CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sen. Sherrod Brown, advocates, survivors of gun violence and other officials called on the U.S. Senate Saturday afternoon to pass a bill to expand background checks for gun sales.
Brown, a Democrat, held a rally to call on Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and others to get the Senate back to Washington to pass the legislation.
Despite a downpour of rain, more than 100 people showed up to the event at the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland on Broadway Avenue.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democratic presidential candidate, also attended.
After the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Brown asked McConnell to bring the Senate back in session to work on passing background check legislation and to ban assault weapons, among other measures.
“If the public pressure on Mitch McConnell and President Trump is great enough, it could happen,” Brown said to reporters. “We need the public to put pressure on them so they listen to the public. Because it’s clear, overwhelmingly, that the public wants to see background checks, banning assault weapons, close the terrorist gun loophole; all those kinds of things.”
Brown went to Dayton after the shooting Aug. 4 that killed 10 people and injured 27. He talked to Trump at a hospital where survivors of the shooting were being treated.
“I wanted to look at the president in the eye and say to him, ‘Stop the talk like this. We need you to call McConnell, we need you to promise you will sign this bill, we need you to ask McConnell to pass it and we need you to promise you’ll sign it,'” Brown told the crowd. “He of course didn’t do that, but I thought it was important that say that."
Brown also supports extreme risk protection laws. Those laws let families and law enforcement agencies petition a court to temporarily remove a gun from someone if they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Molly Crowe, group leader of the Cleveland chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said the group would like the senators to put together common sense measures that have been highly effective in other states.
“We want to bring everyone together to really hammer home that call to action for the Senate,” Crowe said. “The House has already acted on some of things, so we need the Senate to get on board as well.”
Crowe said her group is not just focusing on mass shootings but every day shootings that affect this country. The country needs comprehensive solutions to this problem, she added.
“It’s not one size fits all," she said.