Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday proposed banning assault rifles and expanding background checks and called on President Trump and GOP congressional leaders to back the measures to protect students so “they don’t worry about being shot.”
“We have to do something real so that when kids go to school, they worry about their tests, they don’t worry about being shot, ” the Senate minority leader said at a news conference in Manhattan surrounded by students and community activists.
“We are united and I have pledged to these students and millions of others that we will bring to the floor these three measures and force a vote,” he added. “And once the political leaders, particularly Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan, see the strength if this movement, I think they’ll have no choice but to put these bills on the floor and allow the vote.”
Speaking in front of the Julia Richmond Education Complex on the Upper East Side, Schumer proposed three measures to combat gun violence after 17 students and staff were gunned down at a Florida high school last month — expanding universal background checks, allowing for protection orders against individuals deemed dangerous and banning assault weapons.
“America is united behind these three issues. We need the president to step up to the plate. He had a good bi-partisan meeting where he pledged to help us, then the next day he met with the NRA and backed off,” Schumer said. “Backing off to a special interest group like the NRA is not leadership. It’s not what a president should do.”
Trump hosted a White House meeting with bipartisan lawmakers last week for a discussion about a number of gun control measures — including universal background checks, raising the age limit for buying assault rifles and keeping guns out of the hands of those mentally ill — but the White House immediately walked back the president’s support after he met with NRA officials.
Schumer said students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Fla., have breathed new life into the gun control debate after seeing their fellow students shot by a deranged man wielding an AR-15 assault rifle on Valentine’s Day.
“This is a campaign, it’s not just in New York, it’s not just in California, not just in Florida, it is in every town in every city, every place in America. Young people are leading us. They are leading the way and making sure that we do something as a nation, once and for all, about gun violence,” he said.
Citing the #NeverAgain movement he called out some of the country’s recent mass shootings.
“Never again do we want what happened in Parkland, never again do we want what happened in Las Vegas, never again do we want what happened Orlando, never again do we want what happened at Sandy Hook to happen to our people here in America, ” Schumer said.
Aidan Obstler, 17, a senior at Hunter College High School, implored lawmakers to stand in unity with young people.
“Politicians, no matter your party, no matter your state, I urge you to stand with us and to be on the right side of history,” he said. ” The NRA is not the future, all of us, we’re the future. Whether it’s today or tomorrow or 30 years from now, we will win and these laws will be passed.”
Marie Delus, 50, a former Marine sharpshooter who lost her 19-year-old nephew to gun violence in 2008, said the violence must stop.
Pierre-Paul Jean-Paul was walking with a female friend in Cambria Heights, Queens, when a man fired on them, ending her nephew’s life
“He should have been in college right now, he could have been married with kids, but he was shot and killed, ” said Delus, a member of the group, Moms Demand Action.
“This is a talking point with the NRA – good guys will kill bad guys with guns – and it’s not true. If that was true we would be the safest country in the world,” she said. “I believe in the 2nd Amendment, I believe you have the right to bear arms, but you have a lot of guns out there.”
She added: “What has been proven statistically over and over again is that the more guns in the community, the more death .”