Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Adam Garber said he can still remember exactly where he was when he learned, for the first time, that someone he knew had committed suicide by firearm.
Beth Foringer, of Moms Demand Action, speaks during a gun reform advocates rally in Harrisburg on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. Photo by Jordan Wolman
Garber, the executive director of CeaseFire PA, a nonprofit organization battling gun violence in Pennsylvania, said that, on the same day 16 years ago, he found out his next-door neighbor had taken his life with a gun, too, when Garber was a child.
But Garber’s parents didn’t want to tell him at the time.
“Most gun-owning Americans think their firearms make them safer,” said Beth Foringer of Moms Demand Action, who lives outside Pittsburgh. “The reality is that access to a firearm increases the risks of suicide for all people in the household.”
Garber and Foringer joined other advocates with the PA Safety Alliance at the State Capitol steps in Harrisburg on Wednesday and implored the state to adopt more restrictive gun measures to promote safer communities and address gun violence, which they see as a “public health crisis.”
The alliance includes concerned students and parents, health professionals, religious leaders, community organizations, and teachers. They argue the state needs to take a more proactive approach to respond to the 1,503 people they say die every year on average in Pennsylvania due to gun violence — more than half of which are suicides.
Pennsylvania also ranks fifth among U.S. states in the number of registered firearms with 271,427 guns, according to Statista.
“Thoughts and prayers are no longer acceptable,” said Lidhia Koovor of Berks County, who is the co-sponsor of the Pennsylvania chapter of March for Our Lives. “We need action.”
Speaking against a backdrop of signs filled with X’s — representing the 1,654 Pennsylvanians who lost their lives to guns in the past year alone — the advocates called for policy changes like licensure laws, which require a face-to-face contact between a purchaser and a gun licensing agency, and a transaction waiting period.
Rep. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, who spoke at the event, said she has co-sponsored a bill that would require 72 hours for a gun sale to go through. She argued if an individual was attempting to purchase a gun in order to hurt themselves or others, the 72 hours in between could reduce impulsive or straw purchases and prompt the buyer to rethink and thus potentially save lives.
“The people who should be protecting us have failed, so it is now our responsibility to make sure we’re the last generation who have experienced such loss. We will not stop until these massacres are no longer a normalcy,” Koovor said.
Yet while the advocates assembled at the Capitol steps, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, was busy confirming this year’s Rally to Protect Your Right to Keep and Bear Arms will take place on Sept. 29 at the Capitol.
He said in a news release that one focus for the September rally will be House Bill 1747, which passed the House and is now in the Senate. The bill would repeal the ability for the governor to suspend or limit the sale of firearms and the right to open carry during a disaster emergency declaration.
“Message to (Gov.) Tom Wolf: Your blatant, unconstitutional misbehavior in office and callous disregard for the most fundamental civil liberties of your fellow man give this year’s theme of Stand Your Ground Against Socialism even more substantive significance,” Metcalfe said. “Our right to arm and defend ourselves and our loved ones is non-negotiable, and you can expect us to vigilantly defend these inherent rights on the state Capitol steps on Tuesday, Sept. 29.”
Kim Stolfer, the co-founder of Firearms Owners Against Crime, said the PA Safety Alliance event is a “shameful example of demagoguery” and the policies they advocate would “violate people’s civil liberties.”
“Our rights and our freedoms are not predicated on the actions of others, otherwise the whole concept of freedom is lost,” he said. “And if we don’t understand that, we’re done as a society.”
Rep. Kim, however, said it is precisely lawmakers and citizens from parts of the state that may not experience gun violence on a daily basis that need to step up.
“I live in an urban district,” she said. “If my farmers across the state are dealing with a bug disease that I’m not familiar with, I’m going to be supportive because it affects that community. And if we are dealing with gun violence here, trust us that it hurts our families. Trust us that it hurts and it’s plaguing our communities. Help us pass gun safety reforms.”
Koovor said the issue isn’t a political one, and the shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 prompted her to engage with the issue of gun violence.
“My peers are being killed because we care more about profit rather than the lives of America,” she said. “I will not stop fighting until the NRA is pushed out of our government and gun legislation is put through. This issue is not an issue of Democrat or Republican. It’s an issue of the people.”