Lauren Ahn

Missouri State Representative Stacey Newman has had enough of gun violence in her state. She's also frustrated by restrictive abortion laws. Here she explains why she filed a bill that would make it as difficult to purchase a gun as it is to get an abortion in Missouri.

Earlier this month, I pre-filed a bill in the Missouri House, where I am a representative, which would require those buying a gun to undergo similar restrictions as women must undergo for an abortion.



Under this bill, if you wanted to buy a gun, you would have to endure a mandatory 72-hour waiting period so you could think seriously about your purchase. You'd need a doctor's written permission, and you'd have to purchase your gun at least 120 miles from your home, which is the average distance a woman in Missouri must travel to reach our sole abortion clinic. I also included in the bill a required viewing of a 30-minute video on fatal firearm injuries, a mandatory visit to an emergency trauma center that treats gun violence victims, and a mandatory visit with at least two faith leaders who have officiated at funerals of victims under the age of 18.

I have worked on preventing gun violence since 2000, when our 6-year-old daughter Sophie went on the Rosie O'Donnell Show to talk about kids and guns. She wrote Rosie asking if she could march with her at the Million Mom March in Washington, D.C., the following week — the historic march for gun violence prevention that Rosie publicized on her show.

That was our family's wake-up call — seeing our little kid chat about her fears about kids and guns on national TV. Sophie and I marched hand in hand with Rosie on Mother's Day that year and gun violence prevention became my passion, which ultimately led me to be elected to the Missouri state Legislature in 2009. Today, some of my closest friends are gun violence survivors and activists all over the country.

Reproductive justice is my other passion. It must be protected, primarily now for our daughter who is in graduate school and our two young granddaughters entering elementary school. I graduated high school in 1972, just as birth control became legal and available. I've heard too many horror stories of women dying because they had no choices.

Gun violence is a huge issue in my city of St. Louis, which is on track to hit more than 200 gun deaths in 2015. Kansas City, my hometown on the other side of the state, has the same problem. I work closely with mayors, prosecutors, and police chiefs to stop this senseless epidemic, but our GOP-controlled Legislature just ignores them. Currently, Missouri is first in the nation in toddler shootings. Little kids barely able to walk, the age of my youngest grandson, have pulled the trigger on a gun five times this year, killing themselves or others.

As we become more incensed at mass shootings happening almost every week, bills are being pre-filed in my state to make it easier to obtain weapons, including allowing guns on college campuses. This is the GOP's answer to our death rate — more guns.

At the same time, the Missouri GOP advances more abortion restrictions each year, keeping our state as one of the most punitive states in the nation in which to be a woman. We have only one clinic in St. Louis that provides abortions, making it extremely difficult for most women to access abortion care.

I am sick and tired of bills in Missouri penalizing clinics, physicians, and patients with insane new requirements. And at the same time, I am sick of watching the gun lobby buying the Missouri GOP party. I am angry watching gun manufacturers profit as gun violence fatalities add up. I am furious about the misogyny that permeates my state Capitol, with male legislators thinking nothing of interfering with women's private reproductive care. I am disgusted and just plain mad.

So I decided to do something drastic by filing this bill.

The last time I did something like this was 2012. Then, I was one of seven Democratic women who stood nonstop more than three hours (in heels, no less) on our House floor to debate a birth-control access bill. We were completely ignored by the acting Speaker and not allowed to speak during the long debate simply because we were progressive Democratic women. My reaction to his blatant misogyny keeping us from debating a topic we knew better than every other male legislator there?

I filed an anti-vasectomy bill for state oversight in men's reproductive medical procedures. I then heard from hundreds of men over email who exclaimed, "How dare you interfere!" Point made.

A few months ago, articles about my anti-vasectomy bill began once again began floating around the Internet, never mind that the bill was four years old.

And then I saw a meme floating around online in October and a light bulb went off.

Through this meme, I connected how easily one can purchase a firearm versus the hoops women have to jump through to get a legal abortion. Bingo! I had a new bill.

I filed it Dec. 1, the first day of our pre-filing period, but was completely unprepared for what was next. My phone began ringing. The Huffington Post published my email asking supporters to thank me for such a fabulous idea. My inbox began to fill up, with new emails coming in, about one each minute. So far, I've received more than 500, and they have not stopped coming in.

Not surprisingly, the emails and phone calls are running about 50 to 1 adamantly in support of this bill. People all over the country are cheering the bill on and even sending in campaign donations. People in both red and blue states are sick and tired of watching the body bags stack up at theaters, churches, and schools. They are sick of the GOP extending their "thoughts and prayers" while doing absolutely nothing about gun violence. They are sick of watching Congress defeat legislation for background checks on all guns sales and prohibiting guns for those on the no-fly list, completely ignoring the will of the majority of Americans.

The values of the Republican leadership both in charge in my state Capitol and in Congress are frightening. We must make it harder to buy a gun to kill people while at the same time, stop punishing women who choose a legal abortion. These political games that are being played with real people's lives must end.

Follow Stacey on Twitter.

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