Rep. Brown Supports House Passage of Comprehensive Gun Safety Package

WASHINGTON – Today, Representative Shontel M. Brown (OH-11) supported passage in the House of Representatives of H.R. 7910, the Protecting Our Kids Act. The comprehensive legislative package contains commonsense gun safety measures that will reduce gun violence, save lives, and make our communities safer.

Northeast Ohio district is no stranger to the pain and trauma of the gun epidemic. In Ohio’s Eleventh District, there have been 62 gun deaths so far in 2022, including six individuals under the age of 18.

Passage of the bill followed Rep. Brown’s participation in a Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on addressing the gun violence epidemic, at which parents of victims and survivors from the recent Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings testified. At the hearing, Rep. Brown discussed the rise in child deaths due to guns, the impact of gun violence on child survivors, and the need for the federal government to enact gun safety legislation.

"Hearing the families of the victims and survivors of the recent Buffalo and Uvalde shootings recount the darkest days of their lives today made plain that it is time for Congress to act,” said Rep. Brown. “We cannot continue to wait until ‘next time’ to do something. We cannot continue to let mass shootings and daily atrocities tear families and our communities apart. We cannot sit idly by and do nothing as guns are used to kill our children and fellow Americans. I refuse to accept the status quo as normal or acceptable in our country.

“From raising the purchase age for semi-automatic rifles to banning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, this bill includes concrete and commonsense gun safety measures that will save lives. It is long past time to make our schools, our supermarkets, our hospitals, and our communities safer.”

The Protecting Our Kids Act would address the threat of gun violence by:

• Raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 years old;
• Cracking down on gun trafficking and straw purchases to get illegal guns off of our streets;
• Subjecting ghost gun purchases to background check requirements;
• Strengthening safe storage requirements to protect children from accidental shootings;
• Closing the bump stock loophole to ban these deadly tools from civilian use; and
• Outlawing high-capacity magazines, which are designed for killing en masse and have been the accessory of choice in the bloodiest mass shootings.

###