Maryland US Rep Glenn Ivey seeks to curb gun violence
“We need to have better and stronger school systems across the nation and we need to expand job opportunities,” Ivey says
U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., on Friday called for school improvements and other actions to address the root causes of gun violence that disproportionately impacts Black communities.
The first-term congressman, in collaboration with the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and gun violence prevention groups, hosted the Prince George’s County Gun Violence Survivors Week Action Summit in Washington, D.C.
The three-hour summit was organized to highlight “major structural challenges that create these types of disparities that lead to violence in Black communities,” Ivey told theGrio.
“Pockets of poverty, struggling schools, lack of job opportunities” are some of the reasons for gun violence,” Ivey said. “We need to have better and stronger school systems across the nation and we need to expand job opportunities.”
Dr. Tyreese McAllister, with MOMS Demand Action Prince George’s County, an organization that aims to curb gun violence, lost her 18-year-old daughter Ayana to gun violence in 2017.
“Ayana was a college student who was a joy and who had never been in trouble,” she said. “We just didn’t think this would be our life…we did all of the right things to keep our children safe.”
The teen was a college student attending Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was home in Washington, D.C., on spring break when she was shot while watching a music video filming.
“We are now fighting, not so much for Ayanna because there is nothing anyone can do for Ayanna,” McAllister told theGrio. “But, we are now fighting so that everyone is safe from gun violence,” she added. “We have to do something because it’s not good for anyone’s mental health.”
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A study done by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence shows that Black Americans are two times more likely to die from gun violence as opposed to their white counterparts.
In April 2023, Ivey introduced the Raise the Age Act, which aims to prevent teenagers from accessing assault weapons by raising the buying age to 21. While the bill has the support of House Democrats, it lacks backing from Republican lawmakers.
Some House Republicans are “afraid to take on the NRA” while others “believe that everyone having a gun is the solution to every problem in the United States,” Ivey said.
He emphasized that this is an election year and although some members of the GOP may want to participate in “positive legislation, they’re afraid to do it because it could lead to retaliation from Trump and his campaign.”
“They’re worried that they could get knocked off of the seats that they’re occupying,” he added. “The Republican party is out of step with the rest of the country” on the issue of gun violence.
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