Letter Published January 8, 2013 · Updated January 8, 2013 · 3 minute read
An Open Letter to Congressional Leadership Calling for a Special Session on Gun Legislation
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BIPARTISAN LEADERSHIP OF THE U.S. CONGRESS
January 9, 2013
The Honorable John Boehner | The Honorable Harry Reid |
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi | The Honorable Mitch McConnell |
Dear Speaker Boehner, Leader Pelosi, Leader Reid, and Leader McConnell:
On December 14th, twenty-six children and school employees were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, in one of the most heartbreaking gun massacres in the nation’s history. Immediately after the killings, the President and some members of Congress renewed their call for sensible gun laws that guard Second Amendment rights while protecting the nation’s innocents. Many worthy ideas have been put on the table—the renewal of the assault weapons ban, closing the gun show loophole, making gun trafficking a federal crime, universal background checks, fixing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), banning high-capacity clips, and others.
But already, some congressional leaders are saying that Congress does not have the time to debate gun legislation. They argue that it is best to wait until after all of the budget fights conclude. This is especially ironic considering that Congress spent the last eight weeks of 2012 essentially doing nothing as the fiscal cliff approached.
We call on Congress to stop the delay in the gun debate, which we believe is part of an interest group-driven strategy to wait until people forget about Newtown to more easily defeat proposed gun legislation. Instead, we ask that Congress set aside three days before March 14th (3 months from the shootings at Sandy Hook) for a special session to debate and vote on gun bills in both houses of Congress, with simple up or down majority votes.
This legislation is not particularly complicated—many of these ideas have been in the debate for decades. But after Newtown and Aurora and Tucson and Virginia Tech, the excuse of not enough time cannot suffice. To be clear, the last serious debate on strengthening our gun laws occurred nearly nine years ago, when the Senate passed legislation to renew the assault weapons ban and close the gun show loophole (the House did not act). There has been virtually no congressional discussion of gun policy since. Surely, three days can be spared to try to stem the bloodshed and keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Jonathan Cowan
President, Third Way
