October 1, 2019: Gun Violence Prevention: Policy Update

Posted on October 01, 2019 at 12:00 AM

Gun Violence in America—Will Senators Follow Their Constituents and Act?!
People say the Congress doesn’t respond, but let’s be specific here! The Senate doesn’t respond; the House does! The second week of September the House Judiciary Committee marked up three bills, which should be on the House floor by early October. They are:

1. 1. The Red Flag or ERPO (Extreme Risk Protective Order) bill.
   2. The bill on “high-capacity” magazines
   3. The hate crimes bill, i.e., those convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime are prohibited from possessing guns.

Democratic Forum on Gun Violence
October 2 in Las Vegas will be a big night for the Democratic presidential candidates! Giffords and March for Our Lives will host the 2020 Gun Safety Forum in Nevada. The forum will be convened a day after the 2-year anniversary of the Las Vegas  shooting that left 58 people dead and more than 489 injured. The WNDC will stream the forum during the October 2 Winning Wednesday activities.

Corporations State Their Position
As The Washington Post reported, “Corporate America calls on the Senate to pass gun violence laws!” Senate Majority Leader McConnell has not listened to the more than 90% of Americans who support common-sense gun measures. Will Corporate America change his tune? “Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” wrote the CEOs of 145 companies to Senate leaders. They urged an expansion of background checks on gun sales and enactment of a strong “red flag” law. Levi Strauss, Twitter, Uber executives, and others said they were writing out of a sense
of “responsibility and obligation to stand up for the safety of our employees, customers, and all Americans in the communities they serve.”

This letter follows the decision of Walmart and CVS to prohibit firearms from being openly carried in their stores. Walgreens, Kroger,TOMS, Dick’s Sporting Goods, L.L.Bean, and REI, along with Citibank, Amalgamated Bank, BlackRock, PayPal, Facebook, and Salesforce, to name a few, joined the group. WNDC urges all members to frequent these businesses, and thank them for supporting
gun safety!

— Ellen McGovern, Chair, Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention