Editor’s note: This commentary is by Lara Merchant, of Montpelier, who is an early childhood special educator.
[C]olumbine, 1999. Two teens murdered 12 students, one teacher and wounded 21 others with multiple types of firearms in a 35-minute span.
Aurora Movie Theater, 2012. A 24-year-old murdered 12 people and wounded 58 with multiple firearms, including a semi-automatic rifle in just seven minutes.
Sandy Hook Elementary School, 2012. A 20-year-old murdered his mother at home. He went on to murder 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7 and six staff members at the school, wounding two more using semi-automatic rifles and pistols in just five minutes.
San Bernardino, 2015. Two shooters murdered 14 people and injured 21 at an office party with semi-automatic rifles and pistols in just two to three minutes.
Pulse nightclub, 2016. A 29-year-old murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others with a semi-automatic rifle and pistol in under 16 minutes.
Las Vegas Music Festival, 2017. A 64-year-old murdered 58 people and injured 851 others in just 10 minutes from the 32nd floor of a hotel; using bump fire stocks on his semi-automatic rifles to fire at a rate of a fully automatic weapon.
Stoneman Douglas High School, 2018. A 19-year-old murdered 17 students and staff and injured 17 others using a semi-automatic weapon in just six minutes.
The theme? Semi-automatic weapons kill mass amounts of people in a short amount of time. A killer could not do the same with a knife, a baseball bat or a rock. The choice of weapon does matter.
This list of outrages started in 1999. It is sadly just a snapshot and growing by the week. “Knee-jerk reaction”? I think not.
We clearly need to provide more sufficient supports and services for those suffering from mental illness. When it comes to mental illness and gun violence, however, “people with mental health conditions are more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of violence. Less than five percent of violence in the U.S. is attributable to mental illness. While people who commit violent acts certainly have a host of problems that lead them to become violent, in the vast majority of cases, a treatable mental illness is NOT the cause.” (afsp.org).
Mass shootings are just a small fraction of total gun deaths. Firearms account for 51 percent of all suicides in 2016. In 2014, 2,549 children died by gunshot and an additional 13,576 were injured. For the record, Vermont is not the safest state in the nation. According to the CDC in 2016, Vermont ranked 14th in the rate of gun deaths per 100,000. In 2014-2015, the most common cause of suicide death among Vermont residents was firearms (52 percent). In 2016, Vermont had 78 gun deaths. If our rate was New York’s rate, it would have been 31 deaths. If our rate was Massachusetts’ rate, we would have had 54 fewer deaths that year. States implementing universal background checks and mandatory waiting periods prior to the purchase of a firearm show lower rates of suicides than states without this legislation. Sensible gun laws make sense. So, yes, let’s New York our Vermont.
Justice Scalia stated in 2008 that the Second Amendment did not confer a “right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” That is consistent with other constitutional rights, all of which have limitations and can be restricted. And sometimes, we have to sacrifice our wants for the greater good. Now is that time for our state and our country.
To do nothing, changes nothing. The time is now to enact sensible gun legislation: universal/mandatory background checks, a 10-day waiting period, a minimum age of 21 to purchase any firearm, and a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
