The author is one of the founders of the Ridgefield chapter of the nonpartisan March for Change.
Today, on Valentine’s Day, thousands of Connecticut residents are marching in Hartford to urge legislators to enact reasonable gun safety laws. This is not a partisan issue, but a human issue. We all need to come together for the safety of all of America’s children.
This time seems different. This time, we might actually be able to enact comprehensive, common sense legislation dealing with reasonable gun regulation, improved mental health treatment and enhanced school security to protect our kids.
So, we march for common-sense gun regulations, including:
- Requiring universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers, including private sales and transfers of long guns (rifles and shotguns).
- Banning and removing from Connecticut all large capacity ammunition magazines carrying more than 7 rounds.
- Expanding and strengthening the assault weapons ban, by: applying it to all possession and sales of such weapons, with no grandfathering; improving the current list of such weapons; and including a “one military feature” test in the statutory definition.
Most Americans support these proposals. A CBS/New York Times poll released on January 17 found 93% of those living in households with gun owners and 85% in households with NRA members support background checks. As recently as 1999, even the NRA president supported background checks, stating, “it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show.”
Furthermore, limiting large capacity magazines and military-style weapons is fully consistent with even the most conservative current U.S. Supreme Court Justice’s most expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment: in DC v Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia noted, “…the sorts of weapons protected [by the Second Amendment] are the sorts of small arms that were lawfully possessed at home at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification, not those most useful in military service today…”
Our march today is not about banning all guns, taking away the ability to hunt, or taking away the ability to legally own a gun. It’s about common sense. The argument that “criminals don’t follow the law, so it won’t work” is ludicrous. Under that theory, no laws should be passed.
The NRA and its allies in opposing any form of sensible gun regulation typically reply that the majority of gun crimes are committed with illegally obtained weapons, mental health plays an important role, and gun crimes should be better prosecuted. To varying degrees, all of those statements are true, but none of them, singly or in combination, makes common sense gun regulation moot. As David Wheeler said in Newtown on January 30th about his son Ben, “The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine, and keep them in their home, is SECOND to the right of my son to his life…”
This is why we march. Change the Conversation. Change the culture. Change the laws.
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The Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee supplies this column.