Mark Kelly, NRA's Wayne LaPierre to testify at Senate gun hearing
In the first congressional hearing on gun violence since President Obama announced sweeping new gun control proposals, stakeholders on both sides of the issue - including both the husband of a victim of gun violence and the CEO of the National Rifle Association -- will share a platform next week to testify on the subject in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The January 30 hearing, entitled "What Should America Do About Gun Violence?", will feature testimony from both the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and Mark Kelly, the husband to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head during a mass shooting two years ago.
Kelly and Giffords recently co-founded Americans for Responsible Solutions, an advocacy group meant to combat the lobbying power of the NRA.
LaPierre, meanwhile, has been an outspoken and unapologetic ambassador for his pro-gun lobby: In comments a week after the Newtown shooting, LaPierre gave a press conference railing against gun control advocates, calling not for stricter gun laws but for an armed guard in every school in the country.
Other witnesses at the hearing include James Johnson, chief of police for Baltimore County, Md., and chairman of the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence; Nicholas Johnson, a law professor at Fordham University School of Law, and Gayle Trotter, an attorney and senior fellow of the Independent Women's Forum.
