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This month, it will be eight years since the shooting at the historic Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston.
That heinous act of hate and violence had a profound impact on me, my family, and our entire Charleston community. Mother Emanuel is a few blocks away from my home church, Morris Brown. The parishioners are my constituents, my neighbors, and my friends -- as were many of the victims.
I can’t keep count of the number of mass shootings that have taken place in our country in the eight years since the Mother Emanuel shooting. Far too many.
Last year’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act -- our country’s first new gun-safety law in decades -- was a starting point for addressing the scourge of gun violence in our country. There’s so much more that must be done to prevent gun violence in our places of worship. Our schools. Our grocery stores. Our malls. Our movie theaters.
In addition to my bill that would close the Charleston loophole that allowed the Mother Emanuel shooter to obtain a gun without a background check, research shows an assault weapons ban could reduce mass shooting deaths by 70%. These kinds of commonsense gun-safety measures should be the logical next step for addressing this epidemic.
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