Former Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin Joins Major Summit on Gun Violence Prevention and Industry Accountability

Mayors Against Illegal Guns Summit at Gracie Mansion in New York City to Focus on Gun Industry Accountability, Will Conclude with Press Conference at 1PM ET – Livestream Available HERE

Summit Hosted in Partnership with the African American Mayors Association

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Today, ahead of a groundbreaking mayoral summit on gun violence prevention and holding the gun industry accountable, former Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin, a co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, called on mayors across the country to release new data on the manufacturers of guns used in crimes in their cities. The summit is hosted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns Co-Chair New York Mayor Eric Adams, in partnership with the African American Mayors Association.

In 2006, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then-Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns as an original coalition of 15 mayors. The coalition has since grown to a bipartisan group of more than 1,000 current and former mayors from the smallest towns to the biggest cities in nearly every state. 

“The opioid epidemic wasn’t just about people taking too many pills – it’s also about the pharmaceutical industry fueling it,” said former Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin, co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “The exact same thing is true with our gun violence epidemic – there’s an industry that for years, has lived in the shadows while its products contribute to our public health crisis. Today’s summit is about shining a light on the industry’s practices and sharing best practices on how to hold it accountable.”

“We are thankful to Mayor Benjamin and mayors across the country for prioritizing gun industry accountability,” said Patty Tuttle, a volunteer with the South Carolina chapter of Moms Demand Action. “Shining a light on the industry will help us understand the role it plays in furthering our gun violence epidemic.” 

Twelve cities published data today on the manufacturers of crime guns in their cities. The top manufacturer of recovered crime guns was Glock in 9 of the 12 reporting cities. On average, over 1.5x more Glocks were recovered than the second leading manufacturer in each of those 9 cities. Five gun manufacturers accounted for over half of the recovered crime guns: Glock (16.6%), Taurus (12.4%), Smith & Wesson (11.8%), Ruger (6.5%), and Polymer80 (3.8%). Collectively across this sample of 12 cities, these five manufacturers accounted for nearly 10,000 recovered crime guns in 2021.

Additionally, with former U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach now sworn in as the first Senate-confirmed director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in nearly a decade, the mayors called on ATF to take key steps towards fulfilling its vitally important oversight role. Those measures include: 

• Giving cities the data and analysis needed to fully understand the flow of illegal guns and develop targeted interventions, and clarifying that the Tiahrt Amendment does not prevent cities from publicly releasing analysis of this important data; 
• Strongly implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) and aggressively enforcing the new ghost gun rule; 
• Cracking down on rogue gun dealers by requiring high-risk dealers to implement anti-trafficking standards; issuing a new Demand Letter to those high-risk dealers requiring them to share more information with ATF, and dramatically increasing gun dealer inspections to shut down the gun dealers who are violating the law; 
• Investigating the secondary commercial marketplaces that are the source of guns for gun traffickers, including online marketplaces and gun shows, and implementing a new regulation defining who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms (a provision in BSCA) to clearly define the unlicensed sellers who are unlawfully selling firearms without a background check.

All of the mayors attending today’s summit are members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and nearly all are either Co-Chairs of Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) and/or Trustees of the African American Association (AAMA), including New York Mayor Eric Adams (MAIG Co-Chair, AAMA Trustee); Augusta, Georgia Mayor Hardie Davis (AAMA Trustee); Buffalo, New York Mayor Byron W. Brown (AAMA Treasurer); Baltimore, Maryland Mayor Brandon Scott (MAIG Co-Chair, AAMA Trustee); Former Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin (MAIG Co-Chair); Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Quinton Lucas (MAIG Co-Chair); Little Rock, Arkansas Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. (AAMA President); Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam (AAMA Trustee); Montgomery, Alabama Mayor Steven Reed (AAMA 2nd Vice President); Mount Vernon, New York Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard (MAIG Co-Chair, AAMA 1st Vice President); Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka; St. Louis, Missouri Mayor Tishaura Jones (MAIG Co-Chair); and Tampa, Florida Mayor Jane Castor (MAIG Co-Chair). Chicago, Illinois Mayor Lori Lightfoot (AAMA Trustee); and Chattanooga, Tennessee Mayor Tim Kelly (MAIG Co-Chair) will also join remotely. Several of these mayors, including the mayors of New York, Columbia, Kansas City, and Baltimore, have already taken significant steps towards holding certain members of the gun industry accountable through litigation for their contributions to our gun violence epidemic.