WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday debated how to treat gun violence as a public health crisis, hoping to build on last year’s federal gun protection legislation.
“Across the country, gun violence is a public health epidemic,” said Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, the committee’s chairman, in his opening remarks.
Senate Republicans opposed treating gun violence as a public fitness crisis, arguing that this technique would violate the Second Amendment and that the focus should be on intellectual fitness.
“The fact is that a gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen poses a risk to public safety,” said the most level-headed Republican on the committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Durbin said the requested Democratic witnesses, from doctors to public fitness experts, would help lawmakers expand the maximum, comprehensive federal gun protection law that Congress passed in just 30 years, known as the Bipartisan Secure Communities Act.
Any new gun protection legislation will be an uphill battle, as Republicans in the House and although Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate, they are still expected to cross the 60-vote threshold.
The bipartisan protection law came after 19 children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 more Black people were killed in a white supremacist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. There have been several high-profile mass shootings. this year, adding to a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where three children and three teachers died, and in Lewiston, Maine, where another 18 people were killed and another thirteen were injured.
Durbin said Congress wants to be concerned because the United States is unique in terms of gun violence.
This year alone, there have been 619 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization that tracks gun violence in the United States. Gun-related injuries are now the leading cause of death among youth and teens in the United States, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
One of the witnesses heard through the Democrats, Megan L. Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, said she has a front-row seat on gun violence.
“We are a country of traumatized survivors,” she said.
Ranney said that for the U. S. to treat gun violence as a public health epidemic, the first step is to gather knowledge about gun violence. He said that with the knowledge, researchers will be able to locate hazards and predictions and then what types of systems can replace those trends, such as violence prevention systems.
He said the next step would be to scale up the projects that work and put those practices into practice in communities with high rates of gun violence.
Cornyn argued that gun violence and mass shootings were similar to intellectual health, and asked Ranney what that looked like.
Ranney said studies have shown that other people with intellectual fitness disorders are more likely to experience violence than perpetrate them, adding that “intellectual illness is deeply linked to gun suicide, which is the leading type of gun death in this country. “
“I think it’s worth noting that when you look at the mass shooters, the vast majority of them were in an identifiable crisis before this mass shooting, yet only more than the average American population (who) has been known to suffer from serious mental illness,” Ranney said.
Another witness interviewed through Democrats, Franklin Cosey-Gay, director of UChicago Medicine’s anti-violence program, said hospital violence intervention systems aim to solve an epidemic of gun violence.
“Violence recovery specialists use extensive case management in association with network violence intervention to complete recovery and decrease new injuries after discharge,” she said.
Cosey-Gay said this type of intervention can come with a multidisciplinary strategy involving religious care, social work, child life specialists, intellectual aptitude and clinical hospital staff.
Several Republicans, including Sens. John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, criticized an order issued in September by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that declared gun violence a public health emergency.
Source: New Mexico reported that the Sept. 8 order encouraged local mayors and sheriff’s offices to seek “an emergency proclamation and the implementation of increased transience restrictions” in the state’s Riot Control Act.
The governor later revised the ordinance for parks and playgrounds, but that sparked a political firestorm from Republicans and a wave of lawsuits.
Tillis, who is part of the two-component organization of senators who worked to pass federal gun protection legislation, said Luján Grisham’s decision to claim a public health emergency “pushes us further into the future. ” “develop a moderate policy. “
Cornyn, this is the latest attack on the Second Amendment.
“An organization of our colleagues. . . and I have written to the Department of Justice to interfere and protect the constitutional rights of New Mexicans to remove a firearm outdoors from their homes,” he said. “What is a constitutional right, what is something . . . which some of our colleagues systematically neglect. »
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by Ariana Figueroa, Wisconsin Examiner November 29, 2023
WASHINGTON – Democrats on the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday how to treat gun violence as a public health crisis, hoping to build on last year’s federal gun protection law.
“Across the country, gun violence is a public health epidemic,” said Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, the committee’s chairman, in his opening remarks.
Senate Republicans opposed viewing gun violence as a public fitness crisis, arguing that such a strategy would violate the Second Amendment and that the focus should be on intellectual fitness.
“The fact is that a gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen poses a risk to public safety,” said the most level-headed Republican on the committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Durbin said the sought-after Democratic witnesses, from doctors to public fitness experts, would help lawmakers expand the maximum, comprehensive federal gun protection law that Congress passed in just 30 years, known as the bipartisan Secure Communities Act.
Any new gun protection legislation will be an uphill battle, as Republicans in the House and although Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate, they are still expected to cross the 60-vote threshold.
The bipartisan protection law came about after 19 children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 more Black people were killed in a white supremacist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. There have been several high-profile mass shootings this year, most notably a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where three children and three teachers were killed, and in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 other people were killed and thirteen others injured.
Durbin said Congress wants to be concerned because the United States is unique in terms of gun violence.
This year alone, there have been 619 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization that tracks gun violence in the United States. Firearm-related injuries are now the leading cause of death among youth and teens in the United States, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
One of the witnesses heard through the Democrats, Megan L. Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, said she has a front-row seat on gun violence.
“We are a country of traumatized survivors,” she said.
Ranney said that for the United States to treat gun violence as a public health epidemic, the first step is to gather knowledge about gun violence. She said that with knowledge, researchers will be able to locate dangers and predictions, and then what types of systems can replace those trends, such as violence prevention systems.
He said the next step would be to expand the projects that work and implement those practices in communities with high rates of gun violence.
Cornyn argued that gun violence and mass shootings were similar to intellectual health, and asked Ranney what that looked like.
Ranney said studies have shown that other people with intellectual fitness problems are more likely to be abused than guilty, adding that “intellectual illness is deeply linked to gun suicide, which is the leading type of gun death in this country. “
“I think it’s worth noting that when you look at the mass shooters, the vast majority of them were in an identifiable crisis prior to this mass shooting, yet only more than the average American population (that) has been known to suffer from serious mental illness,” Ranney said.
Another witness interviewed through Democrats, Franklin Cosey-Gay, director of UChicago Medicine’s anti-violence program, said hospital violence intervention systems aim to solve an epidemic of gun violence.
“Violence recovery specialists use extensive case management in association with network violence intervention to complete recovery and decrease new injuries after release,” he said.
Cosey-Gay said this type of intervention can come with a multidisciplinary strategy involving religious care, social work, child life specialists, intellectual aptitude and clinical hospital staff.
Several Republicans, including Sens. John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, criticized a September order by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declaring gun violence a public health emergency.
Source: New Mexico reported that the Sept. 8 order encouraged local mayors and sheriff’s offices to seek “an emergency proclamation and the implementation of increased transience restrictions” in the state’s Riot Control Act.
The governor later revised the ordinance for parks and playgrounds, but that sparked a political firestorm from Republicans and a wave of lawsuits.
Tillis, who is part of the two-component organization of senators who worked to pass federal gun protection legislation, said Grisham’s decision to declare a public health emergency “pushes us even further to craft practical policies. “
Cornyn, this is the latest attack on the Second Amendment.
“An organization of our colleagues. . . and I have written to the Department of Justice to interfere and protect the constitutional rights of New Mexicans to remove a firearm outdoors from their homes,” he said. “What is a constitutional right, what is something . . . which some of our colleagues systematically neglect. »
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