Dana Kellerman: Community seeks action on guns from legislators

One year ago a man armed with assault-style weapons and fueled by anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and white nationalist hatred attacked our synagogue. He murdered 11 innocent people and seriously injured two worshipers and four dedicated Pittsburgh police officers.

Our community has been changed irrevocably. All of us have been harmed, though the suffering and trauma experienced by the families of the victims and the survivors is unspeakable. We worship as guests in another congregation’s home because ours is riddled by bullets. We can no longer reassure our children that the lockdown and active shooter drills at their schools are just for practice. We have congregants who are afraid to attend synagogue. The thin veneer of safety is cracked; gun violence can and does affect us all.

Because our legislators have done nothing, we have had to answer our children’s questions of “When is it going to stop hurting so much?” with “We don’t know.”

Because our legislators have done nothing, our children have missed school to meet with their legislators, begging for action. This responsibility should not fall upon our children.

Because our legislators have done nothing, we must plan how our religious school will remember and honor the 11 victims of the Oct. 27, 2018 shooting, without retraumatizing the children, some of whom have only recently returned to sleeping in their own beds.

We now worship in a building that has armed guards every hour it is open. Most churches and other houses of worship are equally at risk. Yet during the remaining 99% of our week, we remain in spaces where we are completely vulnerable to murderers armed with weapons of war. We are vulnerable in our banks, our Walmarts, our gyms, our bars and nightclubs, our outdoor concert venues, and our schools.

Since Oct. 27, 2018, there have been 369 mass shootings in which at least four people were shot and/or killed. That is more than one mass shooting every day. And mass shootings are just the tip of a bloody iceberg. Almost 40,000 Americans a year die of gun violence, two-thirds of them to gun suicide.

Ninety-four percent of Americans (including 84-92% of Republicans) support universal background checks. Eighty percent of Americans (including 64-73% of Republicans) support extreme risk orders, so-called “red flag” laws that allow for weapons to be temporarily removed from persons judged, through due process, to be a danger to themselves of others. Nearly 70% of Americans (including 55% of Republicans) support a ban on assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. Seventy-three percent of Americans (including 60% of Republicans) support banning high-capacity magazines.

There are few if any public policy issues on which Americans so strongly agree. And yet to listen to politicians, making change is impossible. In fact, there are only three groups that overwhelmingly oppose gun safety legislation: legislators, gun manufacturers and their lobby, the NRA.

Gun violence is a complex problem with multiple solutions. Our current approach of avoidance, thoughts and prayers has failed. We call upon our elected representatives to enact a package of legislation which includes universal background checks, red flag laws, a ban on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons, and adequate funding for research. Only then will we begin to halt the carnage that ravaged our community one year ago and continues to destroy so many families.