“No Fly, No Buy,” Supported By 90% of Americans, Deserves A Vote

In response to Congress’ incomprehensible inaction on gun safety in the wake of the nation’s worst mass shooting, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) led a sit-in on the House floor on Wednesday to demand a vote on the “no fly, no buy” bill. 

The bipartisan measure, supported by an overwhelming 90% of Americans, would ban the sale of guns to suspected terrorists on the government’s no-fly list.

“Sometimes you have to get in the way. You have to make some noise by speaking up and speaking out against injustice & inaction,” Rep. Lewis tweeted during the protest. “The time is always right to do right. Our time is now.”

In an op-ed published Friday in the New York Daily News, I was joined by John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, and Evan Wolfson, President of the Freedom to Marry Coalition, in calling for common sense gun safety reforms.

“It is insane,” we wrote, “that we live in a country where terror suspects and criminals, including those convicted of hate crimes, can easily buy guns. Ity is intolerable that in our country armed hatred is the new normal. And it is unacceptable that our lawmakers protect and promote the gun lobby’s vision over our own lives and liberties.”

We applaud Rep. Lewis’s principled stance on the “no fly, no buy” bill. It is astonishing that such extreme measures should be necessary to urge a vote on a bill that is supported by 9 out of every 10 Americans.