Watch out, Juan

Last week, Congressman Juan Vargas, the Democrat voters elected a few years ago to succeed Bob Filner, made public his decision to demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allow the Upper Chamber to vote on a bill that presumably aims to help prevent gun violence and save lives.

In total, 213 lawmakers called the senator from Kentucky.

According to our San Diego representative it has been over 160 days since the Lower Chamber passed H.R.8.

“The American people cannot wait any longer— our lives depend on it,” Vargas wrote on Twitter.

In the post made on Facebook by our lawmaker one can read that Vargas expressed pride in his request, along with the other 212 colleagues to demand McConnell bring commonsense gun bills for a vote.

Basically the bill would prohibit the transferring of guns between private parties, particularly those unlicensed, but would allow such trade if a permitted vendor first takes possession of the gun in order to first determine whether the buyer has a criminal background.

Leader McConnell has called other Republicans in committee-leading positions to address the specifics President Donald Trump asked to address after the most recent shootings that had cost dozens of lives.

However, even if the bill is passed and enacted I am still wondering if it will be enough to stop gun violence.

Let’s take, for example, the arrest of the Dayton murderer’s friend by federal authorities. This individual was arrested for lying on his gun permit application by answering no to the drug consumption question in the document.

As seen, HR8 would have done little to nothing to prevent the deaths of several people in the early stages of August 14. Though the bill is a step in the right direction it is obvious more is needed to stop massive shootings, including psychological and drug tests.

I also think Rep. Vargas needs to implement the provisions included in the bill before statistics of incidents and deaths increase in his jurisdiction.

As of last Friday an organization named Gun Violence has recorded 316 incidents between 2014 and 2019. These incidents had left 106 fatal victims and 190 people injured. Of those victims one was a kid of less than 12 years of age and 14 were teenagers.

The organization has also registered two officer-involved incidents.

More importantly, the district Vargas represents has witnessed five mass shootings — one per year.

Just this year, District 51 has reported 33 gun violence incidents, nine deaths, 23 injured individuals and one mass shooting.

Not only have these massive shootings taken precious lives all over the country. Americans, especially those of Mexican or Latin American descent, are becoming hostages of fear. Just this week a man was arrested behind an electronics store after allegedly making criminal threats of shooting shoppers. On Wednesday, another individual was apprehended by Imperial County Sheriff deputies after presumably making threats to cause harm to students and staff at Imperial Valley College.

At the same time, people in the United States are suffering stress due to these shootings. According to the American Psychological Association about a quarter of Americans had changed their habits of visiting shopping malls.

If there are some people who do not care about victims, surely they will be impacted by the decline in mall shopping, which in turn will affect economic growth, employment and a higher risk of recession.

Arturo Bojorquez is Adelante Valle Editor.