Mark Kelly calls for nationwide gun-control campaign

Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was seriously injured in a mass shooting, is calling on people across the country to pressure Congress for more gun control in the wake of a mass shooting in Oregon.

{mosads}Kelly, who founded Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group in favor of tighter firearm restrictions, said 40 percent of guns are sold without background checks.

“We have laws that make it easy for domestic abusers and stalkers to get their hands on guns,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There’s one basic and pretty simple solution. Members of Congress and elected leaders in state legislatures around the country can certainly do something about it,” he said. “We really need to call up Washington, D.C. [and ask] members of the House and Senate to take action on this issue.”

Kelly said lawmakers in Washington need “to close these loopholes that make it very easy for the mentally ill to get firearms.”

He noted that there are fewer deaths from gun violence in states that have strong laws restricting firearm sales and ownership.

“The idea is where there are more guns, people are less safe. If you have a gun in any kind of situation where things start to get heated, there’s a higher likelihood that somebody’s going to get shot,” he said.”