By Rep. David Meuse, D-Portsmouth
Despite not yet reaching the halfway point of 2022, Americans have already lived through more mass shootings than days on the calendar. A staggering 27 have occurred inside schools or on school grounds alone.
But while mass shootings draw by far the most attention and the most outrage, the percentage of people killed in these tragedies (2% in 2021) pales beside the numbers lost to gun suicides (54%), deaths from unintentional shootings (4%), and from gun crime and other violent incidents involving firearms (40%).
The reality is America doesn’t just have a mass shooting problem. It has a much wider gun violence, gun suicide, and unintentional shooting problem that touches more and more of us with every passing year.
Responses from lawmakers after the most-publicized incidents range from tepid “thoughts and prayers” to righteous outrage. Some of the more courageous even go as far as to propose specific changes in the law that are usually framed (depending on who is doing the framing) as either “gun control” or “gun violence prevention”.
The bad news in a country with over 400 million firearms in circulation is that realistically gun violence can never be fully “controlled” or completely “prevented.” But the good news is there are proven and effective ways to sharply reduce the level of risk while opening the door to someday returning to a point where children are no longer afraid to go to school and adults aren’t afraid to go the grocery store.
In New Hampshire, it’s time we start looking at gun violence as a public health issue and not as an ideology test.
During COVID, we heard a lot about about the so-called “Swiss cheese model”. It was a way to help those of us who weren’t health experts to visualize and better understand how multiple actions taken together to reduce the risk of getting sick from the virus could be more effective than any one action alone. It compared individual preventive measures—like wearing a mask, hand-washing, or social distancing—to slices of Swiss cheese, with barriers (cheese) in some places but “holes” in others. When you line up multiple preventive actions or “slices”, you see that more and more of the “holes” in the individual slices get covered up by other slices or reduced in size. The lesson? Even though there are ways for the virus to get past individual slices, multiple preventive action “slices” close off more of the holes and make a far better barrier than any one slice could by itself.
This analogy also works when it comes looking at gun violence risk reduction measures. Sensible steps—like expanded background checks, waiting periods, higher age limits for gun ownership, and red flag laws that allow the temporarily removal of firearms from those presenting an immediate danger to the community or themselves—are all examples of “slices” that could work together to reduce the risk of tragedies involving firearms. Other “slices” could involve greater access to school-based mental health resources for at-risk children, community policing efforts to build trust in “hot zone” communities where the risk of shootings and gun crimes in higher, and putting more teeth into laws to requiring safe firearms storage in homes with children under age 18.
While none of these measures alone can prevent every possible tragedy all by themselves, together in combination with other steps, they can all work together to substantially reduce the overall level of risk.
Mixing different types of actions from different areas is also important when it comes to reducing risk. For example, focusing exclusively on one set of similar risk management steps, such as steps to “harden” schools, while not even considering other steps, can leave gaping holes when it comes to other sources of risk.
Going forward, what New Hampshire needs aren’t “solutions” driven by ideology. Instead, our state needs a balanced, practical, data-driven, good faith approach to reducing the risk of gun violence. Our approach must also be multi-pronged, involving not only changes to the law to better protect public safety, but also enhanced emergency readiness in schools and other vulnerable places, improved programs for getting potential offenders the help they need, more effective community policing and preventive measures, and—yes—input and engagement from responsible gun owners too.
Efforts like the Manchester Police Department’s newly-announced Gun Violence Prevention Strategy outline great examples of some of the “slices” that can be added at the community level to reduce risk. Meanwhile, programs like the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Project Child Safe, which has distributed over 40 million free gun locks through local police departments, are a good example of effective action that can be taken by responsible gun organizations without changes to the law.
The bottom line is the status quo is no longer acceptable. Contrary to what our governor says, our state’s weak and ineffective gun laws are NOT “fine the way they are.” Weak laws leave the door open not only to potential mass shooters, but also to the every day toll of unintentional shootings, gun crimes, and gun suicides.
That’s why this summer, don’t just listen to what your elected officials say. Also watch what they do and ask them, “Are you in or are you out when it comes to doing the hard work of reducing the risk of gun violence in our state?”
Your vote in November will be their report card.
Rep. David Meuse, Portsmouth
Rep. Meuse is a member of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee of the NH House of Representatives
