Protecting Our Children’s Lives from Preventable Gun Violence
In 2022, the University of Michigan released a study stating that for the first time in American History, guns rather than accidents or illness are the leading cause of death for American children. While some want to ignore the imperative that gun safety is everyone’s responsibility, I pledge not to remain silent or passive on this matter of life or death that impacts us all. Just as automobile safety laws have reduced deaths from automobiles, firearm safety laws can reduce gun deaths. Much as nobody is going to take away a person’s car without due process, nobody is going to take away a law abiding person’s guns. Grand Traverse County needs firearm safety laws be enforced in our county for the safety of all. Compliance with Michigan law by the gun shop would have saved our son’s life. A ticket to the shop owner by the County Prosecutor as requested by the Grand Traverse County Sherriff’s complaint filed after Aaron’s death would have signaled that in Grand Traverse County, gun safety laws will not be ignored.
To prevent suicide and suffering, I have been active in supporting committees that seek to build new regional in-patient mental health facilities and improve programs in Grand Traverse Center to promote healing and mental wellness. People suffering, as Aaron was, from life threatening anxiety, depression or other aspects of serious mental illness must not be turned away due to a shortage of beds, psychiatrists or therapists at Northern Lakes Community Mental Health and Munson Medical Center, who are partners in this lifesaving mission. I know we can prevent suicide deaths in northern Michigan. I pledge to do it.
Source: Study published by the University of Michigan in 2022
I registered to run for County Commission holding the last photo of our beloved son, Aaron with his dog. Gun shops were declared nonessential during the early days of the highly contagious Covid pandemic in 2020 when hospitals were overflowing with people falling ill and dying in droves. With schools, colleges and offices closed and uncontrolled illness spreading, depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions reached dangerously high levels. When Aaron’s doctor and therapist closed their offices and messages went out over the radio not to go to the hospital, he walked into a noncompliant local gun shop shortly after his dad was laid-off from 27 years of employment with the same company. Losing employment is terrifying for families, and it hit Aaron especially hard. Dan now works as an independent consultant, but Aaron did not survive the indescribable stress of all that happened during the pandemic.
Suffering from anxiety, depression, and a lack of access to qualified mental health care, inside a local non-compliant gun shop operating against state law, our son was sold a semiautomatic rifle. Aaron was a 24-year-old honors nursing student at NMC suffering from indescribable anxiety, depression and pain who had been misprescribed a stimulant that caused insomia, mood wings, headaches and chest pain. He died alone hours later. Aaron was a wonderful person whose death from a carelessly sold firearm and dangerous medication side effects while ill robbed our family and community of a promising young man who was dearly loved and in need of lifesaving care that was unavailable in our community. When he desperately needed mental health support, a merchant instead sold him a gun with disregard for the Covid 19 Emergency Pandemic precautions.
If elected, I will continue to serve on local committees to protect our children and vulnerable adults, helping open a new residential center to provide comprehensive mental health care and residential programs leading to emotional, cognitive, physical and mental healing. This will require support, teamwork and cooperation from the entire community including funding from various sources like Munson Medical Center, Northern Lakes Community Mental Health, grants, gifts, and support from the federal, state and county government.
If elected, I pledge to vote to rescind the irresponsible “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” designation implemented in March 2020 by majority GOP members of the County Commission that resulted in Aaron far too easily obtaining the deadly firearm that ended his young life on a miserable, sleeting day in late April 2020.
Because of the influence of the “2A” declaration by the County Commission that gun violations will be ignored rather than prosecuted in Grand Traverse County, the County Prosecutor failed to act on the complaint filed by the Grand Traverse County Sheriff against the shop owner for the illegal sale of that gun and others during the pandemic shutdown. Poor leadership from the top spoils public safety enforcement, resulting in a dangerous atmosphere of lawlessness for all.
Life is precious and irreplaceable. Grand Traverse County residents have a right to know that state and federal law will be followed and locally enforced rather than ignored by elected leaders, public servants and businesses in our community. No one in our county is above the law. It is time for due process and justice for all to be restored rather than ignored in Grand Traverse County. A vote for me is a vote for law, order, and safety for everyone in our community.
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