Stop Handgun Violence Response to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Mass Shooting;
Boston, MA – Yesterday, on a day that is supposed to celebrate love, seventeen high school students and educators were murdered and 12 more wounded with an AR 15 assault weapon at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Parkland makes the eighteenth school shooting in the first 44 days of 2018 and the 291st school shooting since the Sandy Hook Massacre.
In Florida, no criminal background check is required for private gun sales which account for approximately 50 percent of guns sold each year including for assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. In addition, there is no limit on the number of firearms that can be purchased at one time and their “stand your ground” laws allow citizens to shoot first, ask questions later.
“While the details of yet another horrific and potentially preventable mass shooting continue to emerge, it’s brutally clear that there are deadly consequences due to unlimited access to military assault weapons without background checks or detection in Florida and 32 other states”, said John Rosenthal, founder and chairman of Stop Handgun Violence. “There are more mass shootings, gun injuries and gun deaths in the US than all 26 developed nations combined. Congress has chosen gun industry blood money campaign contributions over common sense national gun laws and public safety. The time for action is now. When a civilian shooter can legally outgun the local police force the results are abhorrent. The gun lobby and Congress’s unconscionable priority of unrestricted access to guns over lives has disastrous consequences. Over 90 Americans die each day due to gun violence and the unrestricted access to firearms in this country is a dangerous policy with dangerous results.”
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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