Here & Now

State Reps. Debate Gun Control Bills

Frederica Freyberg:

The school shooting in Florida has sparked national outrage and dialogue, again. The Wisconsin legislature also debated and acted on gun violence in schools. In a moment, we’ll hear what passed this week at the capitol and why some don’t think it goes far enough. But first a look at a proposal to introduce something in the state legislature called a lethal violence protective order, more commonly known as a red flag law, which allows a court to order the removal of guns from someone showing signs of mental health crisis or escalating threats. It would allow the seizing of guns before someone can commit violence. Such a bill was introduced in Wisconsin last session by Democrats but it died in committee. A similar bill could be reintroduced. We sat down with a proponent of this kind of law. Shel Gross is director of public policy for Mental Health America of Wisconsin and member of the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health. We started by asking what a lethal violence protective order does.

Shel Gross:

It's a judicial process that would allow either a law enforcement officer or other individuals in a person’s life to request a — first a temporary and then a longer-term injunction to remove any firearms they might have in their possession. Would also prevent them from purchasing additional firearms. And specifically we’d be targeting individuals who are believed to be in danger of harming themselves or danger of harming other people.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why is it called “Families Know First” legislation?

Shel Gross:

So that’s actually a term that was used when the bill was introduced last session. And it really has to do with the fact that very often family members are seeing something in their loved one that is concerning. They’re hearing them talk about killing themselves or they’re hearing them talk maybe not specific threats about killing other people, but just things that are concerning to them. And very often, there’s little they can do. As you know, in Wisconsin we have emergency detention and involuntary commitment, but you have to be somebody identified with a mental illness. Sometimes people who are expressing these things have not been so identified. It’s a higher bar, as it should be, because then you’re talking about actually locking somebody up in a psychiatric facility. So this provides a way also for families to be able to at least help keep the family member a little bit safer if there are these warning signs.

Frederica Freyberg:

Five states currently have red flag laws on the books. 18 other states have proposed them. This week in the state Assembly, the gun debate escalated with Democrats calling for universal background checks. Republicans instead passed a bill that allows funding of grants to schools to provide firearms to safety officers. The same bill strengthens restrictions on straw purchases. We talk with both sides of this issue, starting with Republican Representative Joe Sanfelippo of New Berlin. We met up with him at his Assembly office and started by asking why the Republican rejection of universal background checks.

Joe Sanfelippo:

So I think that, I mean, what we’ve seen in most of these horrific incidents that have taken place is that a background check didn’t stop, because the individuals had gone through background checks and they still were able to pull off these crimes. So we’re interested in taking a look at anything that is going to help the situation. But I don’t like to do knee-jerk reactions where we say, oh let’s quick run out and do these background checks cause again, most of these individuals have passed a background check, and so there isn’t anything we could have done from the background check standpoint that would have prevented this particular case that we’ve just seen last week.

Frederica Freyberg:

A Madison Democrat in the Assembly says this, “Assembly Republicans show they are in the death grip of the NRA.” What’s your response to that?

Joe Sanfelippo:

You know I think that’s just nonsense because in the end, what you have to do is balance our freedoms in the country, right? I mean no matter whatever freedom we’re talking about, if it’s second amendment, if it’s voting rights or whatnot, there’s responsibilities that come along with every right. So we as legislators have to find that balancing act of where everybody is protected. I think when you take a look at what the NRA — I mean, there’s studies that have been out there that what the NRA spends on their political activities is minimal percentage and it mirrors or it really doesn’t have any effect. But we have to just take a look at the policies to see why we are finding ourselves in these situations, are becoming a little more prevalent than we’ve seen in the past and really get to the root of the cause.

Frederica Freyberg:

As opposed to that universal background check, an amendment offered instead of that would allow funding armed safety officers in schools. How would that work?

Joe Sanfelippo:

I think Representative Kleefisch made some great points when he talked about that. We spend millions of dollars protecting government buildings, protecting sporting venues. Everywhere you go, where there are whether it’s dignitaries or just large amounts of public, we have armed guards there. But we don’t do it in our school. And for somehow, some people seem to think that’s such a horrible idea. But our children are our most important assets that anybody has in their life. That’s the way we value kids. So why wouldn’t we want to protect them? What this bill would do is provide some grant funding to school district to make the decision on their own if they want to put security and safety officers in the schools. And we would help them pay for that in order to do that. And I think that’s a great way to take care of a problem, at least in the long run. Now, we have to get to the root of what the cause of this problem is and that’s going to be a little bit longer time. But in the immediate future, this is an important step.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you know what the root is?

Joe Sanfelippo:

I think — I don’t. And I think that we need to really spend some time to take a look at why 10 or 15 or 20 years ago our kids never even had these ideas to go and shoot up a school or do things like this. And now all of a sudden they have these ideas. So why? What has changed in our society to make our young people feel like this is — I don’t want to say acceptable, because nobody — I don’t really think they think it’s acceptable, but they’re doing it for — they want to be famous or they think it’s a means that can be used. We need to really take a look at that. I think focusing in maybe on the mental health issues is going to be key.

