Ranking Member Raskin and Reps. Frost and Moskowitz to Host Roundtable on the Long-Term Toll of Gun Violence on Schools and Youth

Washington D.C. (September 20, 2024)—On Monday, September 23, at 4:00 p.m. ET, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability; Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost; Rep. Jared Moskowitz; and other Democratic Committee Members will hold a roundtable titled “The Real Facts of Life: The Long-Term Effects of Gun Violence on Young People, Schools and their Communities, Part II,” to examine the epidemic of gun violence and its long-term consequences for children, teenagers, and their communities with a panel of school leaders, advocates, and gun violence experts.

“When politicians cavalierly tell us to accept gun violence as a ‘fact of life,’ they trivialize the fact that gun violence has actually become a fact of death in America—in fact, the leading cause of death for people under 18,” said Ranking Member Raskin. “The fact of life that remains is people and communities shattered by murder, trauma, bloodshed, grief, depression and fear. The Democrats are going to let America speak about the real facts of life.”

“The cruel reality of being a kid in America right now is being forced to go to school and sit in a classroom where you have to fear for your life on a daily basis,” said Rep. Frost. “Like it or not, my generation will go down in history as the mass shooting generation — a generation where students have had more mass shooting drills than fire drills. The amount of fear, pain, and trauma young people have been forced to cope with will never cease to exist until our elected leaders stop acting like shootings are a fact of life and start acting like they want to save lives and end gun violence. Every day Congress fails to act, is 100 lives lost. Every day we fail to act, we allow gun violence to be the leading cause of death for our children. And that is unacceptable.”

“I came to Congress to prevent another tragedy like the one in my hometown of Parkland at my high school. While MAGA Republicans on the Oversight Committee center their work on protecting gas stoves and other appliances, Oversight Dems are focusing on protecting kids from being gunned down in school,” said Rep. Moskowitz.

This roundtable follows Republican inaction after the latest deadly school massacre in Winder, Georgia, as well as appalling GOP statements of surrender that school shootings are a “fact of life.” This is the second in a series of gun violence roundtables hosted by Ranking Member Raskin, Rep. Frost, and Rep. Moskowitz. On November 14, 2023, Oversight Democrats held a roundtable discussion titled “Thoughts and Prayers—With Actions and Change: Practical Solutions to End Gun Slaughter in America, Part I,” with a panel of school leaders, policy advocates, and legal experts to examine commonsense solutions to prevent the senseless loss of life.

On July 8, 2022, the Oversight Committee held a landmark hearing with survivors from the nation’s latest mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. On July 27, 2022, two leading firearm manufacturers testified in an Oversight Committee hearing to examine the role of the firearms industry in fueling the nation’s gun violence epidemic. The same day, Committee Democrats issued a memorandum as part of the Committee’s investigation of the gun industry, detailing profits, sales and marketing strategies, and other irresponsible business practices of the most profitable gun manufacturers.

###