Like so many, I am filled with grief and sadness over the shootings of African American men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis and the attacks on police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
Sadly, shootings have become an all-too-common occurrence, not just around the country, but in our community, too.
Ten years ago, my friend Pam Waechter was killed and five others critically injured in a hate crime shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. At the time, I served as a Jewish Federation board member and helped in the immediate aftermath and with the long-term recovery. I saw firsthand the toll gun violence takes on the victims, their families and friends… and society at large.
Gun violence doesn’t just affect one person, one body. Its effects ripple out like water, a single droplet becomes a wave.
The emotional and psychological costs to the survivors and their families are incalculable. But we do know the financial costs to our community, and they are dizzyingly high.
The health costs alone from a shooting are staggering. After the Jewish Federation shooting, victims spent weeks at Harborview Medical Center undergoing surgery after surgery. Next there is physical therapy and rehabilitation. Over the course of weeks and months as bodies heal, attention turns to mental health treatment to reduce the nightmares, the panic, the trauma that never fully disappears.
There are costs to our legal system too. It took four years and two high profile court cases for the shooter to be convicted. Four years of court time, public defense attorneys and prosecutors, security, witness testimonies, victim advocates and jail costs. The shooter will now spend the rest of his life in prison.
All of this at taxpayer expense.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of costs of workers’ compensation, lost wages, reduced benefits from the philanthropic work of the Jewish Federation or the billions of increased Homeland Security dollars that were distributed to religious organizations across the country to increase security at their facilities after this senseless crime.
This tragedy and many others may have been prevented if I-1491, the Extreme Risk Protection Order Initiative on the ballot this November, had been in place. An Extreme Risk Protection Order may have helped ensure that shooter was never able to get a gun. It would have given law enforcement and his parents a tool to step in before the anger and hate in that man’s heart turned to murder.
Next year in Olympia, I will push my colleagues to take up meaningful legislation to further reduce gun deaths in our state.
But you don’t have to be a legislator to change our state laws to prevent senseless gun violence. You can make a huge difference by joining with me and voting for I-1491 in November.
July 28 is the 10-year anniversary of the Jewish Federation shooting. It is also my daughter’s birthday. I fight for stronger gun laws for the memory of my friend Pam and for a brighter—and less violent—future for my daughter and all the children in our community.
Tana Senn is the State Representative for the 41 st Legislative District, which includes Bellevue, Mercer Island, Beaux Arts Village, Newcastle, Renton, Issaquah and Sammamish.
