Amy Schumer has made an emotional plea for tighter gun control legislation at a press conference organised by Senator Chuck Schumer – her second cousin once removed – following the deadly shooting at a Louisiana theatre screening of her new film last month.

On July 23rd, two people were killed and nine others injured when a man opened fire in a packed theatre in Lafayette that was showing Trainwreck, before turning the gun on himself. It focussed national attention upon the highly contentious issue of firearms control once more.

Amy SchumerAmy Schumer has called for stricter gun control legislation following the 'Trainwreck' theatre shooting last month

“Unless something is done and done soon, dangerous people will continue to get their hands on guns,” Schumer said at the joint conference. The actress had recently pledged to take a more active role in highlighting the issue when she responded to an open letter addressed to her by a parent of a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre.

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Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s proposed legislation would keep weapons out of the hands of people with a violent criminal history and / or mental illness. “We’re here today to say enough is enough, to mass shootings in our schools, our college campuses, our military bases and even in our movie theatres,” the actress added in her prepared statement.

She has satirised the state of the law around gun control in her popular Comedy Central sketch show ‘Inside Amy Schumer’ in the most recent series. The shooter, 59 year old John Russell Hauser, is alleged by some to have held anti-feminist views and that this might have motivated him to select Trainwreck as a target, but Schumer made no mention of this in her speech.

“We need a background check system without holes and fatal flaws,” Schumer went on. “We need one with accurate information that protects us like a firewall. The critics scoff and say, ‘Well, there’s no way to stop crazy people from doing crazy things,’ but they’re wrong…. …Preventing dangerous people from getting guns is very possible. We have common-sense solutions. We can toughen background checks and stop the sale of firearms to folks who have a violent history or history of mental illness.”

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