Welcome Back, Congress. It’s Time To Take Action on Gun Safety.

Elected members of Congress serve in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Members of Congress represent their constituents. Congress, among other things, passes laws and funds the government, including federal agencies and programs. 

Congress can take action on gun safety by introducing and passing legislation on common-sense measures shown to reduce gun violence and save lives, such as:

• Expanding background checks to all gun sales and closing loopholes in the background check system, 
• Banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, and 
• Strengthening oversight and accountability for the firearms industry. 

Congress can also ensure that critical federal agencies and programs that help prevent gun violence have the funding and resources to keep communities safe and save lives.

Congress is made up of two chambers: The House of Representatives and the Senate. Members of the House serve for two-year terms. Members of the Senate serve for six-year terms.

The 119th Congress has a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. As of January 8, 2025, the House of Representatives has 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats (with one vacant seat). The Senate has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.¹ These tallies can change if lawmakers retire, seats become vacant, or if there are special elections. Both of those chambers have several far-right members.

The gun lobby wants to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the nation’s leading federal law enforcement agency responsible for protecting the public from violent crime and gun violence. It also wants to repeal the parts of BSCA that have:

• Disarmed more domestic abusers than ever before,
• Blocked gun sales to prohibited purchasers under the age of 21,¹Between October 2022 and September 2024, nearly 900 gun sales were blocked to prohibited purchasers under the age of 21. and
• Required more gun sellers to become licensed sellers and, in turn, run background checks on their customers.

The gun lobby’s agenda would put more guns in the hands of more people in more places. It is a clear and present danger to public safety and public health. 

Congress can defend against the gun lobby’s extremist agenda by:

• Supporting the ATF
• Protecting BSCA, and 
• Rejecting concealed carry reciprocity and other efforts to:
  • Deregulate dangerous weapons 
  • Hamstring law enforcement’s ability to investigate gun crimes.

For years, gun makers, dealers, and marketers have lined their own pockets with billions of dollars while the public pays the price. Gun violence kills 125 people in the United States every single day and wounds over 200 more. The gun industry’s greed and indifference help fuel this crisis:

• Manufacturers are driven to make and sell deadly products like military-style assault weapons and devices that can make regular firearms operate like illegal machine guns;
• Marketers stoke fear to sell empty promises of safety;
• Bad apple dealers sell guns to traffickers and straw purchasers that end up in the wrong hands and are used in violent crime.

Many of these bad actors are able to get away with it, too. Thanks to a law the NRA helped write 20 years ago, the gun industry has near absolute immunity. The gun industry has also been allowed to engage in business practices with minimal regulation under laws that haven’t been strengthened since the 1960s.

Congress can hold the gun industry accountable by:

• Banning assault weapons and other dangerous products, 
• Repealing the gun industry’s immunity, 
• Reigning in irresponsible marketing, and
• Increasing oversight of gun dealers and regulation of the entire firearms supply chain.

Background checks save lives, keeping guns out of the hands of individuals like convicted felons and domestic abusers who have long been prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms. Since 1994, the background check system has blocked more than 4 million gun sales to prohibited persons.

But there’s a problem: Not all gun sales are subject to background checks because not all gun sellers are required to run them. Under federal law, only licensed dealers must run background checks on their customers. Unlicensed dealers and their no-background-check sales aren’t the only loopholes in federal law that endanger the public. Right now, a dealer can transfer a gun to a purchaser before their background check is completed if the check takes longer than three business days. This loophole alone has put more than a million guns in the hands of prohibited persons.

Congress can block illegal gun access by:

• Expanding background checks to all gun sales, and
• Closing loopholes in the background check system.

More guns do not make us safer. There are more guns than people in the United States, and those guns claim over 46,000 lives each year—injuring twice as many more.  Over half of those gun deaths are suicides. The remainder are homicides, including:

• Domestic violence incidents, 
• Mass shootings, 
• Unintentional shootings, often involving children, and 
• Daily gun violence that rarely makes it into national news headlines.

Congress can reduce risk and promote responsible gun ownership by:

• Continuing support for public health research on the causes of gun violence and how to prevent it,
• Ensuring that gun owners store their guns securely, and
• Giving law enforcement the tools to remove guns from those who shouldn’t have them, including individuals in crisis and domestic abusers.

Gun violence does not happen in a vacuum. There are longstanding structural and systemic inequities in health care, education, housing, workforce development, and criminal legal systems. These disparities contribute to gun violence in communities across the United States, disproportionately impacting communities of color. Black Americans are more than 12 times as likely, Native Americans are more than 4 times as likely, and Latinx people are more than 2 times as likely to die from gun homicide than white Americans.

The daily gun violence these communities face can be prevented through community-led violence intervention programs. Through proven public health interventions, these programs help break the cycle of violence, reduce gunshot wounds, and reduce gun deaths. These programs work to provide evidence-informed support to individuals who are at the greatest risk of gun violence through:

• Street outreach programs,
• Hospital-based violence intervention programs, 
• Youth development and mentorship,
• Cleaning and greening, and more.

Looking ahead, violence intervention programs need increased support to meet the needs of frontline workers and the communities these programs serve. Congress can support community-based interventions by providing the funds and resources these programs need to prevent gun violence and to help impacted individuals and communities heal and rebuild.

Guns and hate are a fatal combination. On average, more than 25,000 hate crimes involve a firearm each year. Firearms make hate- and extremism-motivated violence more violent and likely to turn deadly. Time and again, hate-fueled shootings and other violent acts have targeted communities of color and other protected groups. But federal law doesn’t block individuals who have been convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from purchasing or possessing firearms.

Like hate crimes, armed extremism is another clear threat to the public. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described violent white supremacists as “the most persistent and lethal threat” to the Homeland. Years later, that is still true. DHS and other federal agencies have repeatedly assessed that these domestic violent extremists, among others, continue to be a threat to:

• Racial and ethnic minorities,
• The LGBTQ+ community,
• Vulnerable groups, and
• Sensitive places.

For extremists looking to commit these acts of violence, firearms are their most obvious weapon.

Congress can disarm hate by:

• Preventing those who have committed hate crimes from obtaining firearms
• Using every available tool—like Extreme Risk laws—to keep guns out of the hands of extremists.