The Word in the House 2/22/2018 - Gun Violence Op-ed


It was only after the senseless massacre of 17 students and teachers in Lakeland, Florida, last week that I learned that 17 other school shootings had occurred in just the first seven weeks of 2018. How could I have not known that there were so many? Has it become so common that we don't even notice?

Once again we hear public officials offer condolences, thoughts and prayers, sincerely I'm sure, for the victims and their families and their friends. Yet these expressions of empathy are just platitudes without a commitment to act to prevent these tragedies. Over and over and over again, even after the worst mass killing last Fall in Las Vegas, no action at all on any federal or state level has been taken to do anything about this cancer affecting our country.

We're told that it's “too soon” to talk about solutions. We're told that we “shouldn't politicize tragedy.” So, what happens? Nothing!

The Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms. But with rights come responsibilities. What kinds of arms are appropriate for private ownership? In this gun-worshipping culture we have, it seems that no one at the federal or state level is willing to take the responsibility to keep weapons designed for military use in war out of the public domain. The AR-15, the weapon of choice for mass murder in the U.S., is one such weapon.

Since the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, in 2012 more than 400 people have been shot in more than 200 school shootings. Since that time more than 150,000 people lost their lives in the U.S. due to gun violence. (Google “gun violence in the U.S.”) Since Sandy Hook, 14 bills were introduced in the Vermont legislature to set reasonable regulations for firearms. With the least restrictive gun laws in the country, only minor changes have been made in the last six years in Vermont. Last year the House passed a Domestic Violence bill that would allow police to temporarily confiscate guns from a household when responding to a domestic violence incident. This would offer some protection for domestic violence victims during a critical period in a bad situation. That bill sits in the Senate waiting for action. As usual, a very vocal minority of gun owners turned out in force at a Senate hearing to oppose it.

I am willing to acknowledge that we have a lower level of gun violence in Vermont than elsewhere. However, looking at the characteristics of mass shootings, it can happen here. It's only a matter of time. We are fortunate that a potential school shooting in Vermont was thwarted just days ago due to swift law enforcement action as a result of a report by a concerned citizen of the threat seen on social media.

It's time we took action in Vermont on the bills currently under consideration to protect domestic violence victims (H.422), to ban “bump stocks” (H.876), and to require background checks for the sale or transfer of firearms (H.151, S.6). This will only happen, however, if good people demand it by calling their legislators in the House and Senate with the same sense of purpose as those who oppose regulation. Failure to speak up equals complicity when a similar tragedy occurs in the future on Vermont soil.