Lawmakers, advocates widen gun safety coalition

Effort aims to stem tide of homicides

In an effort to promote gun safety and address surging homicide rates and high-profile mass shootings, a statewide coalition is forming locally to advocate for gun violence prevention and will reach out to politicians in Washington.

“Pittsburgh has been plagued by random violence,” said Gina Fleitman, a sustainability professional from the South Side. “What used to just be a fistfight or a drunken brawl now has bullets involved, and people don’t want to live here.”

She added, “It’s a very self-centered, very first-world problem.”

The coalition got its start late last month, when Ms. Fleitman’s nephew Josh Fleitman, CeaseFirePA’s Western Pennsylvania manager, asked if she would host a gun safety roundtable because “the Tree of Life shooting really struck a chord.”

At the Tree of Life, a gunman killed 11 people and wounded six at the Squirrel Hill synagogue in the worst attack ever on a Jewish community in the United States.

The roundtable at Ms. Fleitman’s home on the South Side brought together advocates, legislators, and concerned residents from different backgrounds, each of whom had been touched by gun violence.

“I hope you never have to attend a funeral [for] somebody that you love with national media trying to put a microphone in front of your face,” said Tina Ford, who as a sophomore at Virginia Tech lost a friend among the 32 people killed in a 2007 mass shooting at the school.

“It’s not just mass shootings,” said state Rep. Summer Lee, DSwissvale. “We’re looking at poverty-based shootings ... and we’re seeing communities that are starved of resources.”

Ms. Lee, who is now a U.S.

representative-elect for the 12th Congressional District, referred to a shooting that injured six people Oct. 28, the day before the roundtable discussion, when two gunmen fired at a funeral home in Brighton Heights.

“These conversations will always be in between shootings,” Ms. Lee said.

Just as a national crime wave helped to spur the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, rising gun-related homicides in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia present another opportunity, gun safety advocates say.

The roundtable noted the “blue wave” that has flipped the state House, elected John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate and tilted Pennsylvania’s representation in the U.S. House to more Democratic than Republican in the 2022 midterms.

“It’s horrible, but it creates kind of a coalition strategy,” Mr. Fleitman said. “If we can get the suburban moms afraid of mass shootings, to work with the more inner-city moms who’ve lost kids to gun violence, and recognize that our struggle is all together and build solidarity and power together, that’s the only way to go forward.”

Even though Mr. Fleitman said the majority of American gun owners support universal background checks, “a loud but small minority who are ardent in their opposition and extremism to any kind of gun safety” has thwarted major gun violence prevention legislation for years.

“They are supported by the gun lobby, who have a stranglehold over a critical mass of elected officials, whether it’s through campaign contributions, whether it’s through mobilizing that small minority of voters, whether it’s … fear on the side of Republican lawmakers” of a primary election challenge.

The Biden administration has made some progress on gun violence prevention legislation because Democrats havecontrol of both chambers of Congress. But that will change with Republicans winningthe House in the midtermelections last month.

“With such a small majority in the House and a smaller majority in the Senate, the headwinds were against us, but we did pass the Safer Communities Act,” U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, DPa., told the roundtable group. The law, which allocated $250 million to community-based violence interventions and $30 million in grants to support red flag laws, also outlawed straw purchases, where one person buys a gun for another, and ghost guns, which are assembled in a kit and lack a traceable serial number.

“It’s a frustratingly small start, but it will save lives,” she said.

Enforcement

In an ideal world, Mr. Fleitman said, the nation would pass red flag laws to take guns out of the hands of those at risk of homicide and suicide, require reporting lost and stolen guns, and universalize background checks. “We all know that it’s going to remain challenging in the political landscape we’re in,” he added.

With the GOP in charge of the House, gun safety organizations such as CeasefirePA are shifting strategy from pushing for new laws to enforcing ones already on the books.

Though Ms. Lee told the roundtable she wanted “investments for schools, investmentsfor housing, for mental health care, for wraparound services” to address povertybased shootings, Mr. Fleitman said he “encouraged her to focus more on the budgetary side, as opposed to the legislative side … exactly becauseof the tight margins.”

Citing a 2021 report on gun violence prevention that found 90% of guns used in crimes were sold by 20% of Pennsylvania dealers, Mr. Fleitman advocated for increasing funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the agency responsible for enforcing gun laws.

“The politics and the messaging around it is just easier,” he said, because it’s “investing in better and more vigorous law enforcement” rather than passing “gun control laws.”

Mr. Fleitman said such proposals appeal to veterans, police, and responsible gun owners who “recognize that there has to be reasonable laws to save lives.”

In 2021, the state Legislature passed a bill that would no longer require a license to carry concealed firearms. Withthe support of the state’s Police Chiefs Association, Gov.Tom Wolf vetoed it.

CeaseFirePA wants to make gun safety a large tent, Mr. Fleitman explained. “We’re not opposed to guns. We are opposed to gun violence.”