Answer: the Rhode Island General Assembly. It’s not like the legislature didn’t think about assault weapons, they did. In the House, a bill was submitted on January 6 and referred to the House Judiciary Committee - where it died. No hearing, no vote, just the sound of silence, or if you prefer, crickets.
The Senate wasn’t much better. A similar bill was introduced on February 8, referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee where on March 31 it received a hearing after which the Committee voted to hold the bill for further study. One would think that they were consulting experts on the role of assault weapons in gun violence. Of course they didn’t. “Held for further study” is euphemism for “this bill isn’t going anywhere.”
At least the Senate President allowed the bill a faint breath before turning off the legislative oxygen. The House Speaker didn’t even allow for a brief breath, he never allowed the oxygen to be turned on.
I raise the specter of the Speaker and Senate President to highlight that the General Assembly is a “leadership” driven organization. Leadership decides agendas, permits or blocks “controversial” legislation, and too often, like the Roman emperors of history, decides legislative fates with a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
This is but one issue where when it comes down to it, the only legislative vote that counts is the vote of the “leader.” I’ve detailed this process in my book so when I look at this current legislative issue and process, in the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, it’s deja vu all over again.
Of course, that raises the question of just what is “controversial” about this proposed legislation. According to a June Quinnipiac University poll revealed 74% of Americans favored a ban of assault weapons. Only 24% of respondents opposed such a ban. Maybe most of them live in Rhode Island.
And if Senate Judiciary feels the need for “further study,” may I respectfully suggest they look at Buffalo New York, Uvalde Texas, and Highland Park Illinois. Shoppers, elementary school kids, and parade watchers were slaughtered with the use of an assault weapon. To my state senator, Frank Lombardi, I can point you to reputable publications detailing these crimes against the unsuspecting and defenseless.
This year the Assembly also entertained legislation banning large capacity feeding devices, you know, like those used with assault weapons. This legislation, H 6614 - Sub A, would have prohibited such devices from containing more than ten rounds of ammunition. This bill passed in the House and the Senate. After my state senator and house representative, Jackie Baginski, failed to gut the impact of the legislation, they both voted against the ban.
I became acquainted with both Lombardi and Baginski and generally had a good opinion of them. Lombardi is a bit conservative for my liking but many of my friends are more conservative than me, so that’s not unusual. Baginski came with the imprimatur of the retiring incumbent, Bob Jacquard, who among other things was a good friend of my agency when my agency needed a friend. He walked her around the district and especially reached out to me to arrange a time when I could meet his successor. We met, and given the adage that any friend of my friend is also my friend, my family voted for her.
In full transparency, my vote didn’t swing an election - it was uncontested in November 2020. Depending on whether a Republican gets the requisite number of signatures in, she may be challenged this year. That said, as of 1st quarter 2022, she’s siting on just over $60,000 in campaign funds, not bad for a freshman representative in the Rhode Island General Assembly. All to represent just under 15,000 residents. The 2nd quarter finance reports are due by August 1 so we’ll see what her pot of gold looks like then.
But then her mentor, Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, was sitting on a campaign fund of approximately $1.6 million at the beginning of 2022.
When the legislation that would ban large capacity feeding devices was making its way through the House, my wife emailed Representative Baginski to urge that she support the ban. She received no response. After the vote, my wife again emailed Baginski asking about her thought process that led her to vote against the legislation, and this time she got a response.
After apologizing for her failed response to the first email, Baginski answered the question about her thought process as follows:
“At the time you sent it (e.g., the first email), I was being inundated with calls and emails by neighbors in our district on both sides of this issue. I read every single one and took each to heart. I placed my votes based on what I thought the residents of DIstrict (sic) 17 would want. It was clear to me from their calls and emails, that our neighbors are in favor of common sense gun legislation that will make our communities safer by making gun ownership a more closely regulated process, but they did not support bans of any kind. While there are a number of folks like you who feel quite strongly that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines should be prohibited, I was swayed by the large number of residents in the district who felt differently. I tried my best to keep my own opinions on the matter out of this decision and to act as an accurate reflection of the district.”
Let’s be clear, there was no assault weapons ban before the legislature, only the high-capacity magazine ban. That aside, what she claimed to have done was to essentially put the question of supporting the legislation up for an unannounced, unofficial plebiscite in our district. Based on her own admissions, she became a blank slate thus allowing the outpouring of messages to dictate her vote.
While it’s laudable that she wants to represent her constituents, it is important that those in office remember that while being elected from a defined area, they also vote on issues that effect each resident of our state. Sometimes, because an officeholder is privy to more information and has thought more deeply about the ramifications of supporting or opposing a given policy - especially a policy that is of great importance to all members of the broader community - that officeholder has to do what she thinks best for everyone, own her vote, and then go convince her constituents that she acted in good conscience on their behalf.
That’s courage, that’s leadership. Leadership is not hiding behind a tally of emails and phone calls.
This country is awash in guns, which has led to increasing indiscriminate violence. The numbers are frightening:
There are over 400 million (legal) firearms in the U.S.;
There are approximately 332 million people in the U.S.;
Of the 332 million, 22% are below age 18, leaving 259 million of legal gun owning age;
This year so far, there have been approximately 330 mass shootings;
One-third of all civilian owned firearms worldwide are in the hands of Americans;
One-third of Americans own guns, two-thirds don’t;
ninety-eight percent of all guns in the U.S. are in civilian hands;
The U.S. is 1st in the world with 120guns/100 citizens, Falkland Islands is 2nd with 64/100;
40 million guns were sold in the U.S. in 2020, an increase over the 28 million sold in 2019;
Guns account for 79% of U.S. homicides, compare this to 4% in the United kingdom.
There’s more that could said but the point is clear: this country is drowning in guns owned by a minority of our citizens. Increasingly, these guns are causing indiscriminate violence and each of us is at risk. There will be approximately 42,000 gun related deaths in 2022, with thousands more injured by gun violence, tens of thousands more grieving the loss of a family member or friend, and tens of thousands beyond that number traumatized and re-traumatized by each daily report of gun slaughter.
That we have yet to be touched by this violence doesn’t mean we are not all equally at risk. Make no mistake, we are. And the counting of emails or phone calls from who knows who from who knows where is not a legitimate response to great cultural, social and legal issue of our time.
And thanks to the recent Bruen decision from the Court a couple of weeks ago, Rhode Island’s conceal carry law/regulations, like New York State’s, is out of compliance with that holding further placing all of us at risk. And this risks cries out for, nay demands, a considered informed response rather than a tally of phone calls and e-mails.
More and more, I keep recalling the thesis of William Greider’s magnificent book, Who Will Tell The People? As the reader plows through the book, initially not knowing what the people haven’t been told, the answer becomes obvious in stark relief.
The answer is that, in the bargaining by our elected and appointed officials over the distribution of resources and political capital that determines what gets done, the people don’t count. This is not a new phenomena and we are seeing its results in all levels of government.
The gun “reform” legislation is but one of many recent examples.
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