Dem Rep Says She's Received Death Threats Over Gun Insurance Bill

A staunch advocate of gun control in the House said she has received death threats over her latest bill, the Firearm Risk Protection Act of 2013.

“Yesterday, several death threats were phoned into my New York office in response to news reports about a bill I authored requiring gun owners to have insurance,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). “The calls were fielded by young interns, who were understandably shaken by this experience.”

Maloney’s bill, introduced March 21, would “prohibit the sale of a firearm to, and the purchase of a firearm by, a person who is not covered by appropriate liability insurance coverage.”

It is co-sponsored by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Mike Capuano (D-Mass.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), and Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.).

“Law enforcement has been notified and they are investigating the calls, and so no further comment from me on the details of the calls would be appropriate at this time,” Maloney said, though she told the New York Daily News that her office received three threatening calls.

“I am proud of my work to help curb gun violence. I strongly support the comprehensive package of gun reforms proposed by the Obama Administration and I have authored two common sense pieces of legislation aimed at keeping our communities safer. One bill would put some teeth in the law against gun trafficking and straw purchases. Another would require that gun owners carry liability insurance, just like car owners, to give innocent victims of gun violence some recourse if they are injured. 100,000 Americans are injured by guns every year. Carrying insurance is the responsible thing to do,” the congresswoman continued in her statement.

“Given all the acts of gun violence we have seen in the past two years, the shootings in Aurora and Newtown, the attack on my friend and colleague Gabby Gifford [sic], I take the threat of more gun violence very seriously. But it is not something that I will allow to stop me from doing my work.”