Gun ownership/ Guns

How the ‘red flag’ gun bill came to be

It started with Harvard student’s experience back in Norman, OK

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House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Rep. Marjorie Decker of Cambridge hosted a rally of sorts at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School on Wednesday where they pledged to push for passage of legislation that would allow a family member, roommate, or law enforcement official to petition a court to bar someone from owning a firearm if ownership of a gun would present a significant danger of causing injury to themselves or others. Decker said the idea for the legislation came from Reed Shafer-Ray, a senior at Harvard College. I interviewed Shafer-Ray at the rally in Cambridge.

 

Reed, where are you from and what are you studying at Harvard. I’m from Norman, Oklahoma, and I’m studying sociology.

How did you get involved with the gun control issue? What happened is I had a close family friend who I grew up with from the time I was five or six. He was one of my closest friends. His big brother, Joseph, had been dealing with mental health issues and depression probably since the time I was in middle school. He was someone who had always had struggles with these sorts of things. Everyone in town knew about it – family, family friends, everyone who was close to the family knew this was a serious, serious issue.

What happened? When he was 24, in August 2016, he went to a local gun store in town and bought some guns. He passed the background check – he didn’t have a record – so he got them. It happened twice where he bought guns in order to kill himself. Both times he was able to be talked down by his family. Of course, his family was doing everything it could to stop him from going to the gun store to buy guns. They actually phoned the gun store owner multiple times begging him not to sell guns to their son. But the gun store owner said it was company policy – since he passed the background check, we sell him a gun. The third time he went to buy a gun he ultimately killed himself with it.

How did you respond? I felt I wanted to do something. I wanted to help out, fix this injustice. If you know that something horrible is going to happen, you should be able to do something to prevent it. So I talked to Joseph’s mom and asked her what I could do. What can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen to other families?

What did you come up with? What we brainstormed was this bill, House 3610, and the other thing we brainstormed was a voluntary do-not-sell bill. Basically, you put yourself on a list and you would not be able to buy a gun. It would help people like Joseph who want to get better and not hurt themselves, but would have bad moments, bad days. His mom likes to call it the Odysseus bill, where you tie yourself to the masthead and you can’t get to the sirens. You can resist the temptation.

What brought you in contact with Rep. Decker? I had actually worked a lot with her previously through the Harvard College Democrats. We had organized lobby days up at the State House. I already had contact with her office. When I heard we could maybe introduce these bills, I called her office. They drafted the bill and filed it with the clerk’s office.

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Bruce Mohl

Editor, CommonWealth
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About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

When did you make first contact with her office? December 2016.

How does it feel to get a bill this far? It’s amazing to see that one of the bills has gotten this far and now has the support of the speaker, which I think is a momentous, momentous step in the life of this bill.

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