Protecting the safety and security of Massachusetts' schools, streets and communities is of the utmost importance to Senator Markey, who supports common-sense gun control reforms, including universal background checks for all firearms sales, reinstituting the ban on assault weapons, making gun trafficking a federal crime, a prohibition against high capacity ammunition magazines, and closure of the loopholes surrounding the creation of undetectable, plastic guns.
Senator Markey has introduced and fought for several bills to reduce the epidemic of gun violence. Senator Markey authored the Making America Safe and Secure (MASS) Act, legislation that would incentivize states to adopt gun-licensing standards similar to those proven effective in Massachusetts. Leading the effort to block the online distribution of blueprints and instructions for 3D-printed firearms, Senator Markey introduced the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act that would ban the online posting of 3D printable gun blueprints. He has demanded answers from Facebook on its role in facilitating misleading and dangerous gun advertisements on its platform. Senator Markey’s Keeping Gun Dealers Honest Act would strengthen accountability measures for irresponsible gun dealers and provide the ATF with additional resources for enforcement. And for Fiscal Year 2020, Senator Markey was able to secure $25 million for gun violence prevention research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first time Congress approved federal funding for the study of gun violence since an appropriations rider called the Dickey Amendment was put on the books in 1996.
In 1994 in the House of Representatives, Markey was successful in his bipartisan effort to get President Bill Clinton to place an emergency moratorium on the importation of military style assault weapons from China, including the AK-47 and Uzi. At the time, it was estimated that between 425,000 and two million modified rifles had been imported into the United States since 1991, selling for less than $130 per gun.
