Stricter Gun Control in Ohio
Stricter Gun Control in Ohio
The Issue
Ohio governor Mike Dewine recently signed a bill making it easier for teachers to have guns in schools. THIS IS NOT THE ANSWER.
The measure drastically reduces the amount of training teachers and other staff are required to undergo before they can possess a firearm on school grounds. Instead of 700 hours of training, teachers will be able to finish in less than 24 hours.
The measure was opposed by teachers’ unions, the state’s Fraternal Order of Police and gun safety groups.
“The safety of Ohio’s students and educators is our utmost priority, but we know putting more guns into school buildings in the hands of people who have woefully inadequate training — regardless of their intentions — is dangerous and irresponsible,” Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, and Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said in a joint statement June 3.
A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 73% of teachers opposed the idea.
Nearly 90% of Americans are in favor of stricter gun control laws.
The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives
By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo. Rather than arming our teachers (who have enough to do without keeping that gun away from students and having to train like law enforcement to confront an armed attacker), rather than spend much-needed school dollars on more metal detectors instead of education, we need to make it harder to buy a gun...especially the kind of weapons used in these mass shootings. And we need to put a lasting stop to the political obstruction of taxpayer-funded research into gun-related injuries and deaths.
The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime. Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members.
During the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to explore gun violence as a public health issue. After studies tied having a firearm to increased homicide risk, the National Rifle Association took action, spearheading the infamous Dickey Amendment, diverting gun research dollars and preventing federal funding from being used to promote gun control. For more than 20 years, research on gun violence in this country has been hard to do.
What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.
A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.
As we previously reported, in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide. Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up. These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.
Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent. Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.
Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. But it would require elected officials to detach themselves from the gun lobby. There are so many issues to consider when voting, but in this midterm election year, we believe that protection from gun violence is one that voters could really advance. Surveys routinely show that gun control measures are extremely popular with the U.S. population.
Against all this are families whose lives will never be the same because of gun violence. Who must mourn children and adults lost in domestic violence, accidental killings and mass shootings that are so common, we are still grieving one when the next one occurs.
Certain individuals claim gun control violates the 2nd amendment. However, this amendment was passed in 1791!
Here's What Firearms Looked Like When The Founding Fathers Wrote The Second Amendment" https://www.ranker.com/list/firearms-in-1791/rachel-souerbry
"In 1791, common guns included muskets and flintlock pistols." Not automatic weapons and machine guns...
According to the Washington Post, a "typical Revolutionary-era musket" had a one-round magazine capacity, and could fire around three effective rounds per minute - in the hands of the most skilled wielder. Its maximum accuracy range had to be within 50 meters.
We need to become the kind of country that looks at guns for what they are: weapons that kill. And treat them with the kind of respect that insists they be harder to get and safer to use.
51
The Issue
Ohio governor Mike Dewine recently signed a bill making it easier for teachers to have guns in schools. THIS IS NOT THE ANSWER.
The measure drastically reduces the amount of training teachers and other staff are required to undergo before they can possess a firearm on school grounds. Instead of 700 hours of training, teachers will be able to finish in less than 24 hours.
The measure was opposed by teachers’ unions, the state’s Fraternal Order of Police and gun safety groups.
“The safety of Ohio’s students and educators is our utmost priority, but we know putting more guns into school buildings in the hands of people who have woefully inadequate training — regardless of their intentions — is dangerous and irresponsible,” Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, and Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said in a joint statement June 3.
A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 73% of teachers opposed the idea.
Nearly 90% of Americans are in favor of stricter gun control laws.
The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives
By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo. Rather than arming our teachers (who have enough to do without keeping that gun away from students and having to train like law enforcement to confront an armed attacker), rather than spend much-needed school dollars on more metal detectors instead of education, we need to make it harder to buy a gun...especially the kind of weapons used in these mass shootings. And we need to put a lasting stop to the political obstruction of taxpayer-funded research into gun-related injuries and deaths.
The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime. Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members.
During the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to explore gun violence as a public health issue. After studies tied having a firearm to increased homicide risk, the National Rifle Association took action, spearheading the infamous Dickey Amendment, diverting gun research dollars and preventing federal funding from being used to promote gun control. For more than 20 years, research on gun violence in this country has been hard to do.
What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.
A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.
As we previously reported, in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide. Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up. These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.
Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent. Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.
Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. But it would require elected officials to detach themselves from the gun lobby. There are so many issues to consider when voting, but in this midterm election year, we believe that protection from gun violence is one that voters could really advance. Surveys routinely show that gun control measures are extremely popular with the U.S. population.
Against all this are families whose lives will never be the same because of gun violence. Who must mourn children and adults lost in domestic violence, accidental killings and mass shootings that are so common, we are still grieving one when the next one occurs.
Certain individuals claim gun control violates the 2nd amendment. However, this amendment was passed in 1791!
Here's What Firearms Looked Like When The Founding Fathers Wrote The Second Amendment" https://www.ranker.com/list/firearms-in-1791/rachel-souerbry
"In 1791, common guns included muskets and flintlock pistols." Not automatic weapons and machine guns...
According to the Washington Post, a "typical Revolutionary-era musket" had a one-round magazine capacity, and could fire around three effective rounds per minute - in the hands of the most skilled wielder. Its maximum accuracy range had to be within 50 meters.
We need to become the kind of country that looks at guns for what they are: weapons that kill. And treat them with the kind of respect that insists they be harder to get and safer to use.
51
The Decision Makers
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on June 16, 2022