Doctors Council SEIU Letter to U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, Conn. on Gun Control Measures

June 17, 2016

United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Murphy,

Doctors Council SEIU applauds your efforts on the Senate Floor to demand the Senate
take up a variety of gun control measures. We especially support the amendments
expanding background checks on all gun purchases and making it more difficult for
individuals being monitored for terrorism activity to purchase firearms.

As the union representing doctors in New York City’s and Chicago’s public hospitals
and correctional facilities, we recognize that gun violence is a public health problem
that kills 90 Americans a day. Doctors are witness to the aftermaths of shootings every
day. Assaults involving firearms are consistently more deadly than those with other
weapons. Our emergency room doctors are seeing more and grislier gun injuries and
fatalities in recent years, in part due to semi-automatic rifles like the one used in
Orlando.

The failure of Congress to pass gun control measures has been particularly
disheartening especially with so many horrific mass shootings in recent years. Gun
violence is increasingly damaging our communities and leaving not only physical scars
but emotional and psychological scars on families.

We support your commitment to putting people over politics and we encourage the rest
of Congress to do the same.

Strengthening our gun laws and closing loopholes in the background check system can
help prevent lethal hate crimes and acts of terrorism in the U.S. like the horrifying mass
shooting in Orlando.

We also strongly support gun violence prevention through research, education and
advocacy. We must continue to push to allow federally funded research to study gun
violence like any other public health issue.

We urge your colleagues to vote yes on the Murphy and Feinstein amendments to the
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill.

Thank you for your continued leadership on this issue.

Sincerely,

Frank Proscia, M.D.
President, Doctors Council SEIU

CC: Senate Majority Leader McConnell
Senate Minority Leader Reid
House Speaker Ryan
House Minority Leader Pelosi
Senator Schumer
Senator Gillibrand
Senator Durbin
Senator Kirk