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How is Arizona handling gun violence? Mass shootings in Texas, Ohio raise concerns

Posted 8/8/19

Arizona is no stranger to mass shootings. In 2011, six people were killed and 15 others were injured at a Tucson grocery store, including then U.S. …

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How is Arizona handling gun violence? Mass shootings in Texas, Ohio raise concerns

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Arizona is no stranger to mass shootings. In 2011, six people were killed and 15 others were injured at a Tucson grocery store, including then U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

With mass shootings becoming more prominent since then, questions abound on how to stop them from continuing. Is it a gun problem? Is it a mental health issue? Video games? People themselves?

After gunmen in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio killed a combined 31 people and wounded dozens others, the conversation is ramping up. That includes in Arizona, whose leaders are trying to figure out what they can do to limit or stop what happened in Texas and Ohio — and in Tucson — from happening again.

Daily Independent reached out to the office of Gov. Doug Ducey, with spokesman Patrick Ptak returning an email of three questions with background information on what the governor and Arizona has been doing to stem the tide on gun violence.

Doug Ducey

“This weekend was one of sadness and tragedy,” the governor’s office stated. “Our hearts are with the people of Dayton and El Paso as we grieve these horrible and senseless tragedies.”

Last year, Mr. Ducey worked with school leaders, law enforcement, prosecutors, mental health professionals, parents, students and teachers to develop a plan for Significant Threat Orders of Protection — STOP orders. Like “red flag” laws, STOP orders would ensure those who are a danger to themselves and others are evaluated and prohibited from possessing firearms.

In the 2018 legislative session, Arizona approved a Fiscal Year 2019 budget that allocated $10 million as part of the Safe Arizona Schools Plan to increase behavioral and mental health specialists on campuses.

In this year’s session, Arizona approved a FY 2020 budget that allocates $20 million as part of the Safe Arizona Schools Plan to hire more school counselors and school resource officers.

The state passed Senate Bill 1468, also known as the Mitch Warnock Act, which expands suicide awareness and prevention training in public schools. Arizona also passed House Bill 2119, which requires school boards to create policies for reporting suspected crime or threatening behavior on school property to the police.

Arizona also sought guidance from Representative Alma Hernandez to the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board on how SROs can better serve students on campus.

“Support from President Trump and Congressional leaders for “red flag” laws is important, and it’s a common-sense approach to protect public safety,” the office stated. “This is an idea that’s time has come, and we remain hopeful both sides can come together to advance commonsense policies that make a meaningful impact.”

Since the Tucson shooting, the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission formally established a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Task Force. Its goal is to develop solutions for ensuring accurate and complete information is reported by Arizona into the NICS.

The NICS is a national computerized system that checks available records on people who may be disqualified from receiving firearms. It is used by all firearms licensees to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is disqualified from receiving firearms due to a criminal record or another lawful reason.

Task force members include over 400 representatives from over 100 of Arizona’s local, county, state and federal criminal justice agencies, along with non-governmental organizations like domestic violence advocacy groups, and academia.

Since 2011, the ACJC has been awarded nearly $15 million in federal grant funds and state general fund dollars to support the improvement of the quality and accessibility of all NICS-eligible records — including mental health adjudications.

Last year, Mr. Ducey and the Arizona Legislature provided $1.8 million to the ACJC to complete a three-year project to create a direct feed from local and county prosecutors’ offices into the Arizona Computerized Criminal History System. The real-time feed is supposed to help ensure the state’s criminal history records are as accurate and complete as possible. As of July, over 40% of the county records are being directly fed into the ACCH.

In addition, the creation of the Arizona Historical Warrant Repository allowed for a searchable statewide database of warrants. The cumulative Active Warrant entries into the National Crime Information Center at the FBI increased from 11,706 in 2013 to 74,647 as of June.

No clear plan on gun control appears to be on the horizon in Arizona after multiple legislators said convening for a special meeting this summer would be futile (Daily Independent, Aug. 8, 2019, page 1).

