ICYMI: Following Apalachee High School Shooting, Senator Reverend Warnock Spotlights Harmful Impact of Gun Violence on Nation’s Youth

Senator Reverend Warnock hosted a panel discussion titled "Youth Under Fire: Addressing Gun Violence in Our Communities" during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 53^rd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC)

The forum followed a deadly school shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia that took the lives of two students and two teachers

Senator Reverend Warnock previously examined the impact of gun violence in the Black community during a forum at last year's ALC

This year's panel discussion featured Greg Jackson, the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Congresswoman Lucy McBath, and several other gun violence activists

Senator Reverend Warnock: "This public health crisis is undoubtedly stealing generations of youth from the Black community, and the American people are crying out for action on this issue"

Above left to right: Senator Reverend Warnock, Dr. Roger Mitchell, Jr., Armani White

Washington, D.C. - Last week, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) convened survivors and gun safety advocates for a forum aimed at addressing the dangerous, deadly consequences of the nation's gun violence epidemic on young people, particularly Black youth, during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 53^rd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) in Washington, D.C. The panel discussion, titled "Youth Under Fire: Addressing Gun Violence in Our Communities",was Senator Warnock's second session focused on efforts to curb gun violence at the ALC, and was held in the wake of the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA that claimed the lives of two teachers and two students. 500 conference participants and community members, including high school students, attended the session.

"This public health crisis is undoubtedly stealing generations of youth from the Black community, and the American people are crying out for action on this issue," said Senator Reverend Warnock. "They want commonsense gun safety reform, but there's a growing chasm between what the people want and what they can get from their government."

Above Left: The Youth Under Fire: Addressing Gun Violence in Our Communities panel discussion

Above Right: Gregory Jackson, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention & Senator Reverend Warnock

Senator Warnock moderated the discussion, which included remarks from Gregory Jackson, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and Special Assistant to the President; Dr. Roger Mitchell, Jr., President of Howard University Hospital; Congresswoman Lucy McBath (D-GA-07), who lost her son, Jordan, to gun violence in 2012, Maciah King-Brooks, a gun violence student advocate in the DMV and partner for Guns Down Friday; Zoe Touray, a survivor of the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan that killed four students, youth activist, founder of S.E.E (Survivors Embracing Each Other), and a March For Our Lives national spokesperson; Hip-Hop artist Armani White, Mariah Cooley, Midwest Advocacy Associate with the Community Justice Action Fund; and Angela Ferrell-Zabala, Executive Director of Moms Demand Action.

Above Left: Maciah King-Brooks, student advocate and partner for Guns Down Friday & Senator Reverend Warnock

Above Right: Zoe Touray, founder of Survivors Embracing Each Other & Senator Reverend Warnock

Senator Warnock has vocally championed efforts to address the gun violence crisis in the United States, as a pastor and legislator. Following the tragic shooting in Winder, Senator Warnock met with students and families from the Apalachee High School community, and honored the victims on the Senate floor while calling for Congress to come together to pass popular gun safety reforms supported by broad swaths of the American public, regardless of political ideology; the Senator's speech marked his third time lamenting a mass shooting in Georgia on the Senate floor.

Additionally, since arriving to the Senate, Senator Warnock has championed several pieces of legislation to curb rampant, routine gun violence and help make communities safer, including cosponsoring bills to ban assault weapons, institute universal background checks on firearms, and the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun safety reform legislation passed by Congress in over 30 years.