Rush Reintroduces Gun Control Bill After Slaying of 9-Year-Old Boy

Congressman Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill)

U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (Illinois First District) reintroduced a bill calling for a federal gun licensing system and national gun registry after a 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee was gunned down in an alley near his grandmother’s house earlier this week.

>>>>‘He Was Going to Make Me Real Proud of Him,’ Says Mom of Slain 9-Year-Old Boy

“Last night another Chicagoan lost his life to the city’s gun violence,” Rush said in a written statement. “Tyshawn’s life was cut short and we may never know why, but we must put an end to the plague of gun violence sweeping our communities. We are losing a generation to self-inflicted murder and mayhem.”

The Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2015 would implement a federal system of licensing individuals who possess guns, and a national gun registry to help law enforcement keep track of the flow of guns into communities.

The purpose of the bill would specifically:

• Protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and negligent or reckless death associated with the unrecorded sale or transfer of qualifying firearms to criminals and youths.
• Ensure that owners of qualifying firearms are knowledgeable in the safe use, handling, and storage of these firearms;
• Restrict the availability of qualifying firearms to criminals, youth, and other persons prohibited by Federal law from receiving firearms;
• Facilitate the tracing of qualifying firearms used in crime by Federal and State Law enforcement agencies; and
• Hold criminally and civilly liable those who distribute the transfer of qualifying firearms, causing risk of injury and negligent or reckless death associated with their transfer.

The bill is named for another young Chicagoan, Blair Holt, who lost his life to gun violence when a gang member opened fire on a CTA bus in 2007. Holt, 17, a student at Julian High School and the son of Chicago police officers, was not the intended target.

“We are not powerless to end this community carnage,” Rush also stated. “I plead with the younger generation to let us come together to work together to end this senseless violence in another way.”