Congressman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., says he will no longer be silent on gun control.
"Nobody in Congress, Republican or Democrats, want to feel the way we are now, which is the absolute pain of watching those faces of little children who have died. No American wants to feel that way again," Yarmouth said on Jansing & Co. Tuesday.
In a statement Monday, the Kentucky Democrat said he has largely said nothing about guns for the past six years and now he's sorry. He tells Jansing & Co. he plans to support a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and closing the "gun show loophole", which would require every gun buyer to get a background check.
"Certainly in my state we have a large number of gun shows and we have a large number of unregulated gun sales and transactions and those things do need to be subjected to background checks. So, I am in favor of all those steps and I really applaud the President for kind of taking this multi-dimensional approach to it, because our educational system is certainly a part of this ultimate solution to gun violence and so is the healthcare system. So this is really the kind of broad discussion that we ought to be having," Yarmuth stated.
He joins other Democrats from red states or purple states, including Senators Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Mark Warner, D-Va., who are now speaking out about the need for something to change.
President Obama met with Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Monday to start a conversation about what can be done to combat gun violence.