Norton Calls Out Rubio on Letter to Mayor Refusing to Withdraw His D.C. Gun Bill

Statement

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the following statement after Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) responded to a letter from District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser refusing to withdraw his bill to eliminate nearly all of the city's gun safety laws. Rubio wrote in his letter that he and the mayor "share a common goal in that we both support increasing the minimum age, from 18 to 21, for someone to purchase a semi-autonomic rifle." Yet, he has introduced no such bill in the Senate, and his D.C. gun bill would eliminate the District's ban on assault weapons, like the one used in Parkland, Florida to kill 17 people, allowing 18-year-olds to purchase assault rifles in D.C. Norton has kept the Rubio D.C. gun bill from being passed for two consecutive Congresses.

"It takes chutzpah for Senator Rubio to cite D.C.'s violence rate while promoting a bill to allow assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines in the nation's capital and, after the Stoneman Douglas high school tragedy in his own state, to allow guns in D.C. schools. While Senator Rubio is not the first Member of Congress to try to eliminate our local gun laws, he is the first to do so as an act of naked opportunism. He will not withdraw his attack on the city's gun safety laws because the National Rifle Association rewarded his introduction of the D.C. gun bill by boosting his NRA rating from a B-plus to an A. He believes he has nothing to fear from D.C. residents who cannot vote for him in Florida., but Senator Rubio is clearly afraid of the NRA."

Source