Missouri lawmaker seeks to make guns as hard to get as abortions

Newman is, admittedly, something of an anomaly within the ultra-Conservative Missouri state legislature, and is often subjected to “jeers, sneers, and outright insults” by her Republican colleagues. “Frustration that legislators in our state, who are predominantly male, think nothing of filing restriction to make it harder for women to access a legal medical procedure that one in three women will have”.

The American Public Health Association, a scientific research-based policy and advocacy group, has recognized gun violence as a “major public health problem” for more than a decade.

Within 72 hours of their purchase, the individual also must meet with at least two families who have been victims of firearm violence and two faith leaders who have presided over funerals in the previous year of a child gun violence victim.

The bill would require prospective gun buyers to jump through the same hurdlers anti-choice lawmakers in Missouri have forced women in the state seeking their constitutional protected right to abortion to jump through. They’d also have to visit an emergency trauma center that’s now treating victims of gun violence and purchase their firearm from a store at least 120 miles away from their home since, as of 2011, 74 percent of Missouri women lived in counties with no abortion provider.

Review the medical risks associated with firearms, including photographs of fatal firearm injuries, and the alternatives to purchasing a firearm, including “materials about peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution”, with the gun dealer orally and in writing. Missouri’s gun problem is so severe that there was even a report released on how toddlers use firearms. 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.

She hopes the gun control measure passes.

As the U.S.is once again debating how to limit the availability of guns in the wake of the most recent pair of mass shootings, one lawmaker has a truly great idea: Why not regulate guns the same way we regulate abortions?

“Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun”, he writes.

Earlier in the week, state Senator Brian Munzlinger, (R-Williamstown) proposed repealing the ban on concealed weapons on college campuses, and told the Columbia Daily Tribune there is no reason to tie the two issues together.

Correction 12/4/15 3:45PM: A previous version of this article stated that Missouri had two abortion clinics.