Rep. Kelly urges Congress to act on gun violence. | Courtesy of the House of Representatives
Rep. Kelly urges Congress to act on gun violence. | Courtesy of the House of Representatives
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) took to the House floor on Friday to urge representatives to pass the Recognizing Gun Violence as a Public Health Emergency Act.
This bill would require that the U.S. Surgeon General to submit a congressional report on the effects of gun violence to public health.
In an address, Kelly stated that an average of 100,000 Americans are shot on an annual basis, with approximately 30,000 incidents being fatal.
Under her proposed bill, the surgeon general’s report would detail physical, societal, economic and emotional impact of shooting cases. Kelly’s office reports that research has indicated that urban areas that are exposed to frequent shootings have the potential to lead to mental and physical trauma that soldiers have reported following time in a war zone.
On Oct. 1 of this year, an active shooter killed nine people and injured nine others at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. On Friday, two separate shooting incidents resulted in one fatality at Southern Texas University and one fatality at Northern Arizona University.
In her address, Kelley names headlines from recent articles from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times and the CBS Chicago news station. In the three headlines that she recounts are reports of three fatalities and several injuries resulting from shootings in the Chicago area.
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