Alliance for Gun Responsibility volunteers and survivors met with legislators to urge them to pass gun safety measures this session

OLYMPIA, WA – On the second anniversary of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, dozens of Alliance for Gun Responsibility volunteers travelled to Olympia to urge legislators to pass key gun responsibility bills. Volunteers met with legislators from Clallam, King, Kitsap, Pierce, Mason, and Snohomish Counties and encouraged them to support gun safety measures that would restrict access to high-capacity magazines, create an Office of Firearm Violence Prevention, protect our children from gun violence, and more. 

“Two years ago a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, armed with an AR-15 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, killed 17 students and staff and wounded 17 others in just minutes,” said Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance of Gun Responsibility. “Today, we are honoring the Parkland victims by working for commonsense policies that will help prevent gun violence. The legislature has the opportunity to pass bills this session that will close deadly loopholes, keep guns out of dangerous hands, and protect our children from gun violence. We are hopeful that they will commit to honoring the Parkland victims with action as well.” 

Proposals to restrict access to high-capacity magazines are among the gun safety priorities still moving through the legislative process. A review of recent mass shootings found that, mass shootings involving high-capacity magazines resulted in an average of five times as many people being shot as in those that did not. All five of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. in the last decade—Las Vegas, Orlando, Newtown, Sutherland Springs, and Parkland—involved high-capacity magazines. In Washington, shootings in Mukilteo, Burlington, Seattle, and Spokane have been carried out using firearms with high-capacity magazines.

The Alliance’s full 2020 Legislative Agenda can be found here.