Want to Make Buying Guns Hard? Make It As Tough As Getting an Abortion

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It’s not just an abstract idea. It’s a bill going through the state house in Missouri. Mandatory evaluations. Mandatory talks with local leaders. Mandatory accountability. One state rep wants it to happen—and soon.

Hours before shots rang out in San Bernardino, California, leaving 14 dead and 21 injured, Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman introduced a bill with a simple premise:

What if the process to buy guns in America was as difficult as the one to get an abortion?

A flight crew member turned political consultant, Newman was inspired to run for office after watching her daughter Sophie, then 6, talk about guns and kids on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. After founding a statewide political action committee called Harriet’s List, she was elected to office in 2009 where she’s built a reputation of being tough on firearms.

Her Twitter bio, beneath a pink StandWithPP picture, describes her as: “wife, Mom, Nana, obsessive about reproductive justice, voters rights, women’s rights, equality & of course—gun violence prevention.”

Her bill, first reported on by St. Louis Magazine, isn’t modeled after the general restrictions to getting an abortion in America, but her state’s specifically. Missouri some of the toughest in the nation. Missouri is one of just a few states operating with less than five abortion clinics, and one of four that enforces a 72-hour waiting period.

Beyond the difficulty of getting an abortion in Missouri, Newman’s bill was likely inspired by the level of firearm violence in her state. In 2010 Missouri’s rate of homicide, 5.6 per 100,000 people, was 56 percent higher than the national average—making it the fourth highest in the nation. Gun deaths in the state have surpassed motor vehicle fatalities since 2013.

When The Daily Beast asked Newman for the impetus behind the bill, she replied “utter frustration.”

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/want-to-make-buying-guns-hard-make-it-as-tough-as-getting-an-abortion.html

[pipoman]

1. Missouri....nuff said

[Shrike47]

2. Makes sense to me, but we know it won't go anywhere.

[-none]

5. Maybe, but it will give people in other states ideas.

[smirkymonkey]

6. I'm all for it.

I'm so glad I live in a state with one of the lowest rates of gun ownership. It tells me that we aren't a bunch of paranoid whackjobs. Also, I don't walk around in fear of constant mass gun massacres.

[-none]

7. I'm living in Missouri.

Something needs to done. What is happening now sure is not working, because things are getting worse.

[etherealtruth]

3. Making it as hard as it it to buy Sudafed, would be a small start

https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/its-easier-to-buy-a-gun-in-the-united-states-than-sudafed/


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-things-harder-to-buy-than-guns-2015-10-02

[KittyWampus]

4. NO! Getting an abortion shouldn't be difficult. Such a screwed up direction to go.