Every day, roughly 117 Americans die from gun violence. That’s 117 deaths that can be prevented through stronger gun-safety measures.

June is Gun Violence Awareness Month. It also marks the ninth anniversary of the Mother Emanuel shooting in Charleston, which had a profound impact on me and so many in our Charleston community. My church, Morris Brown, is only a few blocks away from Mother Emanuel. I knew six of the nine victims and spoke at one of the funerals.

Ever since the Charleston shooting, I’ve fought to advance my bill to close the Charleston loophole that allowed the Mother Emanuel shooter to obtain his gun without a background check. We need more commonsense measures like that. 

I’m proud of the progress President Biden and Democrats have made on that front. In 2022, we passed the first new gun violence prevention law in decades, and this year, a rule closing the gun-show loophole took effect.

John, more needs to be done to prevent gun violence from terrorizing our communities -- our places of worship, schools, and grocery stores -- because there have been nearly 200 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone. That’s more mass shootings than there have been days in the year. 

We can do something about those alarming statistics. We can close the Charleston loophole, ban assault-style weapons, and enact more common sense gun-safety measures.

I want to hear your opinion on this issue, John. Please take our Official Gun Violence Awareness Month poll here. >>

Thank you,

Jim