Working together to save lives

I am the president of Washington CeaseFire, the statewide nonprofit group dedicated to reducing gun violence. I won my election in a landslide; nobody else wanted the job. Nevertheless, I am proud to lead a board of a dozen citizen volunteers who give their time to try to make our state safer.

I joined Washington CeaseFire after the Columbine school shootings in Littleton, Colo., which took place seven years ago today. As a parent of two kids in high school, I wanted to do something to prevent that type of event from happening here. I failed, as last month our own Columbine event happened on Capitol Hill. In both cases, a deranged loner or two with an affinity for assault weapons carried out a horrific massacre of innocent children and adults.

The events of that fateful Saturday were very personal to me, because my son and daughter both live on Capitol Hill just a few blocks away from the shootings. And for two hours that morning, I frantically searched for my 21-year-old son, whose whereabouts were unknown.

I called the hospital and waited endless minutes to see if he had been admitted. And I called the Seattle police to see if he had been a victim; and as a last resort, I was on my way to the shooting site when my son let me know he was OK.

My heart went out to each of the victims' parents. I have a small sense of what they went through, and a shared realization that their lives will never be the same.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its affiliate organizations have criticized Washington CeaseFire for using the event for our own purposes. To some extent, they are right. We have to, because otherwise this life-or-death issue is ignored.

Gun violence is everybody's problem. The day before, at a CeaseFire luncheon honoring Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, a speaker from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence noted that the gun-control issue will be swept under the rug until there is another Columbine. Just 19 hours later and two miles away, there was.

Nobody is claiming that better gun-control laws could have prevented the Capitol Hill shootings. The issue is more complicated than that. It's a deadly cocktail of easy access to powerful firearms and a societal paranoia that all too often leads to gun violence. Too many people feel they need a gun to protect themselves at home when, in fact, gun ownership raises the risk of gun violence.

It's a sad fact that a gun in the home increases the chances of a completed suicide by 500 percent; almost every month in this state, a child is killed accidentally by a gun.

The magnitude of the gun problem is staggering. Nationwide since the Columbine shootings seven years ago, more than 200,000 Americans have died from gun violence. That's a number greater than the combat deaths from World War I, Vietnam and the Gulf War combined. In this state, almost 50 people are killed each month by gun violence. The problem won't go away and there is no panacea, but we can take steps to reduce the number significantly.

The NRA is a body mostly of white men who live outside urban centers — for the most part, hard-working people who love their country but who, in my opinion, have been misled by their leaders. What started as an organization dedicated to gun safety for sportsmen has morphed into something completely different. Its stubborn solidarity has led to the repeal of the ban on deadly assault weapons and a flood of gun shows and private arms sales that allow criminals and terrorists easy access to military weapons whose primary purpose is to kill people.

Washington CeaseFire and other organizations are not trying to take away handguns or hunting rifles from law-abiding citizens. We are not even challenging their antiquated and questionable claims of Second Amendment rights. We and thousands of others are just trying to save innocent lives with middle-ground, common-sense laws. There should be no reason why CeaseFire and the gun lobby in this state can't come together for the common good.

Our proposal is this. Let's agree to get together with Gov. Christine Gregoire in the same room to see how we can work together to reduce the number of deaths here in Washington state. The NRA is welcome to bring along any other elected state official of its choosing. We'll put in writing the right of law-abiding citizens to own handguns and nonmilitary hunting rifles, providing we work together to save lives.

The options include stricter measures on gun shows and private arms sales, an ad campaign to build awareness on gun safety, mandatory trigger locks to prevent accidental shootings, and marked bullets so we can trace criminals to weapons. In short, a comprehensive joint program to address this deadly problem.

CeaseFire will go more than halfway to make this happen. We'd set an example for the rest of the country. Our efforts won't bring back the children of Columbine or the innocent victims on Capitol Hill, but we can ensure that they did not die in vain.

Ralph Fascitelli is the president of Washington CeaseFire, www.washingtonceasefire.org