPER: So where is he now?
With a gun, of course.
This guy is the kind of Second Amendment defender
who could really slap some sense into Mark Rosenberg.
Hey! Are you Jay Dickey?
-Yeah, what's it to you? -Yeah, come with me.
Here come the fireworks.
Mark, you're in deep (bleep). I brought the guy-- Jay Dickey.
-Jay. -Hi, Mark.
Hey, Jay. (chuckles)
KLEPPER: Oh, I thought I was gonna see old man fight club.
What the (bleep) is going on?
Jay, tell him how you feel about the CDC
doing research about gun violence.
I think the CDC should do the gun research
that relates to gun violence.
You're the guy. It's your bill.
I feel different now than I did before.
Science has answers, and research is the way to free it.
-That's the way I see it. -I learned that we could find ways
to prevent gun violence and to protect gun rights
-at the same time. -Bull(bleep).
How are these two even sitting in the same room together?
Here you had a born-again Christian,
conservative, NRA spokesperson...
-Republican. -Republican.
And here you had this wise-ass, liberal,
-Northeast Jewish kid... -Overeducated.
You guys are funny. You're, like, from totally different
perspectives but put together like that TV show.
-The Odd Couple. -No. Uh...
Two Broke Girls? 'Cause there's-there's two of you.
And it's just like that show. Is that the show?
-Well, but, you know... -Quantico.
-You guys are like Quantico. -I haven't seen that.
Perfect Strangers. Is it Perfect Strangers?
-My wife knows... -Modern Family?
What I'm saying, you guys are like a TV show.
But it's more important than that.
You might say, Jason, he was born again
-for Jay to change his... -Why don't you call him Jordan?
-Jordan. -There's a river in Israel named the Jordan River.
I feel like any second you guys are gonna start braiding
-each other's hair. -They were the most adorable old guys
on the planet who are pushing for federal research
into gun violence prevention.
And I was starting to get on board.
This nation has poured hundreds of millions of dollars
into research to design safer cars and safer roads.
Why don't we pour some money
into gun violence prevention research
and maybe we can also save lives
-and protect gun rights? -They're right.
But does Jazz Shaw, the world's worst fake typer, agree?
The CDC studied automobile accidents.
(exhales) Made America safer.
Shouldn't we take some of that energy
and put it on other things that kill people, like gun deaths?
They did good work, and they probably saved a lot of lives.
But?
But while we studied cars,
-And... -how many people died in car accidents?
If we can't get rid of the entire problem,
-why (bleep) drive? -A lot of people still die
-in car accidents. -But a lot less
because we've made progress because we studied it.
-Right. And we made improvements -Right. Great.
-to the safety equipment. -That sounds great!
How are you gonna improve the gun?
You're gonna study it, you (bleep).
Sorry, lost my cool. Didn't handle that
as well as Jay and Mark probably would have.
The point is there's only one way we're going to reach
a middle ground and make some progress reducing gun violence
-in this country. -ROSENBERG: We need to stop
the screamers but shoot down the ideas that are bad.
That's a great idea.
It was time to set our sights on ignorance,
to take aim at all the dumb arguments,
like science has an anti-gun bias
or we should take away all guns immediately,
-Pull. -'cause that's never gonna happen.
We can move towards a better America
by literally pulling the trigger.
-Skeet, skeet, mother(bleep)er! Skeet, skeet! -And blowing
-these bad ideas out of the sky. -(gunshot)
That's a miss.
-(gunshot) -Damn it.
It helps the metaphor if we can actually hit 'em.
Progress could take a while.
Oh.