I Asked, What do You Worry About Every day? “Getting Shot.”

And, It Got Worse From There.

I remember the first time I heard a sixteen-yr.-old say: “I’m worried about getting shot… I think about it pretty much every day at school.”  In 2018, when I was running for Congress, I had a townhall with juniors and seniors in high school, we chatted about a bunch of things as a warm-up and about twenty minutes in, I asked, open-ended: “So what are you guys worried about every day?”  I thought I would hear too much homework, chemistry sucks, cost of college is insane or how annoying one of their teachers was. Nope.

Universally, the 70 kids in that room said in one way or another, “I’m worried I will get shot. There are a lot of guns everywhere and a lot of angry people.”

One very memorable share included that day, “…sometimes, I ask for a school-at-home day, because I just get very anxious about it.”

That blew my hair back and honestly, I welled up. Some of them started telling stories and cried. Obviously, as a Moms Demand volunteer for years, I was aware of this, but to hear their genuine terror from students in the suburbs, the city, exurbs, private schools, public schools, literally everywhere, was jolting. That discussion was like jet fuel for me and as a result, when I did get to Congress, I made it a priority. In 2022, I cosponsored legislation that prioritized state level red flag guns laws and several other measure. It passed.

Guess what: that is not near enough, not by a long shot!

It is trite and an underestimation to say we have a gun epidemic. We all know the statistics. We all are aware of the dramatic uptick in mass shootings.

There is no question or denying, there are too many guns, far too much access, it is too easy buy to guns and too many military style guns. Of course, the matter of people who should not have them having access to guns 24/7, reigns supreme across all of the aforementioned.

On average, according to Axios, there are 340+ mass shootings (defined by an episode where at least 4 people were injured/killed) per year in our country and almost every single time, the weapon used is either an AR-15 or similar semi-automatic. We are on pace to surpass 500 this year.

According to Everytown: “From 2015 to 2022, mass shootings with four or more people killed where an assault weapon was used resulted in nearly six times as many people shot, more than twice as many people killed, and 23 times as many people wounded on average compared to those that did not involve the use of one”

Just a months ago, former President Trump was shot by a right wing, troubled young man whose family owned several guns and was a Trump supporter. A mere three days ago, Trump may have been targeted again, by a man who had been criminally charged for breaking weapons laws. In fact, it appears this recent attempted assassin had a long history of issues with guns. No matter how you feel about Donald Trump, he should be able to campaign without fear of being shot. One would think, after these two attempts, he would feel strongly about gun reform, yet he does not.

Let’s put the will of the American people on guns into numerical perspective:

·      Several studies have concluded the assault weapon ban have concluded during the assault weapons ban in the 1990s, gun massacres fell by 37% and since the ban was repealed, rose by 183% according to a 2019 Senate Judiciary Report

·      Red flag gun laws have reduced suicides by 13% according to a handful of the 20 states who track data on their incidence rates (Guardian March 2024)

·      Mass shootings have risen every year since 2015, according to The Gun Violence Archive, The Violence Project, CNN, BBC, Axios, Washington Post, and many more.

·      Kids are petrified and families are fearful in public places

·      Now, I would imagine, politicians are fairly fearful after the last few months

·      Across all major polls in 2023-4(Pew, CNN, Morning Consult, Fox, etc.), 60%+ want far stricter gun laws and restrictions on gun ownership for severe mental illness and criminal history.

·      Most polls during the same timeframe, indicate 90% of the nation believes we have a huge gun access problem

And, personally, I was fearful during my 2022 run that I would be shot.

Some will say we have a mental health epidemic and that is why we have a gun epidemic.Many people conclude access to guns is the real problem. Others say it is a cultural issue and still others say it is simply politics.

If only it were that easy. We cannot deny that there are too many guns. The latest estimates have civilian Americans owning 500 million guns (based on NICS data) while there are only 330 million of us living here.

We, also cannot deny that mental health enters into this issue because we know a portion of the folks who have conducted mass shootings and certainly folks who have died by suicide, have had mental health issues.

That said, let’s break it down. Because this is where it becomes clear we are looking at two issues, not the same issue or comingled issue. Both need to be addressed.

A Columbia University study from 2022 helped us better understand the reality of mental health and mass shooting:

“The reality is that people with mental illness account for a very small proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings in the U.S., says Ragy Girgis, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.”

Dr. Girgis continued: “Approximately 5% of mass shootings are related to severe mental illness. And although a much larger number of mass shootings (about 25%) are associated with non-psychotic psychiatric or neurological illnesses, including depression, and an estimated 23% with substance use, in most cases these conditions are incidental.”

Why does the public erroneously link mental illness with mass shootings and with violence in general?

 A REALLY IMPORTANT POINT FROM THIS STUDY:

“A lot of people who aren’t experts in mental illness tend to equate bad behavior, and often immorality, with mental illness. These are a false equivalence. I think it's incumbent on us, especially when we're talking about something as horrible as mass shootings, to make sure other people understand that all bad behavior, and certainly not evil and pure psychopathy, is not the same as mental illness.”

In the end, while a small percentage of mass shooters have severe mental illness, the real issue is access to guns. Guns should not be available to everyone. Access should be earned through required training, background checks and a long period from request for purchase and actual receipt of the weapon. And nobody should own assault weapons except for the military and law enforcement. Of course, we must work on the mental health epidemic for a whole host of reasons, but it would be false to say mental health is causative.

The real issue is that many in our culture believe because they have had it emblazoned upon them by the gun lobby, gun manufacturers and the Republican party that guns are equivalent to freedom. It is not. In fact, too many guns and too much access is making us far less free. We are afraid of being in public because of guns.

By the by, if Republicans and former President Trump really felt strongly about mental health and guns, why then, did this happen?

What Can Be Done?

A clear answer nobody can deny would be passing an assault weapon ban again. There are dozens of wonderful groups and folks working on this. You can too.

Some of those amazing groups have made great progress and believe it or not, the gun epidemic would be far worse if it were not for these amazing groups listed below. Please consider joining them:

Moms Demand Action, founded by volunteer moms, they have helped pass over 50 local and state laws as well as the federal Gun Safety Act of 2022 (first of its kind in 30 years)

Everytown, founded my moms, mayors and survivors to end gun violence is a wealth information and a leader in advocacy across the nation

Brady United, developed by the family of the public servant who saved President Reagan from further injury, created the Brady Law that requires background checks in our country

Giffords, founded after Congresswoman Gabby Gifford was shot and has been instrumental in supporting gun laws, gun safety and training.

As always, if you have questions, reach out to me here on Substack.

Rooting for you and have a great week,

Marie

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