WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chief executives of some of the best-known companies in the United States on Thursday urged Congress to act on gun violence, a scourge that has long plagued the nation.
"Doing nothing about America's gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety," read a letter signed by the heads of 145 U.S. companies, including Airbnb, Twitter, and Uber.
Specifically, they were asking the Senate to pass a bill to "require background checks on all gun sales" and a strong law that "would allow courts to issue life-saving extreme risk protection orders."
"There are steps Congress can, and must, take to prevent and reduce gun violence," read the letter. "We need our lawmakers to support common-sense gun laws that could prevent tragedies like these."
The letter came several weeks after two mass shootings, which occurred hours apart in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, took dozens of lives combined in August.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence, applauded the letter, while urging U.S. politicians to listen to the message.
"This diverse coalition of leading companies knows what consumers want and, for the first time, is using its combined clout and knowledge to push for common-sense gun safety legislation," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, in a press release on Thursday.
"This unified corporate action represents a sea change in America culture," Feinblatt said. "The experts on America's consumer are speaking, and our elected officials should listen."
As of Thursday, there have been nearly 40,000 gun violence-related incidents in the United States this year, killing more than 10,000 people, according to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group.
