The West Hollywood City Council on Monday unanimously approved adopting a resolution in support of joining Mayors Against Illegal Guns – a coalition of mayors working together to “do more to protect our cities and towns from gun violence.”

Staff will send signed copies of the adopted resolution to the offices of President Barack Obama, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Governor Jerry Brown, Everytown for Gun Safety and other partners.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns is a coalition of mayors who support doing more to protect towns and cities from gun violence. In 2006, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns as a coalition of 15 mayors. Since then, they have built a bipartisan group of more than 1,000 current and former mayors from nearly every state to fight for gun control laws.

Mayors who join the coalition sign a petition to work together to find new ways to advance specific principles. They include punishing to the maximum extent of the law criminals who possess, use and traffic in illegal guns; targeting and holding accountable irresponsible gun dealers who break the law by knowingly selling guns to straw purchasers; extending background check requirements to all gun sales, including the private sales that take place online and at gun shows; opposing all federal efforts to restrict cities’ right to access, use and share trace data for enforcement; working to develop and use technologies that aid in the detection and tracing of illegal guns; supporting all local state and federal legislation that targets illegal guns; and coordinating legislative, enforcement and litigation strategies.

Every day, 91 Americans are killed by gun violence – over 30,000 Americans annually. Americans are 25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than people in other developed countries. The reasons for gun violence are complex, but Everytown for Gun Safety advocates that real change on a few issues such as background checks, domestic violence, online gun sales and illegal gun trafficking, could lead to laws and policies that save lives.

The city of West Hollywood has a history of supporting legislation to strengthen gun control measures and enhance public safety. The city has adopted over a dozen resolutions supporting restricted access to firearms and enhancing federal and state gun control laws. West Hollywood was the first city in the nation to ban the sale of “Saturday Night Specials” or “junk guns.” The city was also one of the first cities in the nation to require gun dealers lo warn consumers of the dangers associated with keeping a loaded firearm in the home and led the charge to create a network of cities supporting this initiative. The goals of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition is consistent with existing city of West Hollywood policy.