There will be more than 300,000 empty chairs at holiday gatherings this year of those taken by the coronavirus.
Eight years ago, there were 26 empty chairs because of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
And every year before and after, 33,000 lives have been taken by gun violence – a 9/11 every month – leaving empty chairs at the holiday table.
The heart-wrenching tragedy of 26 elementary schoolchildren and their teachers at Sandy Hook in December 2012 was supposed to be the tipping point to finally get Republicans to accept rational gun safety measures. Didn’t happen. Didn’t happen after the Parkland school shooting or the unprecedented March for Our Lives on Washington. If anything, the Republicans succeeded in expanding gun use.
Charlottesville, El Paso, Dayton, Las Vegas, Orlando – too many to list. Thoughts and prayers and nothing.
Former President Obama sought a new ban on assault weapons (which was in effect 1994-2004) as part of sweeping legislation and 23 executive actions he announced in January 2013. Nothing got through the Republican Congress.
As for Obama’s relatively modest executive actions, Trump, whose political fortunes were largely wound up with the gun rights crowd he zealously courted, they were largely reversed or not enforced.
Now gun safety advocates are seeing the best opportunity since 1994 to effect real reform with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
On the eighth anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, President-Elect Biden stated, “Together with you and millions of our fellow Americans of every background all across our nation, we will fight to end this scourge on our society and enact common sense reforms that are supported by a majority of Americans and that will save countless lives.”
Much is being put on Biden to use executive orders to undo the damage of Trump’s reign of tyranny, his abuse of power and declarations of “national security.” Gun violence prevention, a genuine public health issue exacerbated with the coronavirus pandemic and a national security issue, compels and justifies swift executive action by Biden.
Here’s my list of most urgent measures:
• Require national background check – a real one that doesn’t limit to three days when the records are expunged and the seller automatically gets to buy a gun
• Restore the ban on assault weapons, ban bump stocks, high-capacity ammo clips
• Require guns be equipped with Smart Gun technology so that they can only be operated by the registered owner
• Enact a Red Flag law enabling family members or law enforcement to petition a court to intervene and temporarily suspend someone’s access to guns if there’s evidence that person poses a serious threat to themselves or others. Bar anyone found to have committed domestic violence from possessing a gun.
• Require proper security of guns in the home; make parents or guardians liable for criminal prosecution (negligent homicide, reckless indifference) if a minor gets access and uses the gun to commit a crime or injures themselves
• Require certificate of training, licensing, registration (as for voting) and re-licensing (like driver’s licenses) every five years; create a national registry of gun owners.
• Tax the purchase of guns and ammunition to establish a Victim’s Fund, and to repay municipalities for providing security to schools, houses of worship, shopping malls, concert venues; public meetings
• Require any gun purchaser to have insurance like for a car, covering health care for victims and self, property damage
• Regulate online and private purchases; all gun, ammunition and accessory purchases must be through licensed, regulated gun shops
But if the election of Biden-Harris presents new opportunity for gun sense legislation from the White House, the task is made harder by Trump’s pro-gun advocates on the Supreme Court who so far have placed trumped-up claims of religious liberty above public health.
It is interesting that the pro-gun, rightwing majority on the Supreme Court – expanded by Trump’s three appointments – in Citizens United equated cash with free speech. In that same vein, guns are an instrument against free speech, free and fair voting, embraced by white supremcists, the Proud Boys and modern incarnations of the KKK to intimidate voters, protesters, elected officials and even electors.
What is the point of carrying guns into the Capitol building at polling places, in town halls or to protests if not to intimidate, terrorize and coerce speech or voting?
For the newest radical rightwing Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, who has made no secret of her radically pro-life stance and who seems only to apply her “originalist” doctrine to the 2nd Amendment and the 1st Amendment (but only as it pertains to religion, putting religious liberty over public health), I would suggest gun reform falls under free speech (1st Amendment) and voting rights (15th, 19th, 26th amendments). As for stripping a woman of her reproductive rights in the cause of pro-life, I would suggest that addressing the epidemic of gun violence that takes 33,000 lives a year also falls under that category of protecting “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“The pandemic is intensifying so many other longstanding persistent public health issues, including gun violence,” former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-founder of Everytown for Gun Safety, said during Northwell’s virtual Gun Violence Prevention Forum, as reported in The Island Now.
“This is a public health emergency and it’s on us to keep the conversation going and work together to find solutions,” Northwell President and CEO Michael Dowling said. “Even amidst the pandemic, we should not step aside. We will succeed with COVID-19, but we have to make sure we deal with the other emergency – gun violence.”
Polling has consistently shown strong majorities of Americans want action now.
“This year we have elected the strongest gun safety presidential ticket in history with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,” writes Erica Lafferty of the Everytown Survivor Network. “Not only have we defeated the NRA’s greatest ally in the White House, but our movement is positioned to fight for real gun safety reform with President Biden in office.”
Do it within the first 100 days.
