Every week in the past, a gunman opened hearth at a San Jose, California, rail yard, killing 9 of his colleagues earlier than apparently killing himself. Some eight miles away, the gunman’s residence had been set ablaze.
Though officers are nonetheless making an attempt to piece collectively precisely what occurred that morning and why — a activity which will by no means actually be full — the main points which have emerged are gutting, partly as a result of they had been predictable in a nation the place such mass shootings have develop into a numbing routine.
The gunman had for years complained about his job on the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, telling his ex-wife that he wished he may kill his co-workers and writing about his hatred for the company in a pocket book as soon as flagged by border officers as he returned from a visit. He was described by colleagues, neighbors and former companions as an emotionally risky, probably mentally in poor health loner.
Victims’ family members described the shattering sudden lack of dad and mom, spouses and pals who had been merely beginning an strange work day once they had been killed.
This wasn’t the primary time that San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, had been referred to as upon to consolation group members grieving for family members killed in a mass capturing.
In 2019, “we misplaced two kids,” he advised me Tuesday, referring to the deaths of two younger metropolis residents throughout a capturing on the Gilroy Garlic Competition.
Now, as then, Liccardo mentioned, the primary precedence has been to make sure that survivors and households have entry to counseling and assist. However he mentioned he additionally feels urgency to enact insurance policies that may stem the tide of gun violence — even when long-sought federal gun management laws has been elusive.
“Mayors don’t have the luxurious of providing prayers and platitudes,” he mentioned. “Folks count on concrete actions.”
To that finish, Liccardo mentioned, he hoped the San Jose Metropolis Council would approve, by the top of the 12 months, a first-in-the-nation requirement that gun homeowners within the metropolis insure their weapons or pay charges to maintain them. The concept, he defined, is that weapons are contributing to a public well being disaster — and it’s costly.
Liccardo mentioned that requiring drivers to hold auto insurance coverage has helped reduce down on fatalities from automotive crashes, so having the personal insurance coverage trade get entangled would assist incentivize accountable gun possession and defray the price of gun violence to taxpayers, who pay for emergency and legislation enforcement providers.
The mayor first proposed the concept in 2019 within the wake of the Gilroy capturing, however he mentioned the pandemic delayed progress on the measure.
“We had been working with an epidemiologist on the county, so we put that apart,” he mentioned. “Now, I believe we’re prepared to come back again.”
In fact, gun legal guidelines at each degree have confronted intense and sustained authorized challenges. Liccardo advised me he’s “not delusional” about the truth that a gun regulation ordinance would require a vigorous authorized protection. However he mentioned that city-level coverage modifications may present concepts that Congress and even the state legislature wouldn’t be nimble sufficient to enact.
“Nobody would say that it might be excellent for every metropolis to give you its personal insurance policies,” he mentioned. “However we acknowledge that cities will be laboratories for coverage innovation.”
Copyright 2021, The New York Occasions Firm
