Letters

To Help Address Gun Violence, Mondaire Jones is Needed Back in Washington

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With election season now here, it is important to highlight the strength of former congressman Mondaire Jones, who is running for the 17th Congressional District seat.

I am 21 years old and very concerned about the state of our country. In just the first six weeks of 2024, we saw 44 mass shootings, following 656 in 2023. We have had a gun violence crisis in this country for years, yet Congress consistently has done very little.

Our current representative, Mike Lawler, is a proponent of open-carry firearms in New York, and as someone who grew up in the era of Sandy Hook, Parkland and Uvalde, this is terrifying. Rep. Lawler adheres to the Republican Party line that gun violence is due to mental illness. While there is a mental health epidemic in this country, the proliferation of firearms remains the biggest threat to American lives from gun violence.

Mondaire Jones is a champion for common-sense gun safety legislation, supporting an assault weapon ban and universal background checks. While in Congress, he supported the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 and the Protecting Our Kids Act, along with other bills advocating for safe storage of firearms.

I speak on behalf of young people in the 17th Congressional District who are concerned about the acceleration of gun violence. We need to vote Congressman Lawler out of office and send Mondaire Jones back to D.C. if we have any hope of addressing this issue. America is counting on us.

Noah Goldstein
Chappaqua

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