Lowenthal, other congressmembers call for renewed action to address gun violence

United States Representatives Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Mike Thompson (CA-5), Elizabeth Esty (CT-5) and Lois Capps (CA-24) on June 2 introduced a House resolution that calls for renewed congressional action in dealing with “the ever-growing impact of gun violence on American communities,” according to Lowenthal’s office. The resolution was introduced to coincide with June 2 being observed as the first National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

The resolution expresses that gun violence is a public-health issue and commits Congress to enacting, by the end of the 114th Congress, common-sense steps to curb gun violence without hindering Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

The full text of the House Resolution is as follows: “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that gun violence is a public-health issue and Congress should enact by the end of the 114th Congress comprehensive Federal legislation that protects the Second Amendment and keeps communities safe and healthy, including expanding enforceable background checks for all commercial gun sales, improving the mental health system in the United States, and making gun trafficking and straw purchasing a federal crime.”
Of the numerous bills introduced in the 114th Congress aimed at reducing the prevalence of gun violence, none have been brought to the House floor for a vote, according to Lowenthal’s office.

“When nearly 90 people a day die from gun violence, inaction is not an option,” Lowenthal said. “If this many people died every day from a disease, we would call it exactly what gun violence is: a public-health epidemic. The only thing more heartbreaking than the damage gun violence has done to families across our nation is the fact that Congress has failed to do anything meaningful about it.”

Lowenthal, Thompson, Esty and Capps are members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, which Thompson established in December 2012. Esty represents the town of Newtown, Connecticut, which experienced the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012. Capps represents the unincorporated community of Isla Vista in Santa Barbara County that suffered a mass shooting in 2014 that killed seven people, including the shooter.
Source: Lowenthal’s office