Statement on gun violence in America - May 2022

After Buffalo, we felt paralyzed by another hateful act. Now Uvalde, we wonder why this cannot be stopped and how these senseless mass shootings have become just a part of another regular day in America.

And on the one-year anniversary of the VTA massacre that occurred here in our community, we continue to mourn the loss of our family members. And while we mourn, we have also taken action to show more than words for our VTA family and everyone across County of Santa Clara. 

We need long overdue federal legislation, such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons, to address this issue. Based on what we collected from the gun buyback program earlier this week, we are grateful that dozens of assault style and ghost guns were voluntarily turned in, but this demonstrated that what happened in Texas or New York could easily also happen here. While we have been able to take some actions to reduce gun violence here in County of Santa Clara, it is not enough to stop massacres or preventable accidents from happening in our neighborhoods.

We have to address a full spectrum of factors that cause gun violence - and the firearms themselves are a very important part of that.

Enough is enough, let’s not make this pain a part of a regular day in America anymore. It is time for Congress to listen to the American people who overwhelmingly want universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons. I implore Congress to adopt H.R. 8, the House-passed bipartisan, commonsense, life-saving legislation into law. 

One year ago, on May 26, 2021, we lost members of our VTA family to gun violence. They stay in our hearts, and we join community in honoring their memory.