GUN SAFETY FOR THE PEOPLE

Why Alan Cares

Alan has been working in low-income and inner-city communities for his entire career. He has experienced first-hand the tragic consequences of gun violence. Alan was in the Morningstar Baptist Church attending the funeral of a friend of a City Year Corps member, when gang members entered and opened fire in an act of revenge. That public tragedy led to the creation of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, an initiative led by faith leaders, nonprofits, the mayor of Boston, and grassroots community leaders to reduce gun homicides in the city, which fell by almost 80 percent from 1990 to 1999. From that, Alan learned that if we mobilize, communicate, and make gun safety a national priority, we can achieve real results that save lives.

Gun Safety is at the heart of what Alan has stood for during his career. It is a symbol of safety, equality, and moral responsibility that this country must stand up and support. After Parkland, Alan joined with Bloomberg Philanthropies and Everytown for Gun Safety to help build the Sibling March Network for March for our Lives. More than 800 young leaders founded Sibling Marches and March for Our Lives mobilized almost two million people to stand together to end senseless gun violence in America.

The Facts

  • 97% of Americans support universal background checks, one of the most effective tools we have to ensure that guns do not fall into dangerous hands, preventing deadly shootings and saving lives
  • Polling shows that 64% of Americans support stricter gun safety measures than what this country has now
  • In 2017, gun deaths reached their highest level in at least 40 years, with 39,773 deaths that year alone
  • Over 100,000 people in total are killed or injured by guns in America each year
  • More than half of all suicides in the United States are carried out with a firearm
  • Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than residents of other high income countries
  • Massachusetts has the strongest gun safety regulations and the fewest gun deaths in America.
  • There are significant disparities in gun violence across demographic groups. Black Americans are 10 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide.
  • There have been 1,181 mass shootings since Donald Trump took office, more than the number of days of his administration.
  • Thanks to March For Our Lives, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, Giffords, and many other organizations, 32 states and DC have signed over 110 gun safety bills into law since the Parkland shooting.
  • Congress has just successfully appropriated funding to the CDC for gun violence health research, for the first time in over 20 years.

For more information, check out this fact sheet by the Giffords Law Center on the severity of this crisis.

ALAN'S ACTION PLAN

Alan will coordinate a People’s Filibuster on Gun Safety. When Alan defended AmeriCorps when Tom Delay tried to eliminate it in 2003, he organized a 108-hour people’s filibuster with hundreds of volunteers coming from 47 states to testify in defense of the program. It worked. If elected, he will use a similar strategy to break the log jam on getting gun safety legislation enacted. Alan will book a hearing room and invite people from across the 4th District and the country to come testify and participate in a nonstop, round-the-clock, people’s hearing to end gun violence. Only this time, Alan doesn’t want to limit the hearing to 100 hours, he wants to keep going until we win. One thing Alan learned from his longtime mentor, Hubie Jones, is that if justice is on your side, and you make it clear you will not ever give up fighting, you will succeed. Given that the vast majority of Americans want gun safety legislation, if we tap the people’s energy, Alan knows we can win this fight.

Alan proudly supports the March For Our Lives Peace Plan for a Safer America. March For Our Lives fundamentally changed the debate on gun violence in America. Alan is proud to stand with them and admires the leadership and passion of so many outstanding young leaders who are committed to ending the scourge of gun violence in our country.

Alan believes that we need to look at gun safety as a National Public Health Emergency. This will generate massive investment in mental health programs that tackle the challenges of suicide and other factors in gun violence, but also the dire health consequences and deaths that gun violence bring. More research and academic investment is needed to help bring us closer to innovative policies which will help reduce the trauma of the last decade of mass gun violence.

Alan will push comprehensive gun safety laws as a top priority in office. He supports reinstating a federal ban on the sale of assault weapons, the military-grade weapons of war designed to kill people. A private citizen has no business owning one. To that end, Alan supports the implementation of voluntary buybacks for all assault weapons.

Alan will introduce legislation to ban high capacity magazines (HCMs). HCMs are frequently used in mass shootings. Someone who wants a gun for hunting, sport, or self protection does not need a high capacity magazine.

Alan will take on the NRA and special interests head on. He is dedicated to putting a check on the gun lobby through campaign finance legislation, and will work to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, legislation that protects gun manufacturers from prosecution. Every other industry is subject to lawsuits, the gun industry should be as well.

Alan believes that to buy a gun, you must provide identification. No one should be able to purchase a gun without identifying themselves and providing proof that they know how to handle one safely.

Alan will work to create a national registry of gun ownership. The government needs access to this information to effectively prosecute mass shootings and other gun violence. We must ensure justice for those who have lost loved ones to guns.