Republicans Still Refuse to Support Gun Safety Measures
Update: As this article was ready to be published, a gunman killed a UNC faculty member. During the lockdown, a UNC student sent me an email pleading for the N.C. legislature to do something about gun violence.
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Last December marked ten years since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty six and seven year olds were gunned down. Six adult teachers and staff members also were murdered. The top NPR story on that ten-year anniversary was an interview with one of the mothers who spoke of her continuing grief, not only for her child, but also for her husband who committed suicide 2 years after the tragedy, because he simply could not go on living with his ever-present hopelessness.
On that same December day CNN aired testimony before Congress by survivors of the Colorado nightclub shooting, recounting their memories of the sound of automatic firearms and the carnage they saw as they escaped. The witnesses pleaded to their Congressmen: it’s time to act on firearm safety.
Our own Governor agrees.
I came to the General Assembly in 2017, after serving 18 years as a district court judge in Durham, including five years as Chief Judge. During those years I presided over hundreds of firearm cases, cases that resulted in deaths or serious injury. Many times, a witness, often a family member of the accused, would testify: "I knew this was going to happen.” “My son was angry; he had a gun.” “He was threatening revenge and was going to kill him.” Or someone would testify that a family member was threatening suicide. One time, at a family court hearing, adult children wanted to know how they could get rid of their elderly father’s gun, as he had dementia and was acting erratically. In every case, the family was trying to be proactive.
In 2018, the year after my appointment to the N.C. House, another school massacre occurred at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Within days, I introduced my first gun safety bill, an Extreme Risk Protection Law to Save Lives and Prevent Suicide. This is known as a “red flag” bill that would allow a judge, after a hearing, to take guns out of the hands of people considered dangerous or at risk of suicide.
More than 40 N.C.legislators signed on to co-sponsor my 2018 gun safety bill. Unfortunately, all were Democrats. Since then, although similar bills have passed in 19 other states, the N.C. Republican leadership will not allow this bill to be heard or even discussed in a committee.
In 2019, 2021 and 2022 I refiled the same bill and 9 other common sense bills addressing gun safety, including safe storage of guns, universal background checks, bans on high-capacity semi-automatic firearms and ammunition, and law enforcement gun buyback programs. Republican leadership has refused to allow any of these common sense bills to be debated or heard in a committee.
In the most recent 2023-24 Session, I introduced 6 gun safety bills, including HB 284, which would allow law enforcement to destroy guns that have been surrendered or used in crimes. The News & Observer has documented that 74,000 firearms are being stored because NC law does not allow them to be destroyed. Instead, they are put back onto the streets, sold to federally licensed firearm dealers. It’s time to destroy these weapons and take them out of the market and off the streets. Law enforcement must be allowed to destroy guns used in crimes and those guns that families surrender because they don’t want in their homes. This is common sense about saving lives.
What else can we do? Let’s pass safe storage laws. I filed HB 53 that would require any gun in an unattended vehicle to be locked in a trunk or gun case. Republicans responded with a bill to simply study the issue, not enforce it, even though we know thousands of guns are stolen out of cars and trucks each year and used in crimes.
Is it too much to allow a judge to order a person not to possess a gun if there is clear and convincing evidence that a person with a gun is at threat to commit a homicide or suicide?
Is it asking too much to require gun owners to be responsible?
Is it asking too much for a hearing on a single gun safety bill?
Is it asking too much to save lives?
Public polling shows that the vast majority of North Carolinians are in favor of stronger gun safety laws that enhance public safety.
The states with more responsible guns safety legislation are the states where there are fewer guns deaths and less gun violence. It is time for North Carolina to join them, and adopt sensible, common sense gun safety. How many more tragic deaths will it take before we act?