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Mayor Weinberger Remarks from Vermont Statehouse Rally Supporting Commonsense Gun Reforms

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 20, 2018
Contact:  Katie Vane
                  802-734-0617

 

Mayor Weinberger Remarks from Vermont Statehouse Rally Supporting Commonsense Gun Reforms

Burlington, VT – Mayor Miro Weinberger today released the remarks he gave at the Vermont Statehouse rally organized by GunSense Vermont on Tuesday, February 20, 2018:

“Thank you GunSense Vermont for organizing today’s rally. It feels hopeful to be standing with so many of you this morning, and particularly to be standing with our kids and children, who have been so eloquent on this issue. That, I hope, is what will finally change this terrible dynamic and lead to action. I have been walking this sometimes lonely road toward commonsense gun reform since my first year as mayor, and I will tell you it feels much less lonely today.

“The shooting in Parkland, Florida last week was the eighteenth school shooting in the United States in 35 days. In the rest of the world, there have been 18 school shootings in last 20 years. We are failing at the most basic responsibility of protecting our children.* The rest of the world simply does not tolerate this kind of massacre of its children, and the United States of America and the State of Vermont should not either.

“These incredibly tragic events are avoidable, but they require action. It has been more than five years since 20 six- and seven-year-olds were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, just a few hundred miles south of us. And yet, in the years since, virtually nothing has been done in D.C. or here in Vermont to protect our kids.

“We should now answer our children’s pleas for help. Today is a new day and we have another chance. It is time for Vermont to join dozens of other states and pass universal background checks.  If Montpelier can’t or won’t get the job done, at the very least this Statehouse should allow cities and towns that want to move forward on their own to protect our children, our domestic violence victims and our police officers. We should be allowed to take responsibility and do that as our own communities. It is way past time to take strong action to protect our children.”

This statistic came from TV journalist and author Jeff Greenfield. We became aware late this afternoon that this statistic is misleading. See the PolitiFact analysis here.

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Press Release Date: 
02/20/2018
City Department: 
Mayor's Office