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Guest blog from AZPHA Member RJ Shannon

In the last few days including Thursday, November 28th there have been a rash of shootings all over the valley including smaller Arizona towns. We can no longer ignore the effects of this form of violence and the impact on our shared communities.

Since the Republican legislature and Governor Brewer passed and signed legislation that banned law enforcement agencies across the state from destroying firearms in 2013, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, there has been a 43% increase in firearm injuries and deaths in Arizona.

Every law enforcement agency must resell confiscated firearms back into our communities through a licensed broker, but after that, the trail may end, creating a proliferation of guns that are easily attainable.

The owner does not have to register these firearms nor face liability should an incident take place. Law enforcement agencies across Maricopa County and all other Arizona counties are seeing more risk to their officers along with the dire consequences of firearm threats and in many cases officer involved shootings.

Sadly, many of these shootings happen because of perceived threats when the threat is not visible but assumed. Too many times, the communities most affected by these misconceptions and biases are communities of color – Black, Brown, and Indigenous; folks experiencing mental health episodes and others unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – leaving injuries and deaths in their wake.

Lawsuits do not bring back the dead and may even help with the enormous treatment bills awaiting those who survive, but in the end, we all pay the price.

In a state like ours, it is impossible to know who is legally carrying concealed and who is not, and for the sake of the potential victim or survivor we should always know. To be clear, Arizona is NOT plagued by the irresponsible behaviors of responsible gun owners, but by those newer owners for whom there is no record of ownership or safety training.

Firearm regulation is necessary just as the authors of the US Constitution stated. ALL owners should register through a state-wide/Federal databank; ALL gun owners should purchase insurance and a license to carry concealed firearms.

ALL firearm owners should undergo safety training that offers secured storage recommendations with devices either donated or sold so that the incidents of unintentional/intentional and suicide injuries and deaths are more easily preventable. And ALL gun owners should face the same penalties for neglect leading to intentional or non-intentional injuries or deaths to others.

City councils, County Supervisors, school boards and State leadership along with concerned residents and stakeholders should determine zoning designations for locations where firearms are sold, so that they are not purchased from commercial or individual sellers anywhere close to schools, homes, and other sites where vulnerable persons may be present.

Arizona spent an outstanding sum of taxpayers’ dollars and employee hours determining the safest places to sell medical marijuana to protect the health and welfare of Arizona’s families. We must use the same reasoning regarding how, when and where firearms are sold and used. Arizona’s communities pay too high a price for our firearm associated injuries and deaths to ignore how firearms filter into our communities.

Finally, we invite businesses that rely on the sale and usage of firearms and gun owners to be partners in the prevention of unintentional injuries and increased suicides by guns that we experience among Arizona’s oldest and youngest community members.

It was not that long ago when Arizona law stipulated that any gun owner desiring to carry concealed had to take a safety class offered by the State with minimal payment by the owner. Sadly, the Arizona State Legislature overturned a terrific mandate. Together we must meet collaboratively to find the best way for your businesses to aid in saving lives while offering your expertise and sage advice to new firearm owners on how to use their firearms safely.

I am not naïve and recognize that these relationships between more experienced and less experienced owners have historically forged mentoring relationships, but not in a systemic and state funded way.

If the state wants to continue identifying as a 2nd amendment entity, there is nothing that precludes them from passing gun sense laws supporting the safety of all gun owners, their families, and communities – thereby indirectly adding protections that significantly protects all our lives.

Firearm injuries and deaths are not only a law enforcement issue, but more so, a major public health priority. Firearm injuries are the 2nd leading cause of death for Arizona’s children and teens. Firearm deaths are the number one cause of death for children and teens nationwide and there is no reason to believe that it will not soon be the case for Arizona’s children if things do not change.

According to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the CDC, in 2022, Arizona had the 12th highest gun death rate in the US. In 2021, suspects used firearms in 128 domestic violence homicides. On Thanksgiving night this year (Thanksgiving Day, 2024) a man shot and killed his son in Phoenix during a domestic dispute. Arizona, haven’t you had enough, yet?

These injuries and deaths are almost 100% preventable when owners secure their firearms, ownership is identified & registered, the purchaser is mandated to take safety training, insurance is imposed (you know, like we do with cars???) along with strict age restrictions and provisions for requiring individual and family safety assessments.

When children and others find unsecured weapons and either harm themselves or others as a result, the owners must be held accountable. The responsibility lies with the owner and not the person who finds an unsecured firearm in the home or vehicle.

The Arizona Child Fatality Review Program recently cited that the leading risk factors of Firearm Injury deaths for children and teens are the following: Access to firearms = 100%; Firearm not stored properly = 66%; CPS History with Family = 63%, Substance use = 53%. Criminal Act = 27%, which when identified and assessed for gun ownership and safety measures, were considered almost 100% firearm injury preventable.

According to Channel 12 news, Maricopa County school campuses found more than 100 guns and received numerous threats since 2019. It turns out that it is not a statistic that Arizona tracks and for which the State of Arizona’s Department of Education takes no responsibility believing that it is the community’s responsibilities to pursue these issues.

Parents, if they won’t do something, then we must! If Arizona adopted all or some of the recommendations, responsible gun ownership would increase to support those firearm- owning Arizonans who are already responsible to themselves, their families, and their communities.

These recommendations are only the first steps, but Arizona needs to begin again somewhere. It is past the time to look at who we are but now deciding who we want to be. For some reason, we have determined that it is all right to declare war on ourselves. How about we lead the way towards community peace and reconciliation through a public health and safety lens that supports all of us, our families, and our communities? Just sayin’…

RJ Shannon has advocated for non-violence strategies and firearm safety for 30+ years. You can join her & Moms Demand Action by texting 644-33.