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McCollum: We Need To Act To Prevent Gun Violence, But Tragically This Congress Won't

June 14, 2016

The horrible, tragic Orlando massacre has once again resulted in scores of people killed and wounded by a terrorist with high-powered firearms. This time it was at an LGBT night club. But it has also been at a black church, a college campus, a community center, and an elementary school. Gun violence is also found every day on the streets of our cities, in homes in our suburbs, and in our small towns too. It is an epidemic that is ripping apart communities and killing thousands of Americans every year.

Many of you have asked me a simple question: what steps will you take to pass gun violence prevention legislation? It’s a good question.

Right now, today, I am ready to go to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and vote for gun violence prevention legislation that protects the American people, takes guns off our streets, and keeps guns away from dangerous people. I support responsible gun owners, but I don’t support unlimited gun rights at the expense of thousands and thousands of innocent Americans dying from this gun violence epidemic.

Gun violence prevention legislation that I support includes bills that:

  1. Make it a crime to import, sell, manufacture, transfer or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon or a large capacity ammunition feeding device (H.R. 4269).
  2. Ban the manufacture and importation of armor-piercing handgun ammunition to protect our law enforcement officers (H.R. 3497)
  3. Prohibit individuals on the “no-fly” registry from purchasing firearms (H.R. 1076).
  4. Close the gun show loophole (H.R. 2380).
  5. Prohibit a person subject to a restraining order or convicted of stalking from buying or possessing a firearm or ammunition (H.R. 2216).
  6. Prevent persons convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from obtaining firearms (H.R. 4603).
  7. Ban the importation of assault weapons and reclassify assault weapons as non-sporting weapons and impose fines and imprisonment on people who violate the ban (H.R. 4748).
  8. Ban the possession, transfer, and importation of high capacity ammunition feeding devices (H.R. 752).
  9. End the requirement that a firearm be transferred to a prospective gun buyer if the background check cannot be completed within three business days (H.R. 3501).
  10. Allow the Justice Department to make grants to local communities for gun buyback programs to take guns off the street (H.R. 4278).
  11. Declare gun violence a public health emergency that requires the U.S. Surgeon General to submit an annual report to Congress on the effects of gun violence on the U.S. population (H.R. 224).

Tragically, this Congress will not pass a single piece of gun safety legislation this year. The National Rifle Association (NRA) opposes every piece of legislation that protects our families and communities from gun violence. And the fact is that the NRA controls Congress and will obstruct and defeat any effort to fight gun violence — which even the American Medical Association has now described as a public health crisis.

Since my first campaign for Congress in 2000, I have always denounced the NRA’s insidious effort to weaponize American society, which results in 35,000 gun-related deaths in the United States each year.

The best way to change the laws and prevent gun violence is for Americans across the country to send leaders to Washington who care more about saving lives than making sure semi-automatic assault weapons can be in the hands of every person who wants one.