We join the nation in praying for the swift and full recovery of two Denver East High School administrators who were shot Wednesday by a student during a pat-down search looking for weapons.
The details of their medical risks are unknown, but, like most gunshot victims, Eric Sinclair and Jerald Mason, will have a hard road to recovery ahead. We know the staff at The Denver Post, the entire city, and much of the country are sending these two high school deans strength and love.
The East High School community already lost 16-year-old Luis Garcia this month to gun violence. The soccer player and hard worker is missed by his family and friends, and many are rallying to protect others from the suffering inflicted by gun violence.
We join these East High School community members in unequivocally supporting efforts at the Colorado Capitol to get better control on the deadly weapons flooding our community and often landing in the hands of young Coloradans ill-equipped in decision-making or gun safety even if they don’t have ill intent or trouble controlling their anger or depression.
No one thing will solve gun violence in our communities. No one thing could have saved Garcia or kept Sinclair or Mason from harm, but we don’t have the luxury of slowly testing policy proposals one at a time to see what works best. People are dying and suffering grave injuries from mass shootings, drive-by shootings, homicides and suicides. Now is the time to act.
First, it seems obvious to us that trained police officers with their own guns for protection should be the people screening students known to be safety risks. These officers are trained to search for weapons safely. They often wear protective vests. School principals and teachers are not trained or prepared for such a risky activity. Get police officers back in schools for protection, not student discipline. If there are concerns about probable cause, students on safety plans can be required to sign a release of their rights to allow an officer to search them in order to attend school.
Our school security has gotten lax, but our students no longer have the luxury of an unsecured campus without intensive security measures.
Schools need more counselors and social workers, more after-school activities, more paid job opportunities, and clearly, “safety plans” for at-risk students are not safe enough.
But also, we hope Colorado lawmakers work hard to perfect, amend and pass these important public safety measures:
Senate Bill 168 would require gun manufacturers, marketers, whole-sellers, retail sellers, and others to implement reasonable controls and precautions, known as the Firearm Industry Standards of Responsible Conduct. Civil lawsuits can be brought if those standards are violated, causing harm.
Senate Bill 169 would make it illegal for those under the age of 21 to possess a firearm unless they are traveling to or participating in a long list of important, fun, and healthy activities like hunter safety training, target shooting, competitions, hunting, other shooting training done by an instructor, gunsmithing and more.
Senate Bill 170 would expand the list of who can apply for an Extreme Risk Protection Order to include people who are doctors, school nurses, certain counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers, and district attorneys.
House Bill 1219 would create a 3-day waiting period before a gun could be delivered to purchasers.
Finally, we applaud Rep. Elisabeth Epps and Sen. Rhonda Fields for bringing House Bill 1230 to ban the sale and transfer of new or used assault weapons in Colorado. Those who currently own weapons banned by the bill would be able to keep their guns but not resell them or give them away.
This bill needs work, but we agree with the basic premise, as has the U.S. Supreme Court going back to 1939 and recently reaffirmed by Justice Antonin Scalia when he wrote in the Heller case “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
To pass judicial scrutiny, we’d urge Epps to amend her bill so that instead of banning assault weapons and then defining those by certain features, it bans the features that make the AR-15 (and similar rifles) used by mass shooters particularly catastrophic. The ban should apply to all semi-automatic guns (hand and long) and should include these features: detachable magazines, trigger pull weights that can be adjusted or modified to be below 4.5 pounds (hair triggers), and high-velocity, low-caliber bullets that inflict maximum damage in human bodies.
Yes, Colorado officials must play the long game to address the root causes of youth violence and suicides. However, acting immediately on school security and gun control can and will save lives.
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