NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson called for a national gun confiscation program in a syndicated column through Black Press USA on Monday.

Comparing recent school shootings to the violence and discrimination black students faced after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, Johnson wrote that “fear and terror still exist in our children’s classrooms” because of the “National Rifle Association and the politicians that support them.”

“Given the disproportionate damage gun violence is having on our communities, the NAACP has advocated for sane, sensible laws, to help eliminate or at least to decrease the damage and death caused by gun violence. Requiring universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers, banning military-style, semi-automatic assault guns, enacting tough, new criminal penalties for straw purchasers and gun traffickers, and allowing the Center for Disease Control to research gun violence as a major public health issue are just a few of the reasonable steps lawmakers could take to stem the tide of gun-related deaths in neighborhoods across the nation,” Johnson wrote. – READ MORE