Reaction To Shooting At Virginia Tech

Reaction To Shooting At Virginia Tech

Statement of Josh Horwitz, Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is deeply saddened by yesterday's tragedy at Virginia Tech. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this terrible incident and their families and loved ones. We hope they can find peace in the difficult days ahead.

We are currently awaiting the revelation of important information about the shooter and the process by which he acquired his guns. We urge local and national media to ask the tough questions necessary to bring these facts to light. Hopefully, there will soon be an opportunity to examine which policies, if any, could have prevented this incident.

Watching this tragedy unfold brings back painful memories of the massacres at Columbine High School in Colorado and the Amish school in Pennsylvania, and too many others. We hope that the President, the U.S. Congress, and state legislators will make the tough choices necessary to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again. In a nation plagued by gun violence and more than 30,000 gun deaths per year, a reevaluation of our overly permissive attitude toward firearms is long overdue.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence was founded in 1975 and is composed of 45 civic, professional and religious organizations and 100,000 individual members working to reduce gun violence. Our mission is to stop gun violence by fostering effective community and national action. For more information about the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, visit www.csgv.org.

ENDS

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