The mayors of more than 200 cities, including five in Indiana, reissued a letter calling on the Senate for urgent action on gun control legislation.
The letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors is addressed to Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Written in 2019, it calls for the passage of two gun-related pieces of legislation that passed in the U.S. House but stalled in the Senate.
The measures involve background checks. The original letter noted that, by early August 2019, there had already been more than 250 mass shootings in the U.S. that year.
The reissued letter, sent Thursday, specifically mentions mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. Both shootings happened in May, leading to the deaths of 31 people.
The letter has an updated list of signatories and also removed the names of mayors who were part of the original letter but are no longer in office.
Five Indiana mayors are included:
- Mayor Thomas Broderick Jr., Anderson
- Mayor James Brainard, Carmel
- Mayor Thomas “Tom” C. Henry, Fort Wayne
- Mayor Jerome A. Prince, Gary
- Mayor Joseph “Joe” H. Hogsett, Indianapolis
From the updated letter:
In response to the recent tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo and the continuing increase in gun violence that is plaguing our cities and our people across this nation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors today is reissuing the letter sent by more than 200 mayors to the United States Senate in August of 2019. The same two bills passed the House more than one year ago and are again pending in the Senate: H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Check Act and H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Checks Act.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors described the measures as “bipartisan, sensible gun safety bills that would make our cities and our people safer, and would in no way compromise gun owners’ rights.”
