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After yet another mass shooting in the state – this one Saturday night in Birmingham, where four people were killed and 17 more shot – state Democratic officials said Sunday that thoughts and prayers are no longer enough, and called for meaningful action.
“We must take immediate and meaningful actions like banning Glock switches and repealing the horrific permitless concealed gun carry law in order to keep these weapons from those who should never have them in the first place,” said Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels. “This isn’t a culture war issue over the right to own a gun, this is about the safety of everyone. People have simply had enough of senseless and often preventable gun violence
“We can and must do better.”
Birmingham Police said the shooting occurred in the Five Points South area, where a crowd of people were waiting in line to enter Hush, a hookah bar and club. Multiple shooters exited a car and began firing into the crowd. More than 100 shell casings were recovered at the scene, police said.
BPD officials said they believe the shooting was the result of a murder-for-hire contract, in which a single target was the focus of the shooters. The remaining victims were caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.
BPD identified three of the four killed as Antria Holloman, 21, Tahj Booker, 27, and Carlos McCain, 27. Officials believed one of the victims was the intended target of the shooters.
“I am heartbroken by last night’s horrific mass shooting in Five Points South,” said U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell in a statement. “I join in extending my sincere condolences to the families whose loved ones were lost, and I pray for a full and speedy recovery for those injured. This senseless violence is unacceptable and it must stop. We as elected officials must do all that we can, at every level of government, to break the cycle of violence, get dangerous weapons off our streets, and make our communities safer.”
Witnesses and victims described an obviously chaotic and terrifying scene, in which dozens of people scattered in an attempt to flee what was automatic gunfire from multiple weapons. Witnesses stated, and police confirmed, that the weapons had likely been modified with “switches,” which can be placed on triggers to turn semi-automatic weapons, which fire only once with each trigger pull, into automatic weapons, which fire continuously and rapidly with a single pull.
An effort was made during the last legislative session to ban such devices. State Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, has already prefiled the same bill for this session but it will require Republican support to pass. While several Republicans have expressed support for the legislation, and have made many comments against continued gun violence in the state, nothing meaningful ever seems to occur.
“Words are meaningless unless we take real and specific steps to pass gun safety legislation to protect our communities and to ensure public safety,” read a statement from House Democrats released Sunday in response to the shooting. “It is incomprehensible and inexcusable that gun violence remains the number one cause of death for children in our state. We must put partisan politics aside and put an end to this public health crisis. We respect responsible, legal gun ownership, but that does not mean that we cannot take immediate steps to prevent or minimize further incidents of gun violence in our streets.”
Alabama has one of the highest gun death rates in the nation, and despite GOP rhetoric on the issue, those deaths are widespread around the state and not confined to the state’s largest cities. However, a large portion of gun violence in the state does occur within its largest cities – a fact that is not uncommon around the nation, since large cities are where most of the people live.
To address that issue, the mayors of Alabama’s largest cities have repeatedly called on the state legislature, which is controlled by a Republican supermajority, to address some obvious issues. One of those is the “switch” problem, but another is the permitless carry law that lawmakers passed in 2022. According to the mayors and law enforcement officials, that law removed a valuable tool that officers often used to remove weapons from individuals that shouldn’t have them.
“You take this hand and put it behind our back. Then you take this other hand and put it behind our back too,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said Sunday to lawmakers. “Then you put a blindfold over our eyes and tell us that we’re the ones responsible for solving this issue.”
However, Democrats said Sunday that they don’t simply want reactive, punitive measures to address the gun violence issue. In addition, they want progressive, forward-thinking approaches that tackle conflict resolution, gang prevalence, drug issues and more.
“We keep finding ourselves in this same place of grief, despair, and helplessness as we try to process another violent and horrific mass shooting,” Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, said in a statement. “We can longer mince words, issue carefully prepared statements, or posture with political talking points. We must take responsibility. We must be called to action. We must act immediately—implementing specific, evidence-based actions–to rid the scourge of gun violence that is ravishing our communities here and across the country.
“We must focus on gun violence prevention, common-sense regulation, education, and ensure responsible, safe gun ownership. We must protect our rights and our freedom by protecting the lives endowed with those inalienable rights. This isn’t about legal gun ownership; this is about responsibility. This is about working to solve a preventable public health crisis. Just as we have the right to bear arms, we also have the right to be safe in our community.”
