Norton Joins D.C. College Students to Call on Congress to Pass Sensible National Gun Safety Laws

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today joined students from colleges across the District of Columbia at a rally in front of the Capitol in honor of those killed last week at Oregon's Umpqua Community College and to demand national gun safety laws to prevent future mass shootings on college campuses throughout the United States. Norton particularly thanked students who go to college in D.C. because of the constant pressure in Congress to eliminate all the District's gun laws. This year, Norton has prevented the House and Senate from considering bills to eliminate the city's gun laws, which keep students on D.C.'s many college campuses safe. Norton also praised the students for their leadership and said that if young Americans become the face of the gun safety movement, Congress will respond.

"I was proud of students from D.C. college campuses for coming to remind the Congress that 90% of the American people support expanding Brady background checks, which would help push back against the gun violence that is plaguing the places where young people are most likely to gather – schools, campuses, and movie theaters," Norton said. "Young people in the Black Lives Matter movement are getting results on long-standing issues of police violence in the states. Similar groups of young people can get attention on the nation's ubiquitous gun violence. After any mass shooting, we naturally come together to mourn the dead and comfort their families. Then, too many of us go away, while the gun lobby is on the case every day. However, it is jurisdictions with weak guns safety laws that point out the reason we need national gun safety laws. The gun show loophole, for example, allows criminals, domestic abusers, and mentally ill people to buy a gun without passing a background check and bring it into the District. That is why we need to keep pushing for national gun safety legislation, which will help stem the gun violence that continues to devastate communities across our nation."