Democrats Introduce Bill to Open DOJ Office to Provide Gun Violence Data to Other Agencies
A Florida congressman and two senators announced legislation to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the U.S. Department of Justice on March 22. Author of the bill, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), says gun violence is the defining issue of his generation.
“This issue is robbing our kids of their childhoods,” Frost said at a press conference announcing the bill.
Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrats, are sponsoring the bill in the Senate. Murphy said the bill would set up an office that can work with other government agencies to address a serious public health problem.
“We’re losing a generation of kids,” Murphy said.
According to Frost, the office would gather research and data on gun violence, interpret that data, and make it available to government agencies, politicians, researchers, and others addressing the issue.
Murphy said the office would be necessary for dealing with gun violence.
He also pointed out that a wide variety of agencies deal with gun violence. The Department of Justice, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and all local law enforcement agencies deal with the impact of gun violence, as do social service agencies.
“But nowhere, in the federal government, is one office dedicated every single day to coordinating the effort of addressing gun violence,” Murphy said.
Blumenthal told the group that the office could be opened by an administrative act. But such an office could be just as easily closed. This proposed law would provide a central point of information, Blumenthal said.
“We can really make a difference with this kind of point person, point office,” Blumenthal said.
Frost co-founded the March for Life, an annual demonstration in Washington, to draw attention to the problem of gun violence. He said he got involved in politics after attending a vigil for the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting victims when he was 15.
Po Murray is chairman of the Newtown Action Alliance/Newtown Action Alliance Foundation. The volunteer organization was founded after the Sandy Hook shooting. Murray said Gen Z, of which Frost is a member, has grown up in the shadow of gun violence.
According to Murray, up to 1 million people have been shot since Sandy Hook. She said that 48,000 die each year due to gun violence. She said Frost and his classmates grew up with lockdown drills.
“We need to make school lockdowns a relic of the past,” Murray said.
However, she said the freshman congressman is an example of the leadership of which his generation is capable,
“And now here he is making a difference as the first Gen Z member of Congress introducing life-saving gun bills,” Murray said.
A Somber Reminder
As he took the podium, Frost said he was saddened to learn that a Denver high school was on lockdown after a student shot two adults.
According to the Denver Public Schools Twitter feed, two adult faculty were hospitalized that morning after being shot. The alleged shooter was a male student who fled the school after the shooting.
Students were released to their parents shortly after noon in a “controlled release.” Police were searching for the gunman that afternoon.
“Yet another shooting is a somber reminder of why we do this work,” Frost said.
