District Mayor Anthony Williams and 13 of his major metropolitan colleagues are scheduled to participate Wednesday in a national gun summit in New York.
The daylong meeting, hosted by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Meninon, will focus on challenges combating gun crime, policing and legal strategies and fighting the flow of illegal guns across state borders. It will feature a morning symposium outlining best gun control practices and an afternoon panel discussion.
“Even though the District of Columbia has a zero-tolerance policy on illegal guns and even though we have some of the most restrictive laws in the country regarding guns, our city remains plagued by gun violence and we continue to mourn the loss of too many innocent victims,” Williams said in a statement.
The Metropolitan Police Department had confiscated 740 guns this year through Wednesday.
Meanwhile, congressional legislation to eliminate most of the District’s gun laws remains stuck in House and Senate committees.
The House version, with 232 co-sponsors, was the subject of an oversight hearing last June in the Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. The measure was attached to an appropriations bill and passed out of the House.
No action has been taken on the Senate legislation since its referral to a subcommittee last year. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, who introduced the bill, was adding support as recently as February.
Participants include:
» Dallas Mayor Laura Miller
» Philadelphia Mayor John Street
» Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
» Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels
» Providence, R.I., Mayor David Cicilline
» Hartford, Conn., Mayor Eddie Perez
» Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer
» Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown
