Mark Kelly calls for gun control legislation after Florida shooting
Feb 18, 2018, 2:14 PM | Updated: 5:40 pm
PHOENIX — Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, urged Congress to pass gun control legislation after 17 people were shot and killed at a high school in Florida.
Kelly has been front-and-center in the gun control debate after Giffords was crucially injured in an assassination attempt in southern Arizona more than seven years ago. Six people were killed and thirteen more were injured in the shooting.
But on Sunday, Kelly appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to address another mass shooting: The shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, when a 19-year-old former student allegedly walked into the school, pulled a fire alarm and began shooting at students and teachers exiting their classrooms.
In all, 17 people — mostly teenage students — were killed.
The survivors of the attack have since taken to local and national media in order to push lawmakers to fight for gun control and ensure that another school shooting doesn’t happen again.
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Students have already started organizing a national “March For Our Lives” movement on March 24, when activists will take to the streets to “demand that their lives and safety become a priority.
Kelly pointed to this movement as a force that should push lawmakers on Capitol Hill to wake up and take action.
“These kids are incredibly articulate. And some members of Congress are good at not listening,” Kelly said.
To have high school kids calling for change, it should matter. And I hope in society this will make a difference.”
Kelly, who is a gun owner, called on lawmakers to have a vote on gun control because not all states have the tools needed to prevent such shootings.
“There is a short and abbreviated process to take the firearm away if one alerts authorities that an individual could be a threat,” he said. “That myth you can’t stop it isn’t true.
“This is a political issue,” he added. “We need to have a vote.”
