Martin O'Malley presents his plan for ending gun violence in the U.S.

(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

published 15 September 2015

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley announced in New York City on Monday that he has a plan to end "the epidemic and sickness of gun violence in the United States."

The former governor of Maryland said that as president, he would repeal 2005's Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects firearms manufacturers and retailers from being sued when crimes have been committed using their products. The law was an example of the "NRA flexing their political muscle to protect special interests," O'Malley said, and he urged manufacturers to do what they can to help curb gun violence. "If you have ways to make your guns safer, you have a duty to do that," he said.

During his time as governor of Maryland, O'Malley banned assault-style weapons and introduced fingerprinting, safety training, and comprehensive background checks for all gun buyers, The Guardian reports. "Our legislature stood up to the threats of the NRA," he said. "We drove down gun violence to 30-year lows over those eight years using commonsense measures." O'Malley added that while "no one piece of legislation will ever do away with gun violence...we can certainly do better than we are now. When we have an epidemic of this scale that is taking so many lives, we have to ask what would we do if it were Ebola — we would act to close the loopholes."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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