246 shootings and more than 17 thousand victims in 147 days in the United States

Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

This Saturday was the 147th day of this year and there had already been 246 mass shootings and 23 mass murders in the country, which left 17,130 dead, including 107 children.

These may be cold numbers from the gun violence archives, but the gun-selling business continues and represents a human tragedy for those injured, including 252 children this year, and for survivors.

However, a national background verification system of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) counted up to the end of April –the most recent month recorded this year–, one million 369 thousand 296 new requests for firearms purchases, which is equivalent to to 11,410 new requests per day.

“It is shameful that gun manufacturers are making record profits at the same time that gun violence has become the leading cause of death for children in the United States,” said Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel.

The legislator from North Los Angeles got the California Assembly to approve a bill to increase taxes on firearms businesses, and with the money raised to finance gun violence prevention programs and safety against school shootings .

The tax would be higher than regular California sales tax, considered excise tax.

“This bill will fund critical school safety measures and proven violence prevention programs that will save lives and protect communities across California,” Gabriel said.

His proposal estimates that up to $160 million a year will be raised by a new excise tax on firearms manufacturers, dealers and sellers of guns and ammunition in the state of California.

The money will help fund a whole package of programs to prevent the use of guns and mitigate their harm among Californians.

The funds could finance, for example, the state's Violence Prevention and Intervention program, and for school mental health services and security measures.

But Gabriel says it's also funding that can support gun relinquishment programs for domestic abusers and other prohibited persons, services for victims of gun violence, and gun safety education.

During the period in which Assemblyman Gabriel's bill was being debated in the California lower house, in just two days there were two of the largest shootings in California, both with assault rifles, in Monterey Park and in the Bay of Half Moon.

Ms. Reina Webb, of Mothers Demanding Action in California, an organization that has supported Gabriel's proposal, said the bill would have made it at least somewhat difficult for such guns to be sold in the state.

The proposal “is a transformative approach to addressing gun violence and a crucial step to improve the safety of all California families,” said the lady.

The initiative has now passed to the California Senate, where it is expected to pass without major opposition to take effect on July 1, 2024.

Proposed AB28, or the Armed Violence Prevention, Healing, and Recovery Act, establishes an 11 percent tax on gross receipts from the retail sale of firearms, precursor parts, and ammunition.

"The bill would require that money received into the fund, once allocated, be used to fund various gun violence prevention, education, research, response, and investigation programs," the text says.

He considers that “armed violence is a public health and security crisis throughout the country. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children."

Although the initiative recognizes that California's firearm death rates are lower than the national average, firearms are one of the leading causes of death, injury and trauma among youth and especially youth of color in This status.

Legislator Gabriel assures that "armed violence also contributes to significant racial and socioeconomic inequality in security"

According to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2021, African-American parents across the country were more likely to lose their 13- to 19-year-old child to homicide with a firearm than any other cause of death.