Casten Votes to Pass Protecting Our Kids Act Through the House

My teenage daughter had to organize a ‘Stop-the-bleed’ training to learn how to pack a gunshot wound during a school shooting because, in America, our children have taken it upon themselves to do what we here in Congress have failed to do. It’s time for that to change.

Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06) voted on Wednesday June 8, 2022 to pass the Protecting Our Kids Act to save lives with common-sense gun control measures.

New CDC data shows that guns are the number one killer of children in America, costing more lives than car accidents or cancer. Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active duty military combined.

After the Uvalde shooting killed 19 children and 2 teachers, Casten called on Congress to pass gun reform legislation quickly and decisively. Now, more and more Americans are saying that enough is enough.

Gun violence in America is responsible for more than 45,000 deaths per year, including 1,745 In Illinois alone. Every day, 30 Americans are murdered with a gun – a number that rises to more than 100 when counting suicides and accidental shootings.

In addition to this daily loss of life, gun violence continues to inflict a heavy financial burden – imposing $2.8 billion in emergency room and inpatient costs on Americans each year.

This epidemic of gun violence has continued to tear through communities in Illinois and across the country. Last month, Americans were horrified by mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York – both carried out by 18-year-olds legally armed with semi-automatic assault rifles. Just this past weekend, at least thirteen mass shootings terrorized more communities across the country.

“My teenage daughter, Gwen organized a ‘Stop-the-bleed’ training to learn how to pack a gunshot wound during a school shooting because, in America, our children have taken it upon themselves to do what we here in Congress have failed to do,” Congressman Sean Casten said.

“Every day, 22 children and teens in America are gunned down–meaning that by the end of today, 858 kids will have been exposed to gun violence this year, and 8,000 children and teens will experience gun violence before this year ends. Children shouldn’t have to learn how to cower under their desks or apply shoelace tourniquet. I’m proud to cosponsor and vote to pass the Protecting Our Kids Act through the House because there are solutions that we can and must take to save lives and protect our children.”

To view Congressman Casten’s full interview with Newsy here.

The Protecting Our Kids Act will make an enormous difference in the fight against gun violence with provisions to:

- Raise the lawful age to purchase certain semiautomatic centerfire rifles from 18 to 21 years old
- Establish a new federal offense for the import, sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of a large capacity magazines, with exceptions for certain law enforcement uses and the possession (but not sale) of grandfathered magazines; allow state and local governments to use the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program to compensate individuals who surrender large capacity magazines through a buyback program
- Establish new federal offenses for gun trafficking and straw purchasers and authorize seizure of the property and proceeds of the offense
- Establish voluntary best practices for safe firearm storage; require most firearms to include a label that says “Safe Storage Saves Lives”; require dealers to provide a secure gun storage or safety device with the sale of a shotgun or rifle (as already required for handguns); and award grants for Safe Firearm Storage Assistance Programs
- Establish requirements to regulate the storage of firearms on residential premises and create criminal penalties for violation of the requirements
- Build on ATF’s regulatory bump stock ban by listing bump stocks under the National Firearms Act (like machineguns) and statutorily banning the manufacture, sale, or possession of bump stocks for civilian use
- Build on ATF’s regulatory ban of ghost guns by ensuring that ghost guns are subject to existing federal firearm regulation by amending the definition of “firearm” to include gun kits and partial receivers and changing the definition of “manufacturing firearms” to include assembling firearms using 3D printing

In April, Casten led his colleagues on the Gun Violence Prevention task force to call on House Leadership to advance a comprehensive slate of gun violence prevention legislation, including components of the Protecting Our Kids Act as well as legislation he introduced to stop the flow of illegally trafficked out-of-state crime guns into states like Illinois.

Casten’s Gun Trafficker Detection Act would require gun owners to report if their gun is lost or stolen within 48 hours and bolster law enforcement’s authority to hold gun traffickers accountable.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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