Uvalde, Buffalo, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland. The horrifying list of mass shootings committed with assault rifles goes on and on. The human costs of easy access to these killing machines is incalculable, yet many of our leaders still refuse to recognize the truth: Assault rifles are weapons of war that have no place on our streets and in the hands of violent people. 

We aren’t just hurting ourselves, we are contributing to violence against vulnerable communities across the western hemisphere. Our assault weapons are being shipped abroad by people who buy guns in the U.S. and send them to criminals in places like Mexico, Haiti, and Jamaica. That’s right, our lax gun laws put deadly weapons in the hands of drug cartels and armed militias to commit violence in other countries. 

The violence caused by these weapons of war must stop, and the way we stop it is by cutting off the supply of these weapons from the source: The U.S. gun market. When it comes to gun control we’ve seen more progress this year than ever before, and if we want to see more, we need to make sure that our Senators know that we haven’t forgotten about this issue.