In a fundraising email to supporters, an “angry” and “frustrated” Michelle Lujan Grisham called for “common sense” action to curb gun violence.
In the email, from her Friends of Michelle campaign committee, she notes a Washington Post article that showed there have been more mass shootings so far this year than days in the year.
The Washington Post has been tracking shootings with multiple people injured or killed, such as the Los Altos Skate Park shooting that left one dead, one paralyzed and several others injured. Other counts only list those with multiple people killed.
Lujan Grisham said that the “gun culture” in the United States helps lead to the shootings.
“I would argue that it’s our gun culture that is unique to the deadly violence in the United States. Most people are responsible,” she wrote. “They can appreciate and own guns without putting the safety of others or themselves at risk. Others, regardless of whether they have a mental illness, are susceptible to the gun culture that glorifies gun violence on a daily basis.”
Legislation
A spokesman for Lujan Grisham told New Mexico Political Report that she has sponsored two pieces of legislation related to gun violence.
One is the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2015, which is sponsored by U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and Pete King, R-N.Y.
The legislation would expand background checks to all commercial sales. Currently, background checks are not required for gun sales over the internet or at gun shows. This would add these as well as sales through classified ads to the required background checks.
The legislation would ban the federal government from creating a registry and makes misuse of records a felony. The legislation would also make sure transfers between family members are unaffected.
The second piece of legislation is the Gun Violence Research Act. Lujan Grisham agreed to cosponsor the legislation on Tuesday.
The legislation would lift a ban that bars the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention from studying the relationship between gun ownership and gun violence.
Lujan Grisham also signed onto a letter by Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., requesting a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to ask how Congress and the office of the Attorney General can work together to reduce gun violence in minority communities.
In a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate, any legislation that does not loosen regulations on guns has a very small chance of reaching the president’s desk.
No more ‘stuff happens’
She said that “common-sense gun safety legislation” needs to go into effect “but it is also time to look inward at the culture of violence that plays into this crisis.”
The congresswoman referenced Jeb Bush’s statement last week after the Oregon college shooting last week where he said, in part, “stuff happens.”
“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand, or throw our hands up in the air and say ‘stuff happens’ in response to this crisis,” Lujan Grisham said. “It’s time for Washington to take action.”
Lujan Grisham also referenced an Up Front column in the Albuquerque Journal on the gun violence that shows no signs of stopping.
