After a chaotic week in which gun safety measures were struck down by the Supreme Court and enacted by Biden, the time to act is now
Recently, I was standing inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building, waiting to be ushered into the Senate gallery to witness the voting on and passage of the first piece of commonsense gun legislation in nearly 30 years. The committee room buzzed with energy, and as I looked around, I came to realize that it was full of gunshot survivors who are fierce advocates of responsible gun ownership. Some of them had been trying to end gun violence for decades.
I am not alone. Health care professionals face the horrific reality of gun violence every day. We operate on children who are barely clinging to life because of guns found loaded and unlocked. We deliver babies from dead mothers who were gunned down while sitting in their own car. We care for high school students bleeding to death with pulverized bones and mangled extremities because of bullets fired from assault-style weapons.
As I sat in the Senate gallery, locked hand-in-hand with other survivors, I was overcome by this feeling of consequence. Watching the Senators vote, one after the other, I knew that if this passed, we would be one step closer to saving lives far beyond the operating room and trauma center. As I gazed at the faces sitting in the gallery, I recognized that there could not have been a more relevant time.
I’m not alone in wanting better gun safety laws. Most gun owners agree with the majority of commonsense policy solutions, such as expanding Brady background checks and supporting extreme-risk-protection laws . And a significant number of them even support removing assault weapons from our streets. Just as we have done for other public health crises such as smoking and automobile fatalities, we must continue to take action to save lives.
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