150,000 AMERICANS KILLED BY GUNS SINCE SANDY HOOK –
NO ACTION BY CONGRESS TO PREVENT BLOODSHED
Boston, MA – In the less than five years since the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, 150,000 more Americans have been killed by guns – a number that is more than 30 times the number of Americans killed in the Iraq War.
The digital counter on the website of Stop Handgun Violence tallies the gun deaths, based on historical averages gleaned from US Center for Disease Control death statistics. Each year the counter is updated to reflect the most recent data. This year, it went up by 88 deaths per day, which many agree is a conservative estimate.
“This horrific death toll should be enough to convince Congress to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people suffering from mental health crises. Instead, we have seen private sales background checks fail to pass, and the current administration has actually removed 170,000 military veteran mental health records from the NICS background check database,” said John Rosenthal, founder of Stop Handgun Violence. “It would be shameful if Congress had just done nothing, but the reality is even worse. Now some members of Congress are pushing to make silencers easier to obtain, making it easier for criminals to get away with murder without detection. They are also pushing to allow untrained civilians to carry loaded, concealed weapons without any permit whatsoever, all across the country. It sounds outrageous, but it’s true. Concealed carry reciprocity would turn the weakest standards for carrying guns into the national standard. How many more Americans have to die before Congress realizes more guns are not the answer?”
While Massachusetts continues to be a national leader on gun violence prevention with the most effective gun laws and the lowest gun deaths rates in the nation, Commonwealth laws will be greatly undermined by the currently proposed federal concealed carry legislation – a policy which the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and the International Chiefs of Police Association have both publicly opposed.
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Stop Handgun Violence (SHV) is a Massachusetts based non-profit organization committed to the prevention of gun violence through education, public awareness, effective law enforcement and common sense gun laws. SHV has been the lead advocate in Massachusetts for enactment of the most effective gun violence prevention laws and first in the nation consumer protection regulations. The organization does not seek to restrict Constitutional rights, but advocates only for common sense legislation that will help save lives. For more information, go to www.stophandgunviolence.org