Office of Rep. Derek Kilmer announcement.
On June 8, U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer (WA-06) voted to support the Protecting Our Kids Act – a comprehensive package of gun violence prevention proposals that aims to help stop the spread of gun-related crimes and help prevent future mass casualty shootings.
The legislation, which Rep. Kilmer co-sponsored, will raise the purchasing age for certain semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 years old, crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchases to get illegal guns off our streets, close the ghost gun loophole, strengthen safe storage requirements to protect children from accidental shootings, and outlaw bump stocks and high-capacity magazines for civilian use.
“Over the last few weeks, our nation has grappled with too many senseless, terrible tragedies. From Buffalo to Uvalde, we simply cannot accept such tragedies as the norm. That’s why today I voted to support legislation that would help create real change – and take steps toward keeping our kids safe and ending the epidemic of gun violence in America,” said Rep. Kilmer. “We should never grow accustomed to hearing a parent speak about planning a child’s funeral. We should never get used to seeing our kids running out of a school with their hands in the air in the midst of an active shooter situation. Every American should have a right to be able to go to a school or a grocery store or a church or anywhere else without having to fear for their safety. It’s time – in fact it’s past time – for Congress to act to keep people safe.”
Specifically, the Protecting Our Kids Act will:
- Raise the purchasing age for semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 years old
- Cracking down on gun trafficking and straw purchases to get illegal guns off of our streets
- Subject ghost gun purchases to background check requirements
- Strengthen safe storage requirements to protect children from accidental shootings
- Close the bump stock loophole to ban these deadly tools from civilian use
- Outlaw high-capacity magazines, which are designed for killing en masse and have been the accessory of choice in the bloodiest mass shootings
- Require an annual report of demographic data of those being determined to be ineligible to purchase guns
In 2021, Rep. Kilmer co-sponsored and voted for the Bipartisan Background Checks Act (H.R. 8) and the Enhanced Background Checks Act (H.R.1446). The Bipartisan Background Checks Act would require a background check for all firearm sales and the Enhanced Background Checks Act would address what’s known as the “Charleston loophole” by ensuring that a background check is fully completed before the firearm is transferred to the purchaser. This loophole received national attention following the tragic 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina that resulted in the murders of nine innocent people.
In addition, as the House begins the appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2023, Rep. Kilmer is pushing for funding for the STOP School Violence Act program. In 2018, Rep. Kilmer worked in collaboration with the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary to introduce and pass the STOP School Violence Act, which provides resources to schools to implement proven methods of combating gun violence. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, he has secured ongoing funding for this law over the last two appropriations cycles to support students, teachers, and others in efforts to spot and report warning signs of gun violence before a tragedy occurs.
More political posturing by politicians using senseless violence to get votes from the uneducated.
These idiots doing the “mass gun violence “ have not purchased guns legally.
Restrictions on responsible gun owners certainly does NOTHING help, but is the political go to answer because it’s easy.
Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the country, and yet Chicago’s gun violence is horrific. Now why would that be? The answer is obvious, it’s not responsible gun owners committing these atrocities. It’s crazy people that steal guns to do it.
Already the gun law restrictions are insane, for example, if you own a gun legally, and you go to say the post office or a school, to where you can’t legally carry it inside, so you carefully lock it in your vehicle out of site, so someone breaks in, (very common these days) they take your gun, go commit a crime or shoot someone, and then YOU, the responsible gun owner, trying to follow the many rules that criminals don’t follow, will be prosecuted and go to prison.
Sound crazy? Look up our gun laws that are already set in place by our “clever” politicians.
And this gun show loophole your always hearing about has never existed. All that is, is a political statement to idiots. You can’t buy a gun at a gun show without extensive background checks. Anything else is just two criminals selling and buying a gun, and they are still going to be criminals no matter how many laws put in place to oppress the legal gun owners.
Let your politicians know your tired of the gun violence by telling them to pass a law that will actually target the people committing the crimes instead of innocent law abiding gun owners like they’ve done so far.
Obviously mass shootings are way up,
WHY IS THAT? I’ll tell you this, it’s not because guns are easier to attain! They are in fact much much harder to purchase than ten years ago. So why is gun violence higher? Because all these laws are not hurting the people committing these atrocities..
