Gun Violence Prevention Groups on 20 Years Since the Expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 13, 2024
PRESS CONTACT: Nicole Watkins, nicole@newheightscommunications.com
Gun Violence Prevention Groups on 20 Years Since the Expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban
WASHINGTON — On the 20th anniversary of the expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, Hudson Munoz, executive director of Guns Down America and Po Murray, chairwoman of Newtown Action Alliance and member of the Guns Down America board of directors, issue the following statements:
Hudson Munoz, Executive Director of Guns Down America:
“Today marks 20 years since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired and nine days since Apalachee High School joined the ranks of mass shootings carried out by an assault weapon. Sadly, the list is anything but exclusive, with places including Las Vegas, Pulse Nightclub, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Sutherland Springs, El Paso, Robb Elementary School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Aurora, and Dayton forever scarred by this deadly weapon.
AR-15s are used to murder humans, responsible for devastating families, tearing apart communities, and fueling America’s gun violence epidemic. It could not be clearer that reinstating a National Assault Ban on the weapon of choice for killing humans means saving lives. These weapons are not symbols of freedom—they are instruments of murder and have no place in our society.”
Po Murray, Chairwoman of Newtown Action Alliance & Newtown Action Alliance Foundation, Guns Down America Board Member:
“An AR-15 was the weapon of choice for my 20-year-old neighbor who hunted and murdered 20 children and educators in Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly 12 years ago. Since that tragic day, AR-15s have been used by other shooters in mass casualty shootings in other schools, highways, stores, restaurants, places of worship, nightclubs, concerts, movies, workplaces, festivals, banks and other public places.
President George W. Bush and the Members of Congress, who were in the pockets of the gun lobby, failed the American people when they allowed the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban to sunset. AR-15s represented only 1.2% of weapons manufactured in the U.S. in 1990, and now they represent nearly 25%. The gun industry made $11 Billion from selling 13.7 million AR-15s since the Newtown tragedy - from 2012 until 2020.
The proliferation of weapons of war is endangering our families and law enforcement in all our communities. In 2023, Chicago Police officers took 1,230 assault weapons off the streets - 14.7% more compared to all of 2022.
Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College at Columbia University who wrote the book “Rampage Nation,” found the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37% and that the number of people dying because of mass shootings fell by 43% compared with the 10-year period before the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. When President Bush allowed the ban to expire in 2004, mass shootings increased by 183% and deaths increased by 239%.
Charles DiMaggio, a professor of surgery at New York University, and his team studied mass shooting data from 1981 to 2017 and found that an assault weapons ban would have prevented 70% of the mass shooting deaths during the years when the ban was not in effect.
Today, the Winder community in Georgia continues to mourn the loss of innocent lives at Apalachee High School, and many Kentucky schools remain closed and high school football games are canceled as the search for the “armed and dangerous” I-75 highway mass shooter continues. These recent mass shooting incidents involving AR-15-style weapons should send a strong signal to Members of Congress to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban. For over a decade, Newtown Action Alliance has gone door to door in the halls of Congress with gun violence survivors to seek support for the ban, and after the Uvalde school shooting, the House of Representatives passed the ban during the last Congress under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The bill was stalled in the Senate. President Joe Biden has repeatedly asked for the ban to be delivered to his desk so that he can sign the bill into law. ”
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Guns Down America is a bolder, broader movement calling for dramatically fewer guns in America, and for making them dramatically harder to get.
Newtown Action Alliance (http://alliance.newtownaction.org/) is a Newtown-based, national grassroots organization formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Our mission is to achieve the steady and continuous reduction of gun violence through legislative and cultural changes.