Are Rhode Islanders becoming desensitized to gun violence?
PROVIDENCE  The signing into law of Rhode Island's newest gun-control laws provided the backdrop Monday as the attorney general and a state lawmaker questioned if the "slow and steady drip of gun violence" had lessened the public's shock. It also provided a venue for Barrington Rep. Jason Knight to talk publicly, for the first time, about his wife Nicole's harrowing experience during a shooting. She was working at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, on Dec. 30, 1994, when John Salvi entered with a semiautomatic rifle and sprayed the waiting room with gunfire. Salvi later opened fire at another abortion clinic nearby. Before he was done with his rampage, he had killed two people and wounded five. An enlisted nuclear power-plant operator in the U.S. Navy, Knight was on a submarine in the Atlantic, when the headline "Two Killed, Boston Abortion Clinic Shootings" came over the teletype. Because of the delay in getting messages to the sub, it was more than a week before he got a "family-gram" telling him that Nicole Jellinek, who was then his girlfriend and now his wife, had been in the back of the building during the shooting and survived. "The wounds inflicted that day, people still feel them 20 some odd years later. They are life changing. ... It is our responsibility to get after it." Knight was the lead House sponsor of one of the bills that Gov. Dan McKee signed into law on Monday. It prohibits the sale by a middleman, or "straw purchaser," of weapons for resale to others who are prohibited from buying guns on their own, including felons convicted of gun crimes in the past. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told a packed roomful of people, gathered at the State House for the signing, that Rhode Island's gun problems are not hypothetical. "We were at a murder scene just last night,'' he said. "It is such a slow and steady drip of violence that when significant cases are made by the office [and] by the Providence Police Department, the media and the public barely notices. "On Friday we announced the seizure of 1,500 fentanyl pills, a ghost gun and a high capacity magazine loaded with 23 rounds. ... It barely hit the public's consciousness." "Why do straw purchases matter?'' he asked rhetorically. "Because then we can follow up and track down the person who bought 89 guns for people who can't legally possess them before they are out on the street ... in the hands of a fentanyl dealer with 1,500 pills," Neronha said. Knight, a criminal defense lawyer, told the gathering that there is no doubt in his mind: "When somebody goes into a gun store and buys 24 pistols for resale on the streets to prohibited persons, that is a giant pipeline of guns into a community that regularly engages in criminal conduct." "And we're getting at that with a common-sense, clear and easily understood bill that's going to go on the books and make those cases easier to prosecute." "Gun violence, we talk about it so much,'' Knight said. He said it brings to mind a game he used to play with his children. Repeat a word so many times, "eventually you kind of forget what it means." He said he worries the same holds true for the words "gun violence." "We talk about it so much. ... it's a source of controversy. There's legislative battles back and forth. ... Every time there's some horrible incident out there, the conversation is reignited. "I think for a lot of people it can become kind of background noise,'' he fretted. Another new law signed Monday bans guns on school grounds, except when in the hands of police or other authorized security personnel. The legislation was named in honor of former Sen. Harold Metts, the retired assistant school principal who championed the ban year after year. "I am very glad that Rhode Island has joined the vast majority of states that recognize that guns absolutely do not belong in our schools. Our children and teachers will be safer and will feel more secure." In a unified show of support, all five of Rhode Island's top statewide officers appeared and spoke in favor of the bills signed Monday, including the three likely to run against each other for governor next year: McKee; General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea. There was no mention of a third gun-related bill passed this year at the behest of legislative Republicans and gun-rights enthusiasts. That bill requires the attorney general to compile and report the kinds of firearms used in crimes, and the disposition of those cases.