Gun regulations are constitutional, Josh Hawley. We can use them to fight KC violence | Opinion

An open letter to Sen. Josh Hawley:

Thank you for your written response to my message concerning gun safety in Missouri. I wanted to follow up with a few points in the hopes you can see my perspective and perhaps look at this life-and-death subject in a different way.

First, I am an alumni of the University of Missouri Law School (your former employer), where I received a first-class education in constitutional law. In your letter to me, you state that you oppose an assault weapons ban because it would infringe on the Second Amendment rights of people in the United States. With respect to your own distinguished legal background, I think you misunderstand the difference between infringement and regulation.

As a citizen, I am guaranteed numerous rights by the Constitution, including the right to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court has determined that such a right exists, and I accept it as the law of the land. However, I think you would also agree with me that none of our rights — even those enshrined in the Constitution — is absolute. The government has an interest in regulating every single constitutional right. I must register to vote. I cannot defame my fellow citizens. You see my point. Every right has limits, especially in our case where more than 40,000 Americans have died this year from gun violence, including thousands of children.

In your letter, you also emphasize the need to increase penalties for gun crime and to “fully fund” police departments. Two points here: First, the overwhelming body of research shows that increased criminal penalties do not deter crime. Second, you have only to look at Kansas City to see that more money does not mean less crime. KC is one of the Top 10 most dangerous cities in America (and our Democratic mayor has virtually no control over our police department, as you know) — and it is required to spend 25% of its general revenue on police, and some estimates put that figure much higher. Moreover, I have often heard that the police force’s job isn’t to prevent crimes, but to solve them. Unfortunately, this does not help to accomplish our goal of saving lives.

I am a co-founder of a group called Lives on the Line Kansas City. We are a group of mothers in the Kansas City area who are desperately trying to keep our children and our community safe. Our goal is to advocate for commonsense gun reform to reduce the amount of gun crime in our area. Things such as safe gun storage laws. Universal background checks. Bans on ghost guns and extended magazines.

Because if “guns don’t kill people — people kill people,” then let’s empower law enforcement to identify the wrong people and stop them from obtaining deadly weapons. And prevent small children from getting access to guns and dying from accidental shootings. And stop suicidal teenagers from killing themselves with their parents’ guns. And don’t let radicalized or mentally ill school shooters purchase AR-15s. And keep perpetrators of domestic violence from hoarding guns and killing their partners.

We can do this. Please help us. Our children are dying.

Thank you.

Jessie Bustamante is an attorney in Kansas City. She is co-founder of Lives on the Line, a grassroots nonprofit organization of mothers from Missouri and Kansas dedicated to finding radically bipartisan solutions to gun violence. Lives on the Line does not lobby.