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Newtown Action Alliance Presses Ryan For Action On Gun Bills

J. Scott Applewhite AP
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., meets with reporters in mid-February.

The Newtown Action Alliance is calling on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to allow a vote on dozens of pending gun control measures in Congress in response to the February 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The organization called on Ryan to allow votes on 56 gun control bills currently before the House of Representatives. They include a blanket ban on assault weapons and an increase in funding for mental health treatment to prevent gun violence.

The group’s leader, Po Murray, said the gun lobby’s influence on Ryan and other members of Congress is killing children in America. More than half of all members of the House of Representatives received donations from gun lobbyists in 2016.

The Newtown Action Alliance was founded in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Congress took up a bill to require universal background checks four months after the shooting. That bill failed in the Senate, and every major gun control measure has failed since then.

Paul Ryan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.