People hold up their phones during a prayer and candle vigil organised by the city after a shooting left 20 people dead in El Paso, Texas, August 4 2019. Picture: AFP/MARK RALSTON
“Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” the letter to the Republican-led US Senate said, according to the New York Times, which first reported the correspondence. Legislators have struggled to address gun violence after the 2012 killing of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut stoked debate over gun control in America.
The US House of Representatives, led by Democrats, quickly took up measures addressing gun violence as legislators returned to Washington this week. These include three bills that seek to remove guns from people deemed a risk, ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, and prohibit people convicted of violent hate crime misdemeanors from possessing firearms.