Below is the reply received from Senator Markey regarding sensible gun control.
We should be proud that Massachusetts elected a leader who carefully considers issues and takes a well reasoned position.
EDWARD
J. MARKEY
MASSACHUSETTS |
218
RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-2742 | |
United
States Senate
February 13,
2015
|
Thank you for contacting me about gun violence and
firearm safety. It was good to hear from you.
Every American has a Second Amendment right to bear arms
for the purposes of recreation and self-defense. However, I believe we must
enact the proper protections to prevent assault weapons from hitting our streets
and to keep firearms out of the wrong hands. The safety and security of
Massachusetts' schools, neighborhoods and communities is of the utmost
importance to me. Washington is lagging behind the rest of the country on
gun control reforms. As a Senator, I will continue to fight for universal
background checks, a strong assault weapons ban and a prohibition against high
capacity ammunition magazines. It's time to get these military-style weapons off
of our streets so that these deadly weapons don't fall into the wrong
hands.
Last year, I introduced "The Handgun Trigger Safety Act"
to ensure that only authorized users can operate handguns. In the
21st century, we should use advances in technology to our own
advantage and save lives. This is the type of gun safety legislation that
everyone - regardless of political party or affiliation - should be able to
support.
Senseless gun violence kills or injures more than 10,000
children a year and guns kill 30,000 Americans every year. We need to study gun
violence like the public health crisis it is. That's why, during the last
Congress, I introduced legislation, (S.2373) with my colleague Rep. Carolyn
Maloney of New York committing to federal gun violence research. Gun violence
research should be a permanent priority so that we no longer look back and say
that we didn't commit any resources to a cause of death that took more people
last year than leukemia. I plan on introducing similar legislation in the
coming weeks.
During the last Congress, I was a co-sponsor of S. 1149,
the "Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act," which bans plastic
guns fabricated via 3D printers. That ban was reauthorized by Congress and
signed in to law by President Obama on December 9, 2013. I plan on supporting
similar legislation in the 114th Congress.
I also cosponsored a number of bills during the last
Congress that I believe represent common-sense solutions that will make our
country safer, including S.150, the "Assault Weapons Ban of 2013," S. 22, the
"Gun Show Background Check Act of 2013", and S. 54, the "Stop Illegal
Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013." Unfortunately, Congress failed to act on
this important legislation.
I am a longstanding leader in efforts to reduce gun
violence and I successfully fought for closure of a loophole that was enabling
the importation into the United States of large quantities of Chinese assault
weapons in the 1990s. As long as I am in the Senate, I will continue to fight
for common-sense gun control reforms.
Now is the time to recommit ourselves to ending the
plague of gun violence in America. Now is the time to continue growing a
movement of activists to finally loosen the stranglehold the NRA and gun lobby
extremists have on our country. Together, we can save lives and stop any more of
these tragedies before they happen
Thank you again for contacting me about this issue. If I
can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. To sign up
for my newsletter, visit http://www.markey.senate.gov/newsletter. You can
also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Sincerely,
Edward
J. Markey
United States Senator
United States Senator
No comments:
Post a Comment