ANTI-GUN VIOLENCE ACTIVISTS TO PROTEST NRA-BACKED FEDERAL CONCEALED CARRY RECIPROCITY LAW
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WHEN: Jan. 20, 12:30 p.m.
WHERE: NRA headquarters, 11250 Waples Mill Rd., Fairfax, VA
WHAT: Strong visuals
NEW YORK, NY (Jan. (TK), 2017)—On Friday, January 20th, at 12:30 p.m., members of Gays Against Guns (GAG) will stage a public protest near the headquarters of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Fairfax, Virginia, denouncing the gun lobby’s plans to secure a federal concealed carry reciprocity law.
“The NRA’s Guns Everywhere bill will mean more gun violence and more gun deaths,” said Paul Rowley, a member of Gays Against Guns, an anti-gun violence group. “We need to strengthen our already weak federal gun control laws, not pass a law that will bar states from enforcing their own gun control laws, which is their right.”
The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, which was introduced in the House on January 3, would require any state that issues permits for concealed weapons to recognize such permits issued by other states, even if they have different eligibility and training requirements or less stringent restrictions on gun ownership.
The NRA spent $50 million to elect Donald Trump and pro-gun senators and members of Congress. Enacting the concealed carry act is payback by the NRA’s puppets in the White House and Congress for the gun lobby’s support in 2016.
The legislation also requires that the national parks, federal wildlife refuges, and other federal lands allow concealed guns. In addition to undermining the gun control laws across the country, the act punishes states that enforce their own gun control laws. Someone who has a concealed gun permit and is arrested for carrying a concealed gun in a state that did not issue that permit can collect defense attorney fees if he or she cites the federal reciprocity law during a criminal trial and wins an acquittal. Founded in June 2016 after a mass shooting in an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando that left 49 people dead, GAG believes that gun violence is a public health issue that disproportionately affects people of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ Americans. It has chapters in New York, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC. Each year, 33,000 people die in the United States from gun violence, with one-third due to homicide and two-thirds due to suicide.
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