LANDOVER (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris said yesterday that more must be done at the federal level to prevent gun violence during a campaign stop in Maryland to support Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat whose United States (US) Senate race could determine control of the chamber.
Harris, speaking on the 10th annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day, marked the occasion by underscoring the need to pass more laws to stop gun violence. The vice president also highlighted the experience of her longtime friend who served as state’s attorney as well as the chief executive in Prince George’s County in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.
“Maryland, this November you have the power to elect leaders who have actually kept our communities safe,” Harris said.
Alsobrooks defeated US Representative David Trone last month, after the congressman spent about USD62 million of his personal fortune to self-finance his campaign. Now, she’s running in a competitive race against popular Republican (GOP) former governor Larry Hogan for a Senate seat that is opening with the retirement of senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat.
A Republican has not won a US Senate seat in Maryland in more than 40 years in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 statewide. But Hogan is running the most competitive Senate race for the GOP in the state in decades.
Alsobrooks would become Maryland’s first black US senator, and the nation’s third black woman to be elected to the Senate. Harris was the second black woman elected to the chamber.
Alsobrooks said she would support legislation for universal background checks, a ban on military-style assault weapons and to combat illegal firearms trafficking.
The county executive, who noted that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in the US, also said she would not back down from holding gun manufacturers accountable “for the immense harm that they have caused our state and our country.”
“And let me be crystal clear, we will not accomplish these goals to keep Americans safe without the Senate majority, and I want you to know that it has become the case that the path to the majority runs through Maryland,” Alsobrooks said.