Frederica Freyberg:

There’s a lot of talk right now about banning assault type weapons. What do you think of that?

Joe Sanfelippo:

Again, in 2016, according to the FBI stats, we had a little over 300 people killed with long guns. We had over 700 people killed just by being kicked or beaten to death and 1200 killed in stabbing deaths. So we’re focusing on the vehicle that has been used to commit the crime, but we’re not focusing on what is causing the crime to be committed in the first place. And that I think is where our focus needs to be. Because we could pass some tougher, additional gun laws. We could pass background checks and then we’ll pat ourselves on the back and say we did something. But I don’t think we have really addressed the problem until we find out what is causing it.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Representative Sanfelippo, thanks you very much.

Joe Sanfelippo:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Representative Sanfelippo also says he’s all for arming school teachers in Wisconsin. As for Democrats, in addition to calling for universal background checks that would require checks on people buying at gun shows or online in addition to purchases from licensed dealers, they also call for banning people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from buying firearms and a ban on bump stocks. Democratic Representative Chris Taylor of Madison calls the Assembly Republicans irresponsible for rejecting such action. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Chris Taylor:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the president wants to see armed teachers and our own attorney general is also open to it. What’s your response to that?

Chris Taylor:

Well, teachers are not asking to be armed and students are not asking for armed guards at their schools. What students and faculty on campuses are asking us to do is please prevent dangerous people from getting weapons in the first place. Address the fundamental cause of what’s going on with people getting easy access to firearms who are dangerous and they shouldn’t have them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Don’t armed officers in schools, though, address one prong of school safety?

Chris Taylor:

You know, I should say the school in Florida where the horrible recent massacre occurred, they did have an armed guard there. It didn’t change anything. There’s no evidence it changes anything. What we do know though is background checks can help prevent a dangerous person from getting a weapon. 20% of gun sales are no questions asked. They’re done at gun shows. They’re done on the internet. No questions asked. And so we know it’s going to take a lot of steps, my colleagues and I, my Democratic colleagues and I know there’s going to be a lot of steps needed to stem this horrible tide of gun violence. Background checks is a common sense first step. It’s not going to solve everything but it’s going to address some of the issues.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact in the case of the Florida shooter, it wouldn’t have prevented him from having that gun because he bought it from a gun store.

Chris Taylor:

Right. We have many other laws that are pending. We highlighted three common sense laws in our plea to Republican legislators because we thought how could anyone oppose these laws? 90% of our nation supports background checks. In Wisconsin polling, background checks are supported by every community. Doesn’t matter if you’re rural, suburban, urban. So we thought these three proposals we were highlighting that had been sitting in the legislature with no action were just so common sense that no one could oppose them. But we also have a lot of other pieces of legislation, gun legislation. I have a 48-hour waiting period. There’s probably going to be a red flag piece of legislation introduced, where a parent or law enforcement could flag a dangerous person for a judge, so maybe that would have had a difference. Florida does not have that type of law. We also did — we’ve had incidents in Wisconsin that maybe could have been stopped with a background check. We had a horrible incident at a spa in the Brookfield area. That shooter was not supposed to have a gun. There was a domestic violence restraining order against him. But he got a gun on the internet. So we know background checks is not going to solve all of our problems, but we thought it’s such a common sense first step.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you know about the status of any red flag law because we actually spoke to that earlier in the program? Is that something that you think the majority would be responsive to?

Chris Taylor:

That's something we’re going to find out. I don’t think Republicans are going to be responsive to that. If they’re not responsive to background checks. But look, we’re going to keep trying. I’m a mom of two kids. I have two children. I have a little boy in elementary school. I have a middle schooler. These students, I heard from the East High students. They came up and joined us at the capitol this last week. And they said please protect us. Please, we need you to do something. We’re not safe. We don’t feel safe going to school. They’re afraid to go to school. We have an obligation to our children to do absolutely everything that we can to stem this horrible tide. It’s not happening in other countries. You don’t hear about mass shootings. There’s certainly mentally ill people in other countries. So one of the key ingredients we believe is easy access to firearms for people who are dangerous. And we’ve got to stop that.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about banning AR-15s or those style of weapons?

Chris Taylor:

It's something certainly we should look at cause I do believe all options are on the table. I’ve not seen a piece of legislation that is crafted in a way that I think isn’t easy to get around. Because sometimes what you do — we saw this with the federal assault weapon ban, is it’s easy to get around. You just change something on a gun. So we talked about also ammunition capacity limitations. That might be something that we also look at. But we probably have now 10 to 15 different pieces of gun safety legislation. None of it’s moving in this legislature. Republicans are stopping it all for no good reason except they’re in the grip of the NRA. And that’s the reality that we have here.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Representative Taylor, thanks very much.

Chris Taylor:

Thank you.