We are facing many important ballot choices this coming November. Freedom from our country’s epidemic of gun violence is one of those crucial choices.
The easy availability of guns and assault weapons is what fuels violent crime in our country. The U.S. has on average 25 times more gun violence than similar Western democracies. According to Everytown Research & Policy, more than 120 people are killed daily by guns in the United States, and more than 200 are shot and wounded daily. More children die of gun violence than disease in our country. Shame on us that we don’t solve this problem. Indeed, it is the responsibility of all of us as adults to vote to provide safety from gun violence, but especially to protect children in our schools. It’s our responsibility, and the responsibility of the legislators we elect, to solve this horrendous problem.
Please don’t be fooled by Republican elected officials who profess concern about crime. The Republican Party’s concern about crime is empty talk, because their policies and their votes do little or nothing to limit access to weapons for persons who are dangerous, or children who shouldn’t have access to guns. On every state and federal bill, their rhetoric is for being tough on crime, but their votes are lockstep in opposition to gun violence prevention.
This November, we must make the choice at the ballot box and vote for Democrats who will pass the common-sense gun violence laws that will make us a safer country. The battle for safety in our streets, schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, homes, grocery stores, movie theaters, bars and bowling alleys has been difficult, but it can and must be won.
In Maine and New Hampshire, as in our country at large, the rights of gun owners have taken priority over the safety of all citizens. That must change, and it can change, but only by facing the fact that Republican lawmakers refuse to walk the walk when it comes to gun safety.
As a physician, I have worked to promote reasonable laws to prevent gun violence for over 12 years. It is important to understand that reasonable gun laws are consistent with responsible and safe ownership of guns. Time and again, however, I have seen that Republican legislators’ allegiance is to the NRA and gun manufacturers, and not to curbing crime and our epidemic of gun violence.
In New Hampshire, I’ve tabulated the votes of Republican and Democratic legislators on specific gun violence prevention bills. The counts are predictable and yet dreadful, as generally all but one Republican legislator voted against all common-sense gun violence bills, whereas almost all Democratic legislators voted in favor of those bills. When I first began to listen and testify on gun-related bills, I had hoped the safety of the public at large would be persuasive, but that is not true. I now realize that calling specifically for voting out the Republicans is the only way to make changes in the scourge of gun violence in our country.
For gun violence to be curbed we need a group of common-sense laws. We need universal background checks (with none of the loopholes that exist), so that high-risk people cannot have or obtain firearms. We also need to prevent private citizens from owning assault rifles. Assault rifles are military rifles and need to be restricted to military use only. They have no place on our streets or shooting up our schools, full stop. We need red-flag laws, to keep guns away from potentially violent persons, so they can’t shoot up bars and bowling alleys like Robert Card was able to do in Lewiston. We need mandatory safe storage laws, so children cannot access weapons at home, like the 14-year-old student who apparently committed a mass shooting at a Georgia high school on Sept. 4 (with his parent’s assault rifle?), killing two students and two teachers, and injuring nine other students, and of course terrorizing again our entire country.
As a psychiatrist, I also believe it is critical to prevent access to firearms by people who have been committed to hospitals because of severe mental illness and dangerousness. These are just some of the common-sense laws we desperately need to curb gun violence in our country.
This November, we have choices on the ballot to protect many of our freedoms. Fortunately, we can protect our freedom from gun violence. Our children are counting on us to be the adults to solve this crisis. We can’t keep letting them down. The Democratic Party is the clear choice to keep people safe from gun violence. The Republican Party’s preferences are also clear, for guns and not for keeping people safe. I only hope we honor the responsibility we have as voters to make the right choices and are not fooled again by empty words.
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