WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Today President Obama and Vice President Biden unveiled a comprehensive set of concrete proposals that will help us to reduce the gun violence which occurs every day in our cities and prevent mass shootings like the one that occurred just over one month ago in Newtown, Connecticut.

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"Just three days after the Newtown tragedy occurred, the mayors of our three largest cities and other Conference of Mayors leaders sent an open letter to the President and the Congress, which urged immediate action. 

"We called on the President to exercise his powers though Executive Order and on Congress to introduce and pass legislation to make reasonable changes in our gun laws and regulations.  Specifically we called for universal background checks, a ban on both assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and strengthening the penalties for straw purchases of guns.

"Clearly the President listened to our call. We applaud him for issuing executive actions to reduce gun violence. And we applaud him for calling for critically needed legislation and urge Congress 'to do the right thing' and institute universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and strengthening penalties for gun trafficking.

"As mayors of major cities, many of us do all we can to reduce gun violence, but our efforts are too often thwarted by trafficking from other areas and states. The President's plan, which would institute background checks nationally and crack down on those who buy guns for the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals, will be an enormous help to us."

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are 1,295 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors.

SOURCE The U.S. Conference of Mayors