Team,

14 years ago today, 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech lost their lives.

I was Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at the time, and I’ll never forget the pain felt in our community afterward. We buried six of our best and brightest young people in the wake of that horrific day.

It was the most deadly mass shooting in American history — until the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016, which was later eclipsed by a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas in 2017.

After Virginia Tech, I called on Congress to change gun laws. Nothing happened.

In 2016, I joined other Democrats on the House floor for a 25-hour sit-in to protest inaction on gun control. Nothing happened.

In 2017, after 58 people lost their lives in Las Vegas, I begged my Republican colleagues in Congress to do something. Nothing happened.

But now, the Democratic-controlled House has passed H.R. 8, which would require background checks on all firearm sales in America. I voted yes on H.R. 8 in honor of the 32 lives cut short, whose deaths could have been prevented by universal background checks.

I’m calling on my colleagues in the Senate to pass universal background checks. If you’d like to join me, you can add your name to this petition.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need to take action.

Yours in service,

Congressman Gerry Connolly
Virginia's 11th District