After Atlanta shooting, Raphael Warnock calls on Congress to take action against gun violence: ‘Safety of all Americans is at stake’

During a manhunt for a shooter who injured five people in a hospital in midtown Atlanta, Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock was speaking on the US Senate’s floor. His children were locked down in their schools in the Atlanta area. The shooter was identified as 24-year-old Deion Patterson, who allegedly killed a 39-year-old woman inside the medical center. Patterson remains at large and is considered “armed and dangerous” according to Atlanta Police. Warnock, who is also a reverend at Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, urged the Congress to take action on gun reform and called for renewed federal bans on assault weapons. Furthermore, he criticized lawmakers’ complacency in the face of the epidemic of gun violence. During his remarks on the Senate floor, Warnock argued that thoughts and prayers are not enough and “make a mockery of prayer” and “trivialize faith.” The Atlanta police have warned that there have been 190 mass shootings in the US within the first five months of 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Warnock stated that none of us are safe and that “there is no sanctuary in our sanctuary.”