Cousins Amy and Chuck Schumer Push for Gun Control

Two famous Schumers, one a comedian, the other a politician, have teamed up in an effort to pass stricter gun control measures after a shooting at a Louisiana movie theater that was showing the film, "Trainwreck."

The New York Times reports that Amy Schumer and her distant cousin Chuck, a Democratic Senator from New York, have launched an initiative called "Enough is Enough," with the goal of creating stricter gun control measures with the intent of keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

The dynamic duo are second cousins once removed. Chuck has been a long time fixture on the New York political scene, while Amy is an up and comer who owes much to her raunchy stand-up routines and her Comedy Central program, "Inside Amy Schumer," where she skewers modern ideas about sexuality and femininity.

Amy said that this effort was her first to address the issue of gun violence, but that it would not be the last. In a speech where she at times seemed on the verge of tears, she vowed to do something to prevent the mentally ill from getting their hands on guns.

The effort by the Schumer cousins was spurred by a shooting that took place in Lafayette, Louisiana, where gunman entered a screening of "Trainwreck" before standing up and opening fire on the crowd. Two young women were killed and nine other moviegoers were injured in the attack.

The Schumers are backing an effort that would allow the Justice Department to create sticks and carrots for states that enter all of a person's records into the federal background check system, particularly with regard to mental health and drug abuse.

The Louisiana shooter had a history of mental health issues yet was still able to get a gun, much like Seung-Hui Cho, the man behind the worst school shooting in U.S. history, which took place at Virginia Tech University in 2007 and claimed 32 innocent lives.