Issue Position: Response to the National Rifle Association

Issue Position

The predicted Mayan Apocalypse apparently materialized today in the form of the NRA's vision for America.

The NRA's suggestion that we militarize our schools is not the solution, and references to other militarized institutions simply reinforce the problem our nation has with gun violence. What next? Armed guards at Starbucks and little league games? This is completely the wrong direction.

The NRA's grotesque demonization of mental illness feeds ignorance. It insults the one in four Americans who suffer -- overwhelmingly in silence -- some form of mental health problem annually.

What was billed as a constructive conversation spiraled into extreme rhetoric and profitable fear mongering. As I set out in a letter to Vice President Biden yesterday, we must focus our efforts on multiple fronts, including health care and gun control, to curb disturbingly familiar and horrific scenes of mass murder.

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