Mayors Against Illegal Guns Praises Nevada Legislature's Passage Of Bill Requiring Background Checks For All Gun Sales, Calls On Governor Sandoval To Sign Into Law

NEW YORK, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following the Nevada Legislature's passage of gun reform legislation that would require background checks for all firearm sales, the co-chairs of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, as well as Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn G. Goodman, issued the below statements.

"By passing legislation to require comprehensive and enforceable background checks for all gun sales, Nevada's lawmakers have taken a significant step forward in the fight against illegal guns," said Mayors Against Illegal Guns Co-Chair and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "Our bipartisan coalition – led by our Nevada mayors – urges Governor Sandoval to join the overwhelmingly majority of his constituents in supporting this commonsense measure. Signing this bill into law will help keep guns out of the wrong hands and save lives."

"I applaud the Nevada Legislature for passing a background check bill that will help keep guns away from criminals, domestic abusers, and the seriously mentally ill," said Mayors Against Illegal Guns Co-Chair and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. "State lawmakers did their part to make Nevada safer for its law enforcement officers, its families, and its children – now it's up to Governor Sandoval to make sensible reform a reality."

"As a gun owner and concealed permit holder, I know that protecting our Second Amendment rights is paramount, but keeping guns out of the wrong hands is also imperative," said Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn G. Goodman. "I commend the Nevada Legislature for taking action by voting to expand background checks on gun sales. This bill will help prevent those who pose a risk to public safety from easily acquiring guns. I urge Governor Sandoval to sign this important bill into law."

In an effort to help Nevada's push for requiring background checks on all gun sales – a measure that 86 percent of Nevadans support – Mayors Against Illegal Guns worked with local advocates to organize phone banks, send mailers to residents in key legislative districts, mobilize the coalition's grassroots supporters in Nevada, and organize press conferences with law enforcement officials and gun violence survivors. The coalition also ran two television ads urging support for background checks legislation, one of which features Gilles Rousseau, whose daughter Lauren was murdered in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School where she was a teacher. The ads can be viewed at: www.DemandAction.org/Nevada.

Evidence demonstrates that background checks help save lives. In states that already require background checks for all handgun sales:

• Gun trafficking was 48 percent lower than in states that fail to require background checks for all handgun sales.[1]
• The rate of women murdered by an intimate partner with a gun was 38 percent lower than in other states, while the rate murdered by other means was nearly identical.[2]
• The firearm suicide rate was 49 percent lower than in other states, even though people committed suicide in other ways at almost precisely the same rate.[3]
• Thirty-nine percent fewer law enforcement officers were shot to death with handguns.[4]

About Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Since its creation in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15 members to more than 950 mayors from across the country. We have more than 1.5 million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country.  The bipartisan coalition, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, has united the nation's mayors around these common goals: protecting communities by holding gun offenders accountable; demanding access to crime gun trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat gun trafficking; and working with legislators to fix weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns.  Learn more at www.MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org.

CONTACT
Alex Katz: [email protected] or 212-788-7617

Contact:  Mayor Bloomberg's Press Office  (212) 788-2958
Mayor Menino's Press Office   (617) 635-4461

[1] Daniel Webster, Jon Vernick, and Maria Bulzacchelli, "Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking," Journal of Urban Health, July 2009.
[2] U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Supplementary Homicide Reports, 2010.
[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) [online]. (2005) [cited 2012 Dec. 20].
[4] Federal Bureau of Investigation. LEOKA Database, 2001-2011 (Accessed Mar. 2013).

SOURCE Mayors Against Illegal Guns