When Mr. Ducey came out with his own school safety plan in 2018, he specifically excluded the universal background checks that Democrats want, a move they say will close a “loophole” in the law that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows without having to pass the same background investigation required if they bought a weapon from a licensed dealer.

A top state Democrat said she believes Arizona’s demographics have changed since the days when the GOP majority first began rejecting any gun-control legislation.

Arizona Democrats are also behind the idea of allowing judges to take away weapons from people found to be a danger to themselves or others.

Mr. Ducey first proposed the idea in 2018. It passed through the Senate, but only after lawmakers jettisoned some provisions to make it acceptable to the National Rifle Association. Even at that point it could not get a hearing in the House amid concerns about personal rights.

Donald Trump visits El Paso, Texas Aug. 7, 2019 in wake of a mass shooting that killed 22 people and injured dozens others Aug. 3, 2019. Mr. Trump has called for tighter enforcement of "red flag" laws and other measures to stem mass shootings and gun violence. (The Associated Press)

Debate over assault-style weapons

One of the biggest issues when it comes to gun violence is whether regulations need to be in place on firearms. Believers in the Second Amendment don’t want the government to restrict their right to own guns, while gun control advocates want the government to ban the use and ownership of assault weapons.

Across the country, there is talk of whether assault-style rifles, or those that can fire off multiple rounds in mere seconds, should be out on the open market, sold at gun shows or in stores like Walmart or Dick’s Sporting Goods. The latter company stopped selling assault-style firearms at 10 locations in 2018 and raised the minimum age to purchase firearms at it stores to 21. This year, it stopped selling assault weapons at 125 other locations.

Mr. Ducey and his office did not respond to an emailed question regarding whether assault-rifles have a place in the hands of everyday citizens.

According to a poll from POLITICO and Morning Consult in wake of last weekend’s shooting, 69% of registered voters support banning assault weapons, including 57% who “strongly support” the ban. Only 23% of voters oppose an assault weapons ban.

Across party lines, 86% of Democrats, 55% of Republicans and 65% of independents support banning assault weapons.

“How many more people have to die before we reinstate the assault weapons ban & the limit on high-capacity magazines & pass universal background checks?” former President Bill Clinton stated on Twitter. “After they passed in 1994, there was a big drop in mass shooting deaths. When the ban expired, they rose again. We must act now.”

Lawmakers had actually introduced a bill that would ban assault weapons in the GOP-controlled Senate in January, but it has not been brought up for a vote.

In March, the Trump administration banned “bump stocks,” attachments that could allow semiautomatic weapons to work like automatic weapons, much like what happened in the October 2017 shootings in Las Vegas that killed over 50 people.

Children in the crossfire

In the midst of mass shootings are children, be it fatal victims of gunfire, survivors, or those at home wondering why their classmate wasn’t at school.

J. Brian Houston, Ph.D., director of the Disaster and Community Crisis Center and professor of communications at the University of Missouri, found that teachers commonly don’t know how to answer children’s questions about disasters like mass shootings or devastating wildfires, or explain why they happen at all.

Brian Houston

The DCCC says these incidents can impact children’s mental health, not only in school, but in response to future disasters as well.

Mr. Houston said with the changing media environment, with things like social media and greater internet access, children are likely to come across news events on their own, before parents or teachers have a chance to inform them.

Because of that, parents and teachers have to approach their children and students in a proactive manner. “What's on your mind?” rather than “I need to tell you what happened.”

“Your kids may be thinking about it,” Mr. Houston said. “‘Have you seen anything in the news you want to talk about?’ Open that space so kids can talk about what’s on their mind.”

To help parents, teachers and school leaders handle such issues, the Disaster and Community Crisis Center developed a step-by-step plan with guidelines on how to discuss disasters with children.

Mr. Houston also said parents are encouraged to validate their children’s concerns, whether they are sad or fear going to school.

“These are normal reactions people have,” Mr. Houston said, adding adults should answer any questions and clarify misconceptions. “But a lot of times they can’t answer why it happens. ‘We don’t have an answer.’ Acknowledging that is okay.

