thing every year so sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don t. coming up, we ll have the latest weather forecast with what you you can expect today during your celebrations. we re going to start with two u.s. cities responding to a series of mass shootings last night that left a combined eight people dead in fort worth, texas then in philadelphia. in fort worth, three are dead and more than a dozen injured after two separate shootings. while in philadelphia, a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with an ar type rifle killed five people and injured two. a toddler and a 13-year-old boy. at least one man is now in custody and officials there are set to give a press conference at the top of the next hour. we ll cover that for you live. in a statement, president biden responded to the violence writing quote, today, jill and i grieve for those who have lost their lives and as our nation celebrates independence day, we pray for the day when our communities will be fre
Per each public mass shooting event. so it is critical for us to pass gun safety legislation to cut off the easy access to these weapons, to prevent the next mass shooting. how is that going? you know, we have made progress. lucy mcbath recently took over the assault weapon ban in that house and she hit the ground running on june 13th. she filed a discharge petition for the federal assault weapon ban to sort of get around you know the difficulty of trying to get it through with kevin mccarthy. so we are seeing lawmakers who are not going to stand idly by and wait for something to happen. they are taking this matter in their own hands and they are pushing last year hr 1808 passed the house with bipartisan support. we are working very, very hard
Another crucial figure in the fight to pass gun safety legislation. a huge amount of money in the race came from outside groups, including over $300,000 from the nra. but this time, the nra faced some financial competition from gun advocacy groups, including $350,000 from new york city mayor michael bloomberg. yesterday s vote was clearly a major blow in the desperate need to improve gun safety. but with mr. bloomberg leaving office in just a few months, perhaps he ll be able to focus more of his resources on this issue of guns in america. for missouri more now, i m joined by democratic strategist julian epstein. julian, i have to get your immediate reaction to what has happened in colorado. was this a case of hope and change buried yet again by the nra? no. and i actually don t think this was a major setback. i think it s a blip on the radar screen. this was a recall election and very, very extremely small state legislative districts. it s in the heart of gun country.