Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly Statement on the Shooting at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport

January 6, 2017 – Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Navy combat veteran and NASA astronaut Captain Mark Kelly, the Co-Founders of the gun violence prevention organization Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), and ARS’s partner organization the  Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence issued the below statement on today’s tragic mass shooting at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

STATEMENT FROM CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS AND CAPTAIN MARK KELLY

“Today’s tragic shooting in Ft. Lauderdale is another painful reminder of our nation’s gun violence crisis. We are incredibly grateful to the first responders who acted so bravely this afternoon to save lives and bring this tragedy to an end. We mourn for those taken today, and pray for those who were injured.

“We wish we could say we lived in a country where people could go to an airport without facing the fear of gun violence. We cannot let this horror become normal. Our country is better than this.”

ABOUT FLORIDA’S GUN LAWS

Florida has some of the worst gun laws in the nation, regularly scoring an F in the Law Center’s annual  Gun Law State Scorecard. It fails to require background checks for private sales, does not require gun dealers to obtain a state license, has incredibly weak standards for allowing people to carry concealed guns in public, and even bars doctors from speaking about firearm safety with their patients. Learn more about gun laws in Florida at  smartgunlaws.org/FL.