We have a choice to make - will we act to end gun violence?

Last week, Reform Jewish high school students from across the country came to Washington, D.C for the Bernard and Audre Rapaport L’Taken Social Justice Seminar. Jacob Reeves from the Kansas delegation delivered a speech on gun violence prevention along with several of his peers. Below is an excerpt. For information on how to get involved with the youth-led movement to end gun violence in America, visit www.NFTY.org/GVP.

The Second Amendment of the United States reads,

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

We cherish this text as a founding idea in this country, a bedrock principle guaranteeing to responsible Americans their right to own and use firearms, because the Second Amendment and gun ownership are embedded in the culture of Kansas and the culture of this country. We use firearms to hunt, engage in shooting sports, and protect ourselves and our loved ones. But we also know that the more guns there are in America’s communities, the more violence occurs. We know that guns are dangerous. They are fatal – by design. They are the choice weapon used to hunt animals and they are the choice weapon used to kill approximately 90 people every day. Additionally, a review of mass shootings between 2009 and 2015 found that incidents in which assault weapons or large capacity ammunition magazines were used resulted in 155 percent more people shot and 47 percent more people killed compared to other incidents. Let us not mistakenly dismiss this issue as one that is global or inevitable, a worldwide trend that we are helpless to stop. Let us not mistakenly dismiss this issue because no other developed country is forced to look head on at the tragedy, the scourge, the epidemic that is gun violence in America. Let us not mistakenly dismiss this issue because the rate of gun violence in the United States is 20 times that of any other developed country in the world.

America is at a crossroads. After dozens upon dozens of mass shootings taking the lives of hundreds of people, culminating most recently with the 18th school shooting of 2018 in Parkland, Florida, just last month which took the lives of 14 students and 3 educators, we have a choice to make. It is the same choice presented to us after 58 were murdered at a country music festival in Las Vegas. It is the same choice presented to us after 49 Americans died tragically at a gay nightclub in Orlando. It is the same choice presented to us after 32 students and others died on the campus of Virginia Tech. And it is the same choice presented to us after 20 children and 6 staff and faculty were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

We – a collective, American we – had the opportunity to enact crucial, life-saving legislation after each of these tragedies. But we did not have the courage to stand up to the forces that make that change politically difficult.

We know that an updated, streamlined universal background check system -- a Brady Background Check that would apply to every gun transaction, including all commercial sales -- would make our National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) system more effective. Brady currently blocks more than three million prohibited purchases, but with the inclusion of additional commercial sales, the 22 percent of the United States’ unlicensed gun sales would be vastly more accounted for.

In addition to Brady Background Check improvements, we also advocate for a reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban. When the ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004, America saw the number of mass shootings drop by 37 percent -- a significant number of lives saved from the threat of semi-automatic weapons augmented with military-style attachments.

The research tells us what is effective. It is now up to us to decide whether we have the resolve to look ourselves in the mirror and commit to fixing this epidemic for our country, for our communities, and for our kids.