Florida Senate - 2017                                    SM 1322
       
       
        
       By Senator Braynon
       
       
       
       
       
       35-01334-17                                           20171322__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         urging Congress to designate the month of September
    4         2017 as “Firearm Violence Awareness Month.”
    5  
    6         WHEREAS, the Department of Law Enforcement reports that in
    7  2015 there were 767 homicides, 154 rapes, 17,095 aggravated
    8  assaults, and 8,672 robberies involving a firearm committed in
    9  Florida, and
   10         WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
   11  states that every year approximately 33,600 people are killed
   12  and 81,000 people are injured in homicides, aggravated assaults,
   13  suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and
   14  police interventions involving firearms in the United States,
   15  and
   16         WHEREAS, more than 2,600 of the people killed by firearms
   17  each year are children age 19 or younger, and
   18         WHEREAS, the public has been horrified and saddened by
   19  recent mass shooting events such as the one on June 12, 2016, in
   20  which 49 people were killed and 53 people were wounded in the
   21  Pulse nightclub in Orlando and by firearm homicides such as the
   22  one on August 30, 2016, in which 8-year-old Jada Page was killed
   23  in a drive-by shooting in Miami, and
   24         WHEREAS, the United States firearm homicide rate is 20
   25  times higher than the combined rates of 22 other countries that
   26  are its peers in wealth and population, and
   27         WHEREAS, it is imperative that there be greater public
   28  awareness of firearm violence, NOW, THEREFORE,
   29  
   30  
   31  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   32  
   33         That the Congress of the United States designate the month
   34  of September 2017 as “Firearm Violence Awareness Month.”
   35         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State is
   36  directed to dispatch copies of this memorial to the President of
   37  the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the United States
   38  House of Representatives, and to each member of the Florida
   39  delegation to the United States Congress.