U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats met on Tuesday to discuss the issue of gun violence as a public health crisis, aiming to build upon last year’s federal gun safety legislation. The committee, led by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, believes that gun violence is a public health epidemic that needs urgent attention.
However, Senate Republicans disagreed with this approach, arguing that it would violate the Second Amendment and that the focus should instead be on mental health. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican on the committee, stated that a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding citizen is not a threat to public safety.
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Durbin appointed a range of witnesses, including doctors and public health experts, to help lawmakers decide how to expand the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most comprehensive federal gun safety legislation passed in almost 30 years.
Passing any additional gun safety legislation will be challenging, as Republicans control the House and Democrats only hold a slim majority in the Senate, requiring a 60-vote threshold.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was prompted by two devastating incidents: a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, and a white supremacist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, where 10 Black people lost their lives. This year has seen several high-profile mass shootings, including one in Nashville, Tennessee, where three children and three teachers were killed, and another in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 people were killed and 13 injured.
Durbin emphasized that the U.S. needs to address gun violence because it is unique in its prevalence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 619 mass shootings this year alone. Firearm-related injuries are now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States, as reported by the New England Journal of Medicine.
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One of the witnesses, Megan L. Ranney, the dean of the Yale School of Public Health, stressed the importance of collecting data on gun violence to understand the risks and develop effective violence prevention programs. Ranney also highlighted the connection between mental illness and firearm suicide, stating that people with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators.
Another witness, Franklin Cosey-Gay, the director of the Violence Recovery Program at UChicago Medicine, emphasized the critical role of hospital-based violence intervention programs in addressing the gun violence epidemic.
Republicans such as Senators John Kennedy, Mike Lee, and Thom Tillis criticized an executive order from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham that declared gun violence a public health emergency. They argued that it infringed upon the Second Amendment and hindered the development of reasonable policies.
The discussion on gun violence as a public health crisis continues, with Democrats pushing for stronger legislation and Republicans advocating for a focus on mental health.