The ONLY ANSWER that actually makes sense is to target the why, why are our kids so crazy that they are killing people? What is going on in these schools right now? There is not a massive amount of “more guns” getting manufactured in the last few years, it’s harder than ever to get guns. So why the massive increase in school shootings?
Obviously something has changed, and I believe it’s changing the way our kids are thinking. THAT what needs to be addressed.
Thank you, Representative Kilmer, please keep pushing for even stronger anti semi-automatic gun control. These weapons serve no purpose in our community, and I’d love to see Washington State be our country’s example of true leadership by abolishing them entirely. I have an amazing new daughter-in-law in her mid-twenties who is just finishing her first-year teaching first grade at a local elementary school. I can’t imagine this caring, strong and dedicated young teacher having to face some deranged, desperate person armed with an AK-47 or AR-15 in her school. It’s long past time to ban such weapons.
It’s been stated for many years in the gun debate, that there are over 20,000 gun laws on the books.
Of course the progressive left argues that there are fewer gun laws than that.
Let’s just cut it in half and agree that there are at least 10,000 gun laws on the books.
The progressive left says that more gun laws are needed to prevent the people from committing murder.
Every murderer disregards law in the commission of their crime.
The progressive left is weaving the criminally-insane into the fabric of our society, while excusing what they do to other people.
The progressive left wants you to believe that guns are causing normal people to commit crime.
Last year there were 30,000 +-gun deaths in the US.
Close to half of those were suicides.
In the same period there were over 1,000,000 instances when a person used a gun to deter violence, where nobody died.
There are many ways that people kill and mame other people.
Gun law #10,001 will not stop the criminally-insane from harming other people, but a good guy with a gun can.
No amount of blame and fear-mongering is going to change that reality.
Gun laws aimed at criminalizing people for exercising their Constitutional right to self defense are misguided at best.
We are all disgusted by those who commit mass murder, but if we are going to have any chance at all, we need the means to fight back.
When I was younger I was very confident in my ability to handle myself in most situations without a gun – at 58, not so much.
I train regularly to maintain proficiency, and I keep my weapon handy wherever it is not prohibited.
That keeps me and others around me safe from those who seek to harm.
Where I am prohibited from being armed, I expect those who mandated that environment to keep me safe.
That is rarely the case.
The heroic border agent at the Texas school, had to borrow a shotgun from a citizen to enable himself to take on and neutralize a madman.
No fear and cowering or law will ever replace raw courage.
No law will ever replace moral character, but the progressive left thinks that is for fools and simpletons.
The progressive left doesn’t have a problem with murder, death by overdose, abortion, and such things.
It has a problem with God-given individual liberty.
That’s why you passed a new law restricting citizens’ rights rather than modifying your budget to immediately and adequately safeguard our schools.
Great post and so true. It’s too bad that our government is more interested in their agenda than the safety and freedom of its people.
Thank you Rep. Kilmer.
Well said Brian,
When terrorists gained control of commercial aircraft and flew them into the twin towers, decisive action was taken.
Planes were grounded, cockpits were secured, federal Air Marshals were hired in droves. pilots were granted the ability to carry firearms, the military had to consider that they might need to scramble fighter jets to shoot down a commercial aircraft and TSA changed forever. If you flew before 911 and compared it to flying after 911 the differences were obvious. All of these provisions are still in place, And guess what?? It worked.
We had no idea that anyone would ever do this terrible act. However, we made our best effort to make sure that this situation was never repeated.
So why in Gods name are we still dealing with school shootings? Easy! Our politicians (all of them have failed us). After the first major school shooting that i can recall, which was Columbine, every school in the US should have been secured. Locked entrances and exits with cameras and metal detectors. If you cant gain entry to the school its a lot more difficult to conduct a mass shooting. Add into the equation a police officer at every school trained to deal with exactly this type of threat and/or a military veteran. All of these things should have occurred at every school, years ago. How many lives would have been saved? What is more important that a kids life? Nothing.
The gun debate is just a big distraction. Cities in the US that have the most crime almost without exception already have struct gun laws, background checks are already the law of the land, you already have to be 21 years of age to buy a semi automatic rifle in Washington state, high capacity mags are now banned from purchase as of July 1, 2022. Think thats made a difference in reducing crime in Seattle or Chicago? NOPE.
Well said, Brian.
Thank you Derek for reminding why I didn’t vote for you.