Rep. Garcia Expressed Condolences After July 4 Holiday Shootings

Texas Representative Sylvia Garcia (D) expressed her condolences for the multiple families who lost loved ones in the recent shootings during the July 4 holiday.

“Today I grieve along with the victims and families of those affected by the recent shootings in Fort Worth, TX, Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore, MD, and Wichita, KS. We ask for more than prayers for the victims and their families. We need real gun reform and real change now,” said Rep. Garcia.

Over the July 4 holiday weekend, 22 mass shootings occurred in 17 states across America.

In Fort Worth, TX, three people died and eight were wounded in a mass shooting.

Mass shootings have been a major issue for Americans for some time, prompting many Americans to call for gun reform. Texas alone had faced multiple shootings prior to the recent and tragic Fort Worth shooting.

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that mass shootings have not only gone up since the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’ve also become the leading cause of death for children.

In a recent CDC report, new data showed an all-time high of gun-related deaths totaling 45,222 lives lost. The new data revealed “a sharp 13.5% increase in the crude rate of firearm-related death from 2019 to 2020.”

In 2018, multiple children were massacred in a school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Four years later, in Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two adults were killed when an 18-year-old boy released gunfire into their school.

“From 2019 to 2020, the relative increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined) among children and adolescents was 29.5% — more than twice as high as the relative increase in the general population,” said the CDC.