January 11, 2011

ELIZABETH EVANS

York City Mayor Kim Bracey spoke out against gun violence Tuesday at a press conference in New York City Hall organized by the national group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

The event was in response to the Arizona shooting rampage that killed six people and injured 14 others, including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The dead include a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.

"The shooting ... is a reminder that gun violence is an issue that we cannot afford to ignore," Bracey said at the press conference. "Each year, 1,200 Pennsylvanians lose their lives to gun violence - (and) more than 30,000 die nationwide."

Bracey's remarks were released Tuesday afternoon by York City.

She also said alleged Arizona-rampage shooter Jared Loughner "should have never had a gun in the first place," as he'd already been arrested, rejected from the military and expelled from school.

"As long as elected officials in our federal and state legislatures continue to promote a message of 'all guns, all the time, everywhere,' incidents like this are bound to repeat themselves," Bracey said at the press conference.

"Unlike legislators, mayors do not bend so easily to the will of the gun lobby. ... It is time to insist our government take reasonable steps to halt the flow of illegal guns into criminal hands and to make sure that disturbed, unhealthy people like Jared Loughner can't fall through the cracks of a weak system, only to wreak terror on our society."

National group: Bracey is one of more than 600 mayors nationwide who have joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns, created in 2006.

At Tuesday's event, more than a dozen mayors - plus other elected officials and police - called for three "immediate actions to begin addressing gaps" in the law:

**Appoint a director to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has operated without a director for 4½ years, according to the group.
**Fix what the group calls "gaps" in background checks. The group maintains the background-check system must be revamped, and that records on drug abusers should be kept in that system for five years. Also, the National Instant Check System - passed in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre - must "finally" receive full funding.

**Share information and connect the dots, according to the group. Although the U.S. military knew Loughner was a drug abuser, there was no protocol in place to alert the FBI or to put that information into the background-check database, according to the group. A protocol should be established to ensure that can't happen again, the group maintains.

The charges: Loughner, 22, is charged federally with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee, according to The Associated Press.

Giffords, a three-term Democrat, was in critical condition at Tucson's University Medical Center, gravely wounded after being shot through the head, the AP reported.

Loughner was arraigned Monday for the rampage, which happened outside a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket where Giffords was meeting with constituents.