GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION

I have tragically lost three people in my life to gun violence. My childhood friend Si took his life with his hunting rifle our freshman year at UNC Chapel Hill. Five years later, my friend Eve Carson was murdered by criminals who never should have had access to handguns. Three years ago, my husband and I went to lunch with my friend and her boyfriend on a Thursday. That Saturday night he was murdered by a disgruntled neighbor, shot at close range in the back with a shotgun, leaving three teenagers behind.

This is not a black or white problem. This is not a poor or rich problem. It’s everyone’s problem. 

We can no longer feel safe going to a movie theater, grocery store, concert, parade, or place of worship. Our children have to learn active shooter drills because our “leaders” are doing nothing to protect them.

This is not about "gun control." This is about coming together and finding common sense ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who only want to seek harm. 

And Americans are aligned on this - six-in-ten U.S. adults say gun violence is a very big problem in the country today. Recently our United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a landmark Surgeon General’s Advisory on Firearm Violence, declaring firearm violence in America a public health crisis.

My husband is a gun owner. He grew up with a father in the police force and they have formed an immense bond together over the years hunting and skeet shooting. He is a responsible gun owner and keeps his guns locked in a safe, unloaded and separate from ammunition. My husband is also a vascular surgeon at Cone. And one of the surgeries he does on a weekly basis is to operate on gun violence victims. 

This is why I believe we aren’t as divided as the NRA wants us to believe. Most North Carolinians can be gun owners and simultaneously want stronger gun laws to protect their loved ones. They can co-exist. 

Greensboro has a gun violence epidemic. Horrifically you can’t go a day without reading about the latest gun homicide in our local news. Yet, instead of finding solutions to better protect our children and loved ones, our NC legislators recently made it easier to get a gun by removing the local sheriff pistol permit. 

I know this is hard. But I know that we can find common ground. We are all in this together. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t have to polarize us. I’m determined to reunite us on gun safety in order to reduce gun violence in our community.

So how do we do that?

Invest in safe gun storage. 

In the U.S. access to a gun triples the risk of suicide and doubles the risk of homicide. 74% of school shooters got their gun from family and friends. 82% of adolescent suicides by firearm involve a gun belonging to a family member.

We must do more to ensure gun owners are responsible and lock their firearms unloaded, separate from ammunition. I wrote an op-ed in the Greensboro News & Record over the holidays after seeing so many horrific instances of kids finding unlocked guns and “accidentally” shooting themselves or others. I argue that it is not an accident - it’s intentional ignorance on behalf of the gun owner.

Gov. Cooper has made progress via the NC S.A.F.E. initiative that I would like to build upon. The NRA has the Eddie Eagle program for child gun safety training, but this is not a good approach since it puts the onus on the child to see and report a unsecure gun. The onus should be on the adults, not the children! 

The “Guarantee 2nd Amend Freedom and Protections” bill that was disgustingly passed last year despite Gov. Cooper’s veto that removed the local permit process for handguns does have a safe storage initiative bundled within it. I aim to repeal this entire legislation and submit a clean bill solely focused on safe storage. 

And no, we don’t need to spend taxpayers’ money on a new safe storage educational website, many already exist such as the Be SMART program, which I would love to see implemented in schools across our state. When I was a child, I was taught DARE, “D … I won’t do drugs!” The Be SMART program is the 21st century version of DARE and vitally important for our children growing up in our gun-awashed country.

Implement red flag laws. 

I would like to resurrect and pass House Bill 525, where a law enforcement officer or "concerned citizen" can file a petition to temporarily halt another's person's right to have a firearm. It allows North Carolinians to file for Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which would stop a person who appears to be a risk to themself or others from obtaining a firearm.

78% of North Carolina voters said they support red flag laws that give family members or law enforcement authority to petition for a judge’s order to temporarily remove guns from someone who poses a violent threat to themselves or others. In fact, 59%, say they strongly support this proposal. And supermajorities of Republicans, conservatives, and gun owners expressed support for red flag laws.

In 702 gun-removal cases studied, suicidality or self-injury threat was listed as a concern in 61% of cases, and risk of harm to others was a concern in 32% of cases. As it relates to suicide prevention, removing the gun in those moments of despair is literally life-saving:

More than half of U.S. suicides are carried out with firearms. Guns are a reliably deadly means, resulting in death in about 90% of attempted suicides; intentional overdoses, by contrast, result in death about 3% of the time. The large majority of survivors do not go on to die in a subsequent suicide attempt; they are far more likely to die from some other cause later in life.