During August, only weeks following recent deadly mass shootings, and about a week following his speech concerning gun violence and white nationalism at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white supremacist gunman killed nine African-Americans in 2015, Democrat United States Senator and Presidential Candidate, Cory Booker, announced a plan to combat hate crimes, extremism, and white supremacist violence. We first interviewed Senator Booker in February about his campaign seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to become the next President of the United States. His campaign recently reached out to us and we arranged for an exclusive telephone interview with Senator Booker, that took place on August 27, discussing his plan to combat hate crimes, extremism, and white supremacist violence. Gary: Senator Booker, would you please elaborate on your planned efforts concerning gun control in the United States? Sen. Booker: Certainly. We are at a point now in America where we have a mass shooting crisis…and a homicide crisis…and a suicide crisis that is so grand, that in the last sixty years alone more people have died from gun violence than folks who have died in every single war we’ve had combined… from the Revolutionary War all the way to the present wars. It is unconscionable, and it is unacceptable, and particularly hitting our communities of color…where AfricanAmerican men make up the majority of the homicide victims in our country. Now this is an issue that is affecting every community… everywhere…and a fear in our society is growing so great, that we are doing nothing about it. In fact, we’re so capitulating to the fear of our society…and giving up our freedom… freedom from fear, freedom from violence and we’re sending kids to school now with a message that ‘we can’t protect you…so we’re going to teach you how to shelterin-place…and how to hide should there be a bathroom in your school’. That’s unacceptable. As a man who lives in a community that has much gun violence… where I had a young man shot on my block last year with an assault rifle…I feel an urgent need…an urgent call…to do something about this. African-American men make up the majority of the homicide victims in our country. Now this is an issue that is affecting every community Our plan is based upon evidence-based strategies that have shown to work in other places. For example, our gun licensing part of our plan…it is common sense that someone should need a license…you need a license to buy a car…to drive a car… you should need a license to buy and own a hand gun. That is just such an important pillar because the states that have done it, like Connecticut, have seen about a 3% drop in homicides…a 41% drop in gun deaths, including a 15% drop in suicides. I’m going to fight for this issue with the urgency of someone who lives in a community and sees these deaths all too often. I’m bringing a plan that will end this epidemic of mass shooting and address issues of suicide.
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