Congressman Paul Tonko represents New York’s 20th Congressional District, including the communities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs and Amsterdam. He represents all of Albany and Schenectady Counties and parts of Montgomery, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties.
He is serving his seventh term, after first being sworn into Congress in 2009.
Paul serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the oldest standing committee in the House, created in December of 1795. He is the first Upstate New York Democratic member to serve on the committee since Leo O'Brien, who resigned the post in October 1966. He was elected by his peers in the 116th Congress to chair the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. He was also selected to continue his service on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, as well as on the Natural Resources Committee.
More than 100 people on average die from gun violence every day in America.
As our nation has grappled with the devastating COVID pandemic, our communities continue to suffer the continuing scourge of gun violence with more than 41,000 Americans killed by a gun just in 2020.
Americans today are 25 times more likely to die by a gun homicide than the people of any other developed nation. We do not have 25 times more mental illness, nor 25 times more violent video games.
There can be no question: America is experiencing a gun violence epidemic.
America now has more guns than people, with 120 firearms for every 100 U.S. residents—far more than the country with the second highest civilian gun concentration, Yemen, which has 52 guns per 100 residents. Canada, ranked number six for countries with the highest civilian gun ownership, has 34 guns per 100 people.
Of the top 10 most deadly mass shootings in modern U.S. history, half have come in the last 5 years. In 2018, there were a total of 340 mass shootings, nearly one for every day of the year.
America’s high school students are among the first to live their entire lives with active shooter drills and reinforced doors at school as a normal part of school life. They have responded with a movement, organizing March for Our Lives nationwide demonstrations and demanding action from their leaders and predecessors in power. Their action is an inspiration, but we cannot leave it to them alone to fight for commonsense gun reform.
The horror of America's mass shooting tragedies is multiplied with every new event. The heartbreak has become so frequent, and our national response consistently falls short of the meaningful lifesaving reforms we know we need. We can and we must do better. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. I offer those to all of America’s victims of gun violence, and more importantly, I offer them my voice and my vote.