To the editor:

Gun violence is a concern for everyone in America today. A common assertion in the debate on how to reduce it is that new laws won’t work, based on the tired trope that only law-abiding citizens obey the law, and criminals will always be able to get their hands on guns. This is a version of “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Sadly, in today’s United States, too many people with guns are killing far too many people.

Americans own around 400 million guns. According to the last census, there are 330 million of us. There are far more guns than there are people in the US.

As of this writing, the US has suffered 183 Mass Shootings, defined as 4 or more people shot by the same person in the same incident. Given this is the 120th day of the year, the US is now averaging 1.5 Mass Shootings per day. And the CDC has reported that in 2022 more young people died from gun violence in America than by any other single cause.

A particularly deadly gun, the AR-15 Assault Weapon, was developed for the military (the M-16) to do one thing – kill as many people as quickly as possible. The AR-15 doesn’t put neat bullet holes in people, like you see in the movies. It leaves gaping wounds, destroys entire organs, and can even cause dismemberment. It’s why it’s been the weapon of choice for most of the recent mass shootings.

As grandparents of a school age kid, we shouldn’t have to worry about a previously “law-abiding citizen,” with a legally purchased AR-15, shooting his way into her school and causing an unimaginable horror. Everyone is a “law-abiding citizen” – until they’re not. We don’t have to live like this.
So, what can we do?

Two important Bills are working their way through the General Assembly this year. One will require safe storage of firearms, thereby reducing suicides (67% of gun deaths in RI), and preventing many, like children, who shouldn’t have a weapon from accessing one. The other will prohibit the acquisition of Assault Weapons, while allowing current owners to keep theirs.

The 2nd Amendment provides for the people to keep arms. But importantly, the late Antonin Scalia, a giant of the Supreme Court, wrote “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited” and that it is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” These two Bills are sensible, Constitutional next steps to reducing gun violence in RI. Insist your State Senator and State Rep do all they can to ensure passage. Let’s not be the ones who had the opportunity to do all we could to stop the violence, and didn’t act.

Tony Morettini
Bristol