Common Sense Gun Reforms

When I signed up to serve as a police officer more than 10 years ago it wasn’t conceivable that our country would be asking my mother — an elementary school principal — to train her students and teachers in the same lockdowns and active shooter drills I learned in the police academy.

There have been 31 mass school shootings in the United States since Columbine, and after each one we have failed to muster the political will to have an open and honest debate about common sense legislation that would ensure our children’s right to be free from violence is as protected as our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

The current “big idea” from the powerful gun lobby to curb gun violence is to arm more Americans. However, instead of responding to irresponsible gun use with more guns — remember that Columbine High School had an armed officer on campus, Ft. Hood is a military base and Virginia Tech had its own police department — we can be responsible in the laws we enact and serious about their enforcement.

Even with a new Congress taking shape, it’s uncertain what meaningful legislation might actually be passed on the federal level. But, in New Mexico we can do better.

Our governor and legislators have the opportunity to come together and pass common sense laws that can be implemented as emergency legislation to make our schools and communities safer in less than 30 days.

First, we must address the disconnect between our mental health system and background check system for firearms purchasers. While the judicial system currently reports adverse mental health findings to the FBI, it is done by administrative rule, not law, and could easily be undone with a pen stroke by the next governor or a changing judiciary. A simple law to codify a process already under way ensures that responsible gun sellers have the information they need to deny dangerous weapons to those we’ve already said should not posses them.

We should also require every school to enact a safety plan in concert with law enforcement and practice it often. What happened in Newtown was a tragedy, but the school’s lockdown plan likely protected hundreds of innocent lives.

Until we solve the gun crisis in our communities, we must ensure our schools are safe and prepared to protect our children.

Finally, we can ask those who chose to own and sell guns to do so responsibly. People who provide firearms, intentionally or by neglect, to those who use them to harm others should be held responsible and prohibited from owning guns in the future.

Requiring responsible ownership also necessitates the closing of the so-called “gun show loophole” which permits otherwise illegal purchasers to bypass all public protections guaranteed by the background check requirement and purchase unlimited numbers and types of weapons and ammunition in parking lots and fairgrounds across the state.

Serious gun collectors already know that they are required to buy and sell machine guns, silencers and similar weapons through a licensed dealer or purchaser with a federal firearms license. There is no reason we cannot extend this simple provision to every gun buyer without infringing on the rights of any responsible owner.

Fortunately for New Mexico, our Legislature is about to convene and the issue of public safety and responsible gun ownership must be front and center. The public is demanding action and while we wait on Congress to debate, our Legislature can act.

I call on the governor and legislators to enact these and other simple common sense reforms in the first days of the session, pass them with an emergency clause so that they may be immediately implemented, and give our children a safer and brighter future in this new year.