Issue Position: Gun Control

Issue Position

There have been two solid years of legislation proposed to allegedly "address" the problems we are seeing across the nation regarding the violence being perpetrated by individuals who are choosing firearms to spread their violence. Unfortunately nearly all of the legislation was guttural, emotionally based, and would have had no true impact on the criminals of RI using firearms. Thankfully there have been a few pieces of legislation that were submitted and supported by legislators who understand this is a "crime" issue and not a "2nd Amendment Issue". Because of the legislation submitted by certain legislators, a commission was formed to study the most prevalent element of the recent wave of violence - mental health. This commission - The Joint Commission on Behavior Health and Firearms worked all through the summer and fall of 2013 as well as the early part of 2014 to render decisions based on expert testimony from federal authorities and other leading experts in the area of judicial proceedings that involve mental health. There were 2 pieces of legislation that came from the work of this committee and it will mandate that RI submits criminal mental health records to the federal system "NICS" that is used to process all applications to purchase a firearm in RI. As a co-sponsor of this legislation I am hopeful that it will be considered by the leadership of the Legislature because it truly will fill a current void in RI's system of performing background checks.

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