Nearly two years ago, I received a phone call in the middle of the night that no elected official ever wants to hear. It was awful. And I thought of all the parents who were about to get phone calls that were even worse.

Our courageous first responders and medical professionals did all they could. Yet, the shooter ended 58 lives and injured hundreds more.

Oct. 1, 2017, was the darkest day in our city’s history, but in the days and weeks that followed, Las Vegas showed the world that we are a resilient town. In lines at blood banks that stretched for blocks, we showed up to help. At vigils across our city, we came together.

But it’s clear now that too many politicians in Washington never stood up for us. Instead of addressing the epidemic of gun violence, they’ve offered only thoughts and prayers.

Since the shooting, dozens of communities have grieved for loved ones after senseless mass shootings. Like them, Las Vegas residents know all too well the deadly consequences of inaction. There is a better way — and as long as I have a voice and a vote, I won’t stop fighting for it.

The recent tragedies in Gilroy, Calif., El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, provide three more tragic examples of why magazines that hold more than 10 bullets have no place in our communities. We don’t want to see any more examples.

These high-capacity magazines make it easier for shooters to kill large numbers of people in short periods of time. In Dayton, the police chief called it “fundamentally problematic” that the mass murderer was able to fire over 40 shots in just 32 seconds.

He’s right. High-capacity magazines are a threat to families and first responders. Getting these high-capacity magazines off our streets will save lives. In fact, a 2016 survey of researchers in criminology, law and public health concluded that a ban on high-capacity magazines would be one of the most effective methods of preventing gun deaths.

I’m encouraged that the House Judiciary Committee will soon meet to advance the bill I helped introduce that would ban high-capacity magazines along with enacting other gun violence prevention laws. In the House, we’ve already passed bills to expand background checks. Yet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to even hold a vote to protect our communities.

It’s true that no single law could ever eliminate gun violence. That’s why we need an all-of-the-above approach. In addition to getting high-capacity magazines off our streets, I will continue to push for the bill I worked on to eliminate bump stocks, because President Donald Trump’s flimsy executive action simply isn’t strong enough. I’ve also helped lead the fight to ban assault weapons and protect our communities from 3D-printed guns.

Recently, the president called the epidemic of gun violence “a mental health issue” and he went so far as to blame video games. Putting aside the fact that Trump’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act would eliminate health care coverage for over a million people with serious mental illness and substance abuse problems, every industrialized nation has video games and citizens with mental health issues.

Yet people in this country are 25 times more likely to die from a gun homicide than people in other industrialized nations. The problem is the guns.

Some have suggested that the politics around this are just too tough. They seem certain that nothing will ever get done. This fight has never been easy, but it will always be worth it.

Led by the powerful voices of gun violence survivors, young people and moms across the country, the chorus calling for change has only grown louder. Even with its puppet in the Oval Office, the NRA is bogged down by a plague of scandals. It’s never been so important for advocates of gun violence prevention to make our voices heard.

We are not powerless in the face of this crisis. We can do something about gun violence — and to make sure that more cities don’t feel the pain that Las Vegas did, we absolutely must.