One year ago today, Los Angeles County experienced its deadliest mass shooting in history when a gunman killed eleven people and injured nine others in Monterey Park, California. This tragedy took place at a Chinese American-owned dance studio where community members were gathered to celebrate Lunar New Year.
The Monterey Park shooting was sadly one of three deadly mass shootings to take place in California in a single week in 2023: days earlier, six people were killed at a home in Goshen, followed by a third mass shooting in Half Moon Bay that took seven lives.
Since this horrific week, hundreds of additional mass shootings have taken place across the country. People should not have to fear losing their lives by going to school, work, parades and holiday celebrations, movie theaters, places of worship, and other community spaces.
We cannot go on like this.
While gun violence prevention is largely stalled at the federal level thanks to the GOP, here in California we’re taking every step to stop this deadly epidemic.
Last month, I joined 21 other attorneys general in support of a federal law that prohibits selling handguns and handgun ammunition to anyone under the age of 21, which the gun lobby is trying to overturn in the courts. This law has been on the books for six decades; we can’t afford to repeal it now and allow more weapons into the hands of young people when gun violence is high enough.
This week, I’m hosting the DOJ’s inaugural Office of Gun Violence Prevention roundtable in Sacramento, and oral arguments begin this Wednesday in my legal case to reinstate California’s decades-old assault weapons ban.
I’m also urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the nationwide ban on bump stocks, which convert semiautomatic firearms into machine guns.
As a dad and as your Attorney General, I will not sit idly by and let gun violence continue to ravage our communities and keep our families living in fear.
Thank you for all you do to support this critical work,
Rob