“A couple of other things we suggest is reassuring they’re safe. They’re going to think it’s going to happen where they are. Parents too.”

Mr. Houston also hopes that children don’t think they can’t go to school or the mall because of incidents like what happened in El Paso.

“It’s easy to feel hopeless,” he said. “In actuality, you can do a lot of things.”

Those include making cards to victims or first responders, and donating to local organizations that help victims or react to disasters.

Parents shouldn’t sensationalize an event, but they can err on the side of being more clear rather than using euphemisms around an event.

“To say that ‘Yeah, it’s sad that people died,’ ‘It’s sad that someone used guns to hurt other people,’ using some of that direct language ultimately helps adolescents and children make more sense of what’s going on. Parents/adults often don’t want to make the situation worse. They don’t want to say the wrong thing so they err on side of not saying anything.

“But in family, not addressing something that’s too scary or frightening or inappropriate, that just makes the child worse off because there’s not that open space to discuss.”

Mr. Houston says parents are used to talking to their children and know where they are developmentally. In the end, parents generally know what their children can process. Because children and teenagers are connected to social media now more than ever, they’re going to be more informed than parents may think they are, and in turn talk about something their parents didn’t think they would ever bring up.

“Take it where they want to take it,” Mr. Houston said “Like any other conversation in general.”

Demonstrators hold signs and raises their fists to protest the visit of President Donald Trump to the border city following Saturday's mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019. Trump headed to El Paso, after visiting Dayton, Ohio on Wednesday to offer a message of healing and unity, but was met by unusual hostility in both places by people who fault his own incendiary words as a contributing cause to the mass shootings. (Andres Leighton/The Associated Press)

Texas senator wants change

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking outside an El Paso hospital this week, refused to name the suspect in the Walmart shooting, pleading to others, including the media, to do the same.

“He deserves to fade into anonymity,” Mr. Cruz said. “And the victims and heroes and first responders need to be celebrated.”

Mr. Houston agreed to an extent on not naming suspects or publishing their photographs, to not give them fame they were probably seeking.

He also says the media should begin — or continue — to incorporate solutions in coverage, be it from government officials or elsewhere.

“What can be done to prevent this from happening again?” Mr. Houston said. “Writing more of that into the story can help because obviously this is a problem and finding a solution is one of the central roles of journalism.

“‘People are resilient and are going to be okay’ doesn’t really tell us what people should be doing. Blending solutions into coverage — not that it’s not already being done — but being more mindful of writing it into the story so it’s not just a horrible story.

As for preventing other mass shootings, Mr. Cruz says officials and people need to figure out what are the warning signs. He said some include possible mental health issues, problems in school or encounters with law enforcement.

A mass shooting in Texas is not new to Mr. Cruz. As a senator, he has dealt with shootings in Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs. In the latter incident, the shooter had a felony conviction for domestic violence but bought a firearm illegally. His purchase was possible after the U.S. Air Force had failed to report the conviction to the background check database.

In Spring 2013, after he was newly elected, Mr. Cruz helped introduce legislation in wake of the Sandy Hook shootings that would focus law enforcement resources on “bad guys” — felons and fugitives — to make background check systems work better and more efficiently.

He is also hoping to create a gun crime task force with the U.S. Department of Justice that would prosecute felons and fugitives trying to illegally buy firearms.

“When we were kids, this was not a thing. This was not something we dealt with,” Mr. Cruz said. “There’s something profoundly wrong. There is a loss of community. There is a loss of faith that is tearing us apart. There are public policy steps we can and should take. But there are also steps in the community of just showing love and responding.”

Daily Independent reached out to U.S. Congress members Debbie Lesko, Andy Biggs and Tom O’Halleran on Tuesday, with no response by deadline Thursday afternoon.

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services contributed to this story. Follow him @azcapmedia.

Reporter Chris Caraveo can be reached at 623-876-2531 or ccaraveo@newszap.com. Follow on Twitter @ChrisCaraveo31.