Issue Position: Gun Violence Prevention

Issue Position

Each day more than 100 Americans die in an incident of gun violence, on average that is more than 37,000 gun-deaths each year. Furthermore, on average, over 110,000 people in the United States are shot every year.

Gun violence is an epidemic. But even in the face of this overwhelming violence, Republicans who control the Senate have done nothing to move forward on legislation passed by the House under Democratic leadership that would reduce gun violence in our country.

For more than three decades, David Cicilline has been a champion of commonsense legislation to reduce gun violence.

As a founding member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, David led the City of Providence to its lowest crime rate in more than 40 years. As a member of Congress, he has taken on the powerful gun lobby and demanded action that will keep guns out of the hands of children, criminals, and those who are a danger to themselves or others.

David wrote legislation, that passed the House, to alert local police departments when a gun is purchased by a person is prohibited from owning a firearm.
He has introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, which would prohibit the production and purchase of new assault-style weapons that are designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible. And Cicilline has worked hard to achieve record support for the bill, gathering 216 co-sponsors.
As a member of House Democratic leadership, Cicilline championed efforts in the House and passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, commonsense legislation to ensure universal background checks keep guns out of the hands of those who should not own them. And he backed the Enhanced Background Checks Act, which passed the House and provides additional time for the FBI to complete a background check before licensed gun dealers can transfer firearms.
As a member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, David has also introduced bills to expand background checks, improve the reporting of mental health records to the NICS system, prohibit anyone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime from purchasing a gun, and ban the online sale of 3-D printed firearms and the sale of "bump stocks" -- a device that accelerates the firepower of semiautomatic weapons and was used by a gunman in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 58 people.

While Senate Republicans refuse to take up these House-passed commonsense proposals, David is going to continue to stand up, speak out, and keep pressing for laws that will protect children and families in Rhode Island and across the country from the tragedy of gun violence.

Source