Many of our elected officials—governors, state legislators, members of Congress—have failed to act to stop the murder of our children in our schools, worshipers in our churches, synagogues, temples and mosques; shoppers in our grocery stores, people visiting entertainment venues, judges and litigants in our courts of law, doctors and patients in our hospitals, men and women at their work places and innocent people just going about their daily lives. Worse still, elected officials have made access to guns, including weapons of war like AR-15-type weapons, easy for those intending to use them to kill and injure their fellow Americans.
America, to our shame and horror, is in a class by itself with respect to injury and death from guns. No other developed country in the world comes remotely close to the United States in gun violence. No other country in the developed world would tolerate it. Neither should we.
We have known for years what can be done to dramatically reduce injury and death from guns. The measures described by President Biden in his recent address to the nation work. But we must have the collective will to demand that our governors and state legislatures and members of Congress adopt them, and quickly.
Americans do not have to be shot down on a daily basis at the whim of those determined to injure and kill us. We must demand that our elected officials act now to end this epidemic of gun violence.
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