With D.C.’s Gun Safety Laws Under Attack, Norton to Attend State of the Union Address With Mother of Drive-By Shooting Victim

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a member of the House Democratic Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, announced today that her guest at President Obama's State of the Union address on February 12, 2013, will be Nardyne Jefferies, a District of Columbia resident whose 16-year-old daughter, Brishell Jones, was killed in a drive-by shooting on South Capitol Street on March 30, 2010. In one of the worst outbreaks of gun violence in the District in many years, Brishell and four other young people under the age of 21 were killed, and many others were injured, in a series of shootings over the course of several days that have become known as the South Capitol Street Massacre.

"Nardyne Jefferies' presence representing the District at the President's State of the Union speech helps us make the point that, for decades, gun violence has taken our kids with little national attention to the thousands of big-city child and adult victims here and throughout the country," Norton said. "Now, with the tragic massacre of an entire first-grade class, we have the best opportunity since 2004, when the federal assault weapons ban expired, to enact meaningful gun safety legislation. Most of the kids in big cities who have been victims of gun violence have been killed by handguns, but the comprehensive steps being considered by Congress, particularly background checks, will save the lives of children and adults everywhere. It is up to an outraged public to help us show that the gun lobby has finally met its match."

This D.C. mother has worked with Norton and other gun safety proponents since Brishell's death, including fighting attempts by the gun lobby to overturn D.C.'s gun safety laws in Congress. In 2010, after a National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed amendment to eliminate all of D.C.'s gun safety laws derailed the D.C. House Voting Rights Act in the House and then was introduced as a stand-alone bill in the House and Senate, Jefferies and other family members of the victims of the South Capitol Street Massacre met with House Democratic leaders to warn about the dangers of the bill. The bill was kept off the House and Senate floors.

Despite two federal court rulings upholding the constitutionality of the District's post-Heller gun laws, the gun lobby and their allies in Congress continue to attack the District's gun safety laws at every opportunity, and Norton expects the attacks to continue as the Senate Judiciary Committee begins to consider gun safety legislation. In January, Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) reintroduced a resolution (H. RES. 40) expressing the sense of the House that active duty military personnel should be exempt from the gun laws of the District, but not those of any other state or locality. Last Congress, after Gingrey added his resolution as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 on the House floor, Norton got the provision removed from the version of the bill that was enacted. Norton also pushed back two other attacks on the District's gun safety laws last Congress. An amendment in the House Judiciary Committee that would have allowed out-of-state residents with state-issued concealed carry permits to carry concealed guns in the District was defeated. The NRA-backed D.C. gun bill was reintroduced in the House and got 174 cosponsors, but it did not go to the floor for a vote.

Published: February 11, 2013