WASHINGTON – Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, released the following statement following reports of a shooting on a busy street in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night, wounding at least two people and sending people running for safety, according to the Washington Post.
“Yet another horrifying shooting so close to our nation’s Capitol is a stark reminder to lawmakers that we don’t have to live this way—if only they listened to the vast majority of Americans who support gun safety,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “We can stop this endless gun violence, but it demands action.”
Tonight’s shooting comes after a violent weekend of gun violence in D.C. during what has been a devastating year for gun violence in the District of Columbia and across the country. Last Friday evening, a six-year-old girl was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in a Southeast D.C. neighborhood, and on Saturday evening there was a shooting just outside a Washington Nationals baseball game, with three people shot and wounded.
In an average year in the District of Columbia, 109 people die by gun homicide and 192 are shot and wounded in gun assaults, making it the second-highest rate of gun homicides and gun assaults in the country compared to all states. That rate of overall gun deaths has also increased 29 percent over the past decade, far eclipsing the average national increase of 17 percent. Gun violence costs the District of Columbia $1.1 billion each year, of which $90.9 million is paid by taxpayers.
