Issue Position: Gun Violence Prevention

Issue Position

Our family has always been comfortable around firearms and strong supporters of the Second Amendment. Two of our four sons are avid deer and duck hunters and a third competed in trap shooting in high school. I've been known to join them from time to time on the gun range.

Support for the Second Amendment goes hand-in-hand with doing everything we can to keep guns away from criminals and other dangerous people. Every day, 93 Americans are killed by gun violence and there is no reason we can't work to address this issue while protecting our Second Amendment rights. That's why I support commonsense measures to address gun violence.

First, I believe we should lift the ban on Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research into gun violence. We need the facts in order to decide how to improve gun safety.

Second, I support universal background checks for every gun purchase, including those sold online and through private sales. The facts are compelling: In states where background checks are law there are 52 percent fewer mass shootings, 48 percent fewer law enforcement officials are shot to death, and 48 percent fewer people commit suicide by firearm. We should not allow criminals or domestic abusers to have such easy access to a firearm.

Third, we need to stop suspected terrorists on the no-fly list from purchasing firearms and reinstate a rule recently repealed by Congress that stopped some people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.

Finally, I believe we should immediately ban the sale of military style, semi-automatic weapons, and make high-capacity clips, "bump stocks," and other attachments that enable semi-automatic rifles to fire faster illegal.

These measures by themselves won't eliminate gun violence in this country. But if they reduce the incidence of gun violence and help law enforcement stay safer, they're worth fighting for.

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