Mayor Ed Gainey calls for gun reform legislation allowing cities to pass their own measures

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Mayor Ed Gainey is calling on state lawmakers in Harrisburg to put in place gun reform legislation that would allow cities to pass their own gun measures.

It comes after a weekend where one man was killed and a police officer was shot in his bullet-proof vest in Pittsburgh.  

On the portico of the City-County Building on Monday morning, Gainey and other local leaders called for the state to pass commonsense gun reform. Groups like CeaseFirePA and Moms Demand Action joined the mayor at the press conference.

"The Second Amendment is not a God-given right," Gainey said. "To save our children – that is our God-given right."

He is asking for elected leaders to find a way to ban assault-style weapons and put other restrictions in place to stop the bloodshed on streets. Gainey said if they don't want to do it, then pass legislation to allow cities like Pittsburgh to create their own laws.

"If the decision is too hard, take the burden off you," he said.

Gainey also talked, emotionally, about his own experience of losing family to gun violence. He said the violence needs to stop but added that gun reform will take time.

"We've got to keep working on it," Gainey said. "We'll go back, look and see what happened, improvise. It's not going to happen overnight, but you have seen us get some of these violent offenders off the streets. We're working it. It just takes time."

They hope that a push for more legislation will help put at end of the violence and shootings -- like the ones that happened throughout Pittsburgh this past weekend.

The latest occurred just after midnight on Sunday.

Pittsburgh Police say two men went to the hospital with gunshot wounds and both were in critical condition. One of the two men, later identified as 39-year-old Joseph Mitchell, died.

Detectives are working to find out where the crimes occurred.

Earlier in the weekend, three women were shot along South 12th Street on the South Side. 

Two of the women were shot in the leg and the other woman was shot in the hand.

Hours after this shooting, another shooting took place in the city's Knoxville neighborhood when 21-year-old Julian Reese-Krasausky shot a man and a woman.

Reese-Krasausky then led police on a foot chase into Mt. Oliver and shot an officer, whose bulletproof vest prevented any life-threatening injuries.  The officer is doing okay, Mayor Gainey said during today's news conference.

Police say Reese-Krausasky had suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder, but they don't know where the shooting took place.

All four individuals in the incident were taken to the hospital.

In:
• Gun Control
• Ed Gainey
• Pittsburgh