Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Local group tries to make sense of the gun issue
WEST WHITELAND » Grassroots organization GunSenseUs met Wednesday, at Grove United Methodist Church, to roll out the group’s vision plan for 2020.
Fifty members heard Chairperson Ann Colby Cummings say that the group, which lists both gun and non-gun owners as members, wants to reduce injury and
death from firearms and identify areas of consensus.
She said that 70 percent of gun owners and a higher percentage of non-gun owners support the group’s consensus.
GunSenseUs is lobbying and contacting legislators, setting up presentations and educating the public through a program called B.E.T. (Background Checks, Extreme Risk Protection Orders and Training.)
The group supports background checks for all gun purchases. Currently in Pennsylvania, long guns (for example semi-automatic rifles) may be privately sold without a background
check. Ninety-three percent of all voters, including 93 percent of gun owners support universal background checks, Colby Cummings said.
Extreme Risk Protection Orders are a tool for law enforcement and for family members to ask a court to temporarily remove guns from a person who shows signs they may harm themselves or others. Eighty percent of all voters, including 74 percent of gun owners support the concept, Colby Cummings said.
Colby Cummings is a proponent of training programs for people who buy guns. She said that more than a million hunters have been educated. Why not all gun purchasers?
“Training is meant to help insure some basic level of knowledge,” she said.
“We are very excited about the B.E.T. consensus agenda because we believe this combination of actions can reduce gun injury and death stemming from many causes,” Colby Cummings said. “This includes reducing gun suicides, shootings from guns obtained through straw purchases, unintentional shootings and more.”
Colby Cummings is a big supporter of the GunSenseUs B.E.T. agenda.
“The beauty of the B.E.T. agenda is that these areas are three policy areas where a significant majority of gun owners and non-gun owners already agree,” she said. “Now we just need to tell our elected officials we want action in these areas.”
“While we had over 39,000 gun deaths last year, and 400 mass shootings, where four or more people were injured, not including the shooter, there is hope,” she said. “We are seeing states make changes that have reduced gun injury and death.”