By Joel Magalnick, Editor, The Jewish Sound
Every morning, Seattle mayor Ed Murray wakes up, walks his dog, then gets a report on what happened overnight throughout the city. Invariably, he told a crowd of nearly 200 at Temple De Hirsch Sinai on Oct. 19, there will have been an incident involving gunfire.
His audience, representing synagogues and churches across the Seattle area, took to the streets that sunny afternoon to march downtown from Capitol Hill in support of Initiative 594, which would require that most transfers of firearms take place with a background check. Passage of the initiative, which our state’s legislature ignored during its session earlier this year, will save lives, according to the mayor.
That includes not just police officers, but “the reports I see on domestic violence related to guns will decrease,” Murray said. “Fewer women will be shot.”
He’s right. And it’s why you should vote yes on I-594.
The initiative’s language spells out exactly who cannot purchase a firearm, should this law be passed: “Felons, persons convicted of domestic violence crimes, and persons dangerously mentally ill as determined by a court should not be eligible to possess guns for public safety reasons.”
That seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Why at this point do we allow otherwise?
Over the past decade, in our Jewish institutions — around the world and here in Seattle in 2006, and in our schools, in our workplaces, on our streets, we see the pain and trails of blood that gun violence leaves behind. Earlier this year, when day after day it felt like yet someone else had gone on a shooting rampage, we had to wonder how and when this epidemic might stop.
Rabbi Daniel Weiner, senior rabbi at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, wondered the same thing after 27 people died at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut nearly two years ago. That spurred him into action to speak out on his pulpit, in front of our legislature, and to our entire community to act on I-594.
“If this legislation can save one innocent life from being needlessly and wantonly taken because somebody possessed a powerful firearm when they should not have possessed it, that would be enough,” Weiner told me that afternoon as the march to the King County courthouse began. “We’re hoping that obviously will result in many, many lives that are saved and aren’t unnecessarily cut short.”
I’ve paid attention to the arguments against this initiative, and they fall flat. Clearly I-594’s passage will not keep the guns out of the hands of everyone. If a criminal really wants to get his or her hands on a gun, it will likely happen. But this law puts much more of an onus on the seller: Where today there’s no penalty on a person who sells or transfers a firearm used in a crime, I-594 will force that seller to think twice before putting that gun into the wrong hands without doing the due diligence first.
And the scare tactics — that the state is trying to take everyone’s guns away, just like the Nazis did — is just that: Fear mongering and obfuscation, to borrow a word from the National Rifle Association’s testimony against this initiative. And false. The Nazis did not take guns away from anyone but Jews. In addition, I-594 says nothing about taking people’s guns away. Nothing.
This initiative is not about pitting people who like or own guns against people who don’t. Plenty of gun owners support this initiative. They realize that a good gun owner is a safe gun owner, and that because of the nature of such an object — that its purpose can and does cause irreparable harm — the act of purchasing a firearm should be different from that of purchasing groceries or a cell phone.
And don’t be confused by the competing initiative, 591, which is cynicism at its worst. Suggesting that we shouldn’t have any background checks whatsoever until there’s a national standard — which its sponsors know full well will not happen in our lifetimes — would open the door to much more violent crime and put far more people in harm’s way. It should not even be a consideration.
As I write this, a community in our own backyard has been shocked: A 14-year-old kid took the life of two of his fellow students and injured six others before turning his gun on himself. While the information coming out about this latest shooting suggests a background check may not have made a difference in this case — as 594 opponents will be sure to point out — it doesn’t matter. We need to make a statement that we as a community will not accept the use of guns to solve our problems.
I-594 is not perfect. It does not completely solve the issue of getting guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. But up to this point, we’ve done nothing. Nothing. As the shootings in Marysville, or Newtown, or Aurora, or Ottawa, or Belltown should make abundantly clear, we no longer have the luxury of doing nothing. Too many lives are being lost for no good reason. We have, on our ballots, the opportunity to move the needle just a little bit. Even if you think it’s not much more than a feel-good measure, even if you think it’s not enough, it’s at least something.
Do something. Take this opportunity, and vote yes on Initiative 594.
“Do something” about gun violence is what I-594 seems to be about. It’s nothing rational or effective, but it is “something”. Lets look at the statistical facts:
Mother Jones is a strongly anti-NRA American magazine featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture.
Recently, the editors at Mother Jones spent five months compiling data on “mass shootings” (four or more fatalities; shootings like the tragic 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation are not included, but mentally-unstable Naveed Haq had passed his background check and obtained guns legally). Mother Jones’ final tally, including sources, can be viewed on an Excel spreadsheet by visiting
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AswaDV9q95oZdG5fVGJTS25GQXhSTDFpZXE0RHhUdkE#gid=0.
From 1982 – 2012 there were 67 mass shootings. Just 25% of the shooters had no known mental health issues. 63% of the shootings had confirmed mental health issues, and mental health status was “unclear” in 12%.
88% of the shooters obtained their firearms legally after passing a background check. Six of the 12 shootings where guns were illegally obtained were stolen, so in just 9% of the mass shootings, guns were purchased without a background check.
Because of patient confidentiality laws, mental health providers do not report mental health issues to a data base that could be used as part of the background check, so only criminal history is available, rendering the background check process incomplete and unreliable.
I-594 puts a complex new set of rules, restrictions, paperwork, and expenses on law-abiding gun owners. Most would be eager to make this sacrifice if this feel-good measure had a chance of being effective.
Lets do something effective to stop the shootings. Maybe what is really needed is a better mental-health policy.
Rick, I disagree that I-594 will be effective. It will certainly be more effective than letting anyone who wants to buy a gun out of someone’s trunk do so legally. This measure is most likely going to pass, which means that most law-abiding gun owners are eager to make a sacrifice, since you call it that, to make sure that rules, which really aren’t terribly complex, are followed. I agree that better mental-health policy is needed to make sure that people who shouldn’t be accessing guns aren’t accessing them. Perhaps you can start that conversation with the legislators who have gutted our mental health and social services systems. They seem to be the same ones who are most against bills such as I-594.