The Cost of Inaction: 270 Grieving Families

Massachusetts has the second lowest firearm fatality rate in the nation, but that statistic does nothing to comfort the 270 families destroyed by the epidemic of gun violence here each year.

For more than a century, politicians have lived in fear of the NRA, afraid that supporting common-sense gun safety regulations will cost them an election. But losing children is too agonizing to let politics and greed triumph over safety and reason.

In 1998, we adopted some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, and in the coming weeks, Speaker DeLeo will introduce new ones. Many of these anticipated proposals – including increased discretion for police chiefs to review gun licenses, expanded background checks, and new gun safety courses – are productive, common-sense steps we must adopt. I applaud the Speaker for his leadership.

But now is no time for timid ideas. While I support the Speaker’s efforts, we can do more. We must act with bold, innovative gun regulations to bring public safety in line with 21st century technology and common sense. Because if Massachusetts doesn’t, who will?

Today, I’m proposing three additional reforms that will help make our communities safer without infringing on the constitutional right of responsible, law-abiding citizens to bear arms.

First, limit purchases to one gun a month. That’s 12 guns a year. That’s enough to protect yourself, hunt, and exercise your Second Amendment rights. This reform, already proposed by Governor Patrick and Representative David Linsky, is about common sense. Allowing gun traffickers to engage in straw purchases – where legal buyers purchase in bulk before selling guns illegally – is a threat to public safety. Let’s not wait to act for another year in which 270 Massachusetts residents are killed by guns.

Second, take the brainpower of the same innovation economy that produced smart phones and apply that technology to make smart guns. We can save lives by using fingerprint recognition that prevents guns from getting into the wrong hands.

Massachusetts already prohibits convicted violent criminals or drug traffickers from carrying or owning a gun, but without the right technology, guns are stolen and used to kill. So let’s require gun manufacturers to use fingerprint recognition software. Alternatively, let’s require guns to be built with chips that must read a ring or bracelet worn by the user in order to function.

This technology will also dramatically reduce the rate of suicide or accidental death by guns, restricting a weapon’s ability to fire if pointed from close range toward the bracelet or ring on a user’s wrist. If the Attorney General can regulate the use of toy guns as a consumer product, surely she can do the same for real ones.

Third, create an interstate task force to deal with the torrent of guns crossing our borders each day. In 2011, about two thirds of guns recovered at crime scenes in Massachusetts came from out of state. Just as we need the governors of every New England state and New York working together to fight the epidemic of opiate addiction, we must do the same with illegal guns. Regardless of each governor’s views on gun regulation, trading guns for heroin along the 1-91 corridor is illegal. So let’s work together, not in silos defined by state borders, but in a dynamic and effective partnership, to enforce the law.

No one seeks to deny the ability of gun manufacturers to profit legitimately in a free market economy. But economic profit and public safety are not mutually exclusive. Growing a business need not, and must not, come at the expense of human lives.

Smith and Wesson, the nation’s largest manufacturer of handguns headquartered right here in Massachusetts, understands this. At the turn of the 20th century, the company introduced the first child safety lock for guns. In 2000, they tried partnering with the Clinton administration to research smart gun technology as part of a dozen new safety regulations.

As we debate new gun control laws this month, Massachusetts can once again lead the nation in safety and innovation. I urge my colleagues in the Legislature and the Attorney General’s office to bring these three common-sense reforms into the debate. Doing so will come with political risk. It’s a risk we must take if we don’t want to keep burying the 270 Massachusetts residents killed by guns each year. Massachusetts has always been a state that leads the nation, not one that lags behind.

The gun industry has its spokespeople. But grieving mothers and fathers across our Commonwealth and our country need a leader to speak for them. As governor, I will.