© 2024 WVIK
Listen at 90.3 FM and 98.3 FM in the Quad Cities, 95.9 FM in Dubuque, or on the WVIK app!
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Government

Durbin Working for Stricter Gun Laws

Illinois US Senator Dick Durbin
Jeff McEvoy
Illinois US Senator Dick Durbin

Despite many setbacks, Illinois US Senator Dick Durbin will continue to work for stricter gun control laws. He spoke with reporters Friday - the first Friday in June is National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

It honors a Chicago teenager who died in a drive by shooting in 2013. And Durbin says there are hundreds of gun deaths in the US every day - some are suicides but many are homicides.

"The United States is unique in the world, unique in terms of the number of people who are killed with guns each and every day in this great nation. This should be a source of national embarrassment and national resolve."

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he says there should be a system of universal background checks to prevent people with mental illness and those with felony criminal records from being able to own guns.

Durbin says some progress on this is possible in Congress, it won't be as much as he wants, but "any measure of progress is long overdue."

Government
A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.