John Owens

GUEST COLUMNIST

President Trump has declared a national crisis at our southern border... fanning the flames of fear by highlighting illegal immigrant crime. We should deplore any acts of violence that have impacted everyday Americans, but the President and many of his Republican colleagues refuse to acknowledge the real crisis that exists in this country, daily gun violence.

There were 323 Mass Shootings in 2018, and not one was committed by a person illegally entering the country.

America has experienced more gun deaths by February 1 than other high-income nations experience in an entire calendar year. According to the Gun Violence Archive, more than 1,200 gun deaths, 2,000 gun injuries, 49 children shot, and 27 mass shootings occurred in the first month of 2019. Most of the incidents have been underreported due to the focus on the wall and the government shutdown.

The American Medical Association and the American College of Emergency Physicians believe gun violence should be treated as a Public Health Emergency requiring a Public Health Response. I agree with that assertion, having personally witnessed and experienced the pain and suffering of gun violence in an inner-city trauma center.

Fourteen years ago, I was shot and nearly killed walking into a television station in Michigan...a place where I was once employed. A young man with no criminal record, but a severe mental illness, pulled a stolen firearm out of his pocket and shot me point blank.

What followed was living nightmare, a nightmare I share with an estimated 200 people a day who will be shot in America. I barely escaped with my life, but I did sustain a spinal cord injury and I have been in some form of pain and paralysis since the shooting. I don’t see gun violence as an abstract statistic or political battle...it’s personal.

Since arriving in Western North Carolina four years ago, I have been an active member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. Moms Demand Action was created after the horrific Sandy Hook shootings and now has nearly four million supporters and local chapters all across the country. Our Hendersonville group consists of Moms and Dads, Military Veterans, Gun Owners, and Gun Violence Survivors. Our non-partisan organization believes we can honor the rights of gun ownership for sport and personal protection, while passing common sense gun safety legislation like the Bipartisan bill before Congress (H.B. 8) that would require background checks on all gun sales.

Poll after poll have demonstrated that the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, support Criminal Background Checks on all gun sales, yet our local legislators like Representative Mark Meadows, and Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr seem to be more interested in their NRA rating than public sentiment. The Center for Responsive Politics found Tillis and Burr are in the top three to receive NRA donations among the 535 members in Congress.

A year ago, a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida took the lives of 17 students and staff members, the deadliest high school shooting in our country’s history. That tragic event sparked a student-led march, and a national conversation about gun safety. In a recent national poll, 58 percent of adult respondents reported that they or someone they care for have experienced gun violence in their lifetime. Hundreds of diverse survivors have shared their experiences on a website called “Moments That Survive.” (everytown.org/momentsthatsurvive.) The stories are heartbreaking, enlightening, empowering, and hopefully impactful.

Every day, 100 Americans are killed with guns and hundreds more are shot and injured. Let’s hope our elected leaders focus on the national crisis taking place far from our southern border, gun violence in our neighborhoods, schools, churches, places of business, cities large and small.

John Owens is a gun violence survivor who lives in Hendersonville. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense-Hendersonville is hosting a screening of the Emmy-award winning film “The Armor of Light” at at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb.18 at Flat Rock Cinema.