SEATTLE, WA – The Alliance for Gun Responsibility issued the following statement in response to news that at least 10 people were killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, CO.

“Once again we are mourning in the wake of tragic gun violence, this time in Boulder,” said Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. “Our thoughts are with the survivors, loved ones, and the entire community touched by this tragedy. We should be able to go to the grocery store free from the fear of gun violence. We should be able to go to work, to school, to the park, to a movie theater, to our place of worship, free from the fear of gun violence. 

In less than one week, two mass shootings have devastated the nation. We didn’t even have time to grieve the tragedy in Atlanta fueled by racism, before another mass shooting shook our sense of safety yet again. These shootings are painful evidence of the cost of inaction in the face of the gun violence epidemic. While they have rightly captured the nation’s attention, we know that countless other senseless shootings go by every day without making national headlines. 

Last year, even as the pandemic upended almost everything about daily life as we knew it, mass shootings persisted. Public mass shootings, like Boulder and Atlanta, were less frequent, but 2020 saw more than 600 mass shootings in homes, neighborhoods, and communities across the country—50 percent more than in 2019.

We cannot afford continued inaction. There are steps our elected officials can and must take to prevent more senseless violence: Our federal government must pass universal background checks. Our state and federal leaders must restrict access to high-capacity magazines, which so often fuel mass shootings. And we all must stand together to disarm hate in all of its forms.” 

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