“Guns and Hate Don’t Mix:” Following Shooting Spree in Georgia, Brady Calls for Action to Prevent Gun Violence

Washington, D.C., March 17, 2021 - Following the series of three shootings in the Atlanta-area that left eight people, including six Asian women, dead, Brady calls for renewed attention to the deadly link between firearms and acts of hate. While a shooter has been arrested in this case and events are still unfolding, this is a traumatizing attack on the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community and follows months of increasing harassment and violence against AAPI people across the country. All people should be able to live safely and free from fear that individuals motivated by prejudice do not have unfettered access to firearms that threaten them and their families.

Brady President Kris Brown shared:

“We are still waiting for the facts in this case and do not know the shooter’s exact motives, this attack follows a disturbing increase in violence and verbal attacks against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the country. We know that acts of hate and prejudice are made more lethal when a firearm is present. Some of the worst mass shootings in our nation’s history, at Pulse Nightclub, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, were motivated by racist hate or bigotry. Guns and hate don’t mix.

We do not yet know the motives in this case but we do know that hate crimes increased to their highest level in a decade in 2019, the latest year for which we have data, and that AAPI communities have endured increasing bigotry, hostility, and violence in the year since. White supremacists and racists, whether a part of domestic terror groups or lone wolf killers, are all too weaponized and therefore deadly. In a nation increasingly awash in guns, words of violence and hate against any person are dangerous and can quickly become lethal.

The shooter’s motive does not change the traumatizing impact of this shooting on the AAPI community. Brady stands with the AAPI community today, and everyday, and urges action to prevent this kind of attack in the future.”

The Team ENOUGH Executive Council shared:

“We once again ended a day watching news reports of a shooter targeting a public space, harming people who are merely going about their days. This is reality in the America that our generation has inherited.

This attack was a traumatizing assault on the AAPI community. Six of the eight victims were Asian-American women; we cannot stay silent while our siblings are under attack. This shooting is a stark reminder that we must fix our nation’s gun laws to prevent such violence. Asian-Americans cannot be subjected to racist abuse and violence. We cannot and will not accept this as our reality.”

About the Attack in Atlanta:

In the late afternoon on Tuesday, March 16, a shooter attacked three massage parlors in the greater Atlanta area, killing eight individuals six of whom were Asian women. The shooter first killed four people at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Georgia, in a northwest suburb of Atlanta. The shooter then killed three individuals at Gold Spa in Atlanta and an additional victim, a male, at Aroma Therapy Spa across the street.