WASHINGTON, D.C. — Just hours after six Dayton police officers were honored at the White House for their response to last month’s mass shooting, two other Ohioans held a press conference in Washington to urge the Senate to vote on expanding background checks.
Monday marked Congress’s first day back after the “August recess,” but Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley was also in town.
She traveled with a bipartisan group of mayors from across the country to call on lawmakers to expand background checks in wake of the recent mass shootings.
Whaley joined Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and others on Capitol Hill to demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) hold a vote on a bill that would expand background checks on firearm purchases.
Brown said the legislation wouldn’t solve everything, but it’d be an important step forward after the mass shootings in Dayton and Texas.
Whaley said she wished she were back home in Ohio, but that families of some of the victims have told her something has to be done.
Spectrum Washington reporter Taylor Popielarz asked Whaley why it’s worth it to come to Washington, since guns have always triggered gridlock here.
“I think the people of Dayton were very clear the next night, after the shooting, when they called and started really just organically saying do something,” she said. “So, I feel that the citizens of Dayton are about us getting something done, even if in Washington that normally doesn’t happen.”
Brown was asked how the Dayton shooting has changed his approach to this topic.
“I don’t think our strategy has changed,” he said. “I think it’s just a question of the public anger about this many guns, this many assault weapons on the streets, this many mass shootings, the public anger continues to build.”
Brown added: “We keep the pressure on; we keep it on Republican senators; we keep it on the president; we keep it on McConnell. They’re addicted to gun lobby money. We’ve got to break that addiction.”
H.R. 8 is the name of the background check bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives back in February.
McConnell controls what gets voted on in the Senate, and he has recently said he’s waiting for President Trump to settle on a decision.
In the meantime, Whaley said she has meetings in Washington through Tuesday. And the Democrats she stood alongside on Monday said they will be putting more pressure on this issue, now that Congress is back in session.