国际英语资讯:Yearender: Americans facing mass shooting milestone in 2019 with no progress in gun control_时事

国际英语资讯:Yearender: Americans facing mass shooting milestone in 2019 with no progress in gun control

President Donald Trump and other Republicans have pointed to gun control as one of the key issues where legislation might have been enacted if Democrats weren't pursuing Trump's impeachment.

Chief executives of some of the best-known companies in the United States on Sept. 12 urged Congress in a letter to act on gun violence. The letter came several weeks after two mass shootings, which occurred hours apart in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, took 32 lives in August.

"Doing nothing about America's gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety," read the letter signed by the heads of 145 U.S. companies, including Airbnb, Twitter, and Uber.

Specifically, they were asking the Senate to pass a bill to "require background checks on all gun sales" and a strong law that "would allow courts to issue life-saving extreme risk protection orders."

"There are steps Congress can, and must, take to prevent and reduce gun violence," read the letter. "We need our lawmakers to support common-sense gun laws that could prevent tragedies like these."

WHAT'S NEXT?

Gun violence costs the United States 229 billion U.S. dollars annually, amounting to 1.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to a newly-released study commissioned by congressional Democrats.

According to Taylor, there are several things that could be done right now to reduce gun violence and still work within the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protections of gun ownership rights.