DAVENPORT, Iowa — Two different discussions on guns in the U.S. took place at the local and national level on Dec. 14.
Dec. 14 marks 11 years since the Sandy Hook shooting, where 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut.
Close to two dozen people gathered for a remembrance at Davenport's Metropolitan Community Church organized by Moms Demand Action, a group focused on safety measures to prevent gun violence. "It's impossible to have a memorial or a remembrance event for each and every mass shooting that's happened since Sandy Hook, and that's something we all need to recognize," local chapter leader Kaleigh Rogers said.
Rogers added that it's important for the conversation to go beyond mass shootings. "Public mass shootings account for less than 1% of all the gun violence in our country. The daily toll of gun violence is 120 Americans every day," she said.
Also on Dec. 14, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to not immediately block the Protect Illinois Communities Act, a law that bans the sale of some semiautomatic weapons.
"Doesn't mean the federal circuit appellate courts are not gonna hear it and rule on it; they're just saying we're not going to take it up right now," Iowa Firearms Coalition president Dave Funk explained.
Funk is confident the Supreme Court will overturn the law. "With the makeup of the current court, and it's gonna stay this way for probably, at least another decade, maybe two decades, where you have a majority of pro-constitution or originalists on the court ... we'll see it overturned, we won't see any change."