Ogden City Police Chief Eric Young shows a thumbs up after planting a cube of daffodil held by the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah during an event honoring the 429 Utahners who lost their lives to gun violence in 2020 and the League of Women Voters was hosted at Ogden Botanical Gardens on Wednesday. (Shafkat Anowar, Desert News)
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OGDEN – Gun violence prevention community leaders in Ogden and Utah planted daffodils on Wednesday to honor the 429 Utahners who lost their lives to gun violence in 2020 and called for a law change as the rate continues to rise.
“In the past 10 years, Utah has seen a steady increase in gun violence. Every year the number of people and families affected by gun violence increases. Utahns deserve a better response from our lawmakers to this public health crisis. “Said Terri Gilfillan, chairman of the board of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah.
The daffodils were planted in the Ogden Botanical Gardens following comments from the League of Women Voters, the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, Ogden Police Chief Eric Young and the Ogden School District Superintendent Luke Rasmussen.
The gun death rate in Utah includes homicides, fatal domestic violence shootings, police intervention, gun suicides, accidental shootings, and shootings where intent is indeterminate. Utah has had a higher firearm mortality rate than the United States since 2009, according to data from the Center for Gun Violence Prevention.
During a daffodil plantation on Wednesday in honor of the 429 Utahners who lost their lives to gun violence in 2020, people listen to a speaker. (Photo: Shafkat Anowar, Deseret News)
Attention to gun violence has increased over the years as mass shootings continue across the country. A million Americans have been shot dead in the past decade, with an average of 100 Americans dying from a gun every day, according to the data. The national trend of violence has led Gilfillan to become involved.
“I kept getting angry when there was a shootout in a school or in a situation where domestic violence resulted in loss, so instead of getting angry, I chose to interfere,” Gilfillan said.
Part of this commitment includes events to honor those killed, such as the one on Wednesday, and to educate the community. Another part is continued participation in the Utah legislature.
As a not-for-profit organization, the Center for Gun Violence Prevention is campaigning for better laws on background checks and permits when purchasing a firearm. The private sale or gun display loophole allows a person to purchase a firearm without a background check if it is being sold by a private owner.
On one day in 2020, 2,874 firearms were listed for sale in Utah on the Utah Gun Exchange Site, 92% of which were private sales. The Center for Gun Violence Prevention claims that the best way to ensure that firearms are not sold to anyone who is prohibited from possession is to request a background check prior to purchase.
Young said he has seen an increase in calls related to firearms in the years since joining the police force.
To reduce violence and protect communities, lawmakers should reassess the Justice Reinvestment Act. Former Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed Law HB348, the Criminal Justice Programs and Amendments, in 2015.
HB348 was produced through a report produced by the Public Safety Performance Project of Pew Charitable Trusts and other Justice Reinvestment Initiative partners. The report contained many recommendations that formed the basis for the bill. The Justice Reinvestment Initiative is a federal program that state and local decision-makers can participate in.
“Unfortunately, the legislature and the governor’s office have interfered in every possible way with this Justice Reinvestment Act,” said Young. “We’re not breaking recidivism rates. We see repeatedly that the Justice Reinvestment Act’s sentencing guidelines do not adequately protect people in our society from criminals.”
Pointing to a recent suspicious death in Ogden that involved a firearm, Young said it was from a person who had just been released for attempted murder.
The increase in firearms on the streets can put officials at increased risk, Young said. During his career, Young saw the loss of “two officers to gun violence – two friends, two great officers.”
However, the impact goes beyond the increased risk of firearm-related deaths among officials, Young added.
“We are beginning to pay more attention nationwide and in our state to the psychological trauma officers and first responders experience throughout their careers,” he said. “You are facing some of the worst of circumstances that, God forbid, some people face once in their life – they deal with them regularly.”
The trauma of first responders increases the risk of suicide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that firefighters and police officers were more likely to die from suicide than on duty. In Utah, 84% of gun deaths are suicides.
Firearm-related suicides was another issue raised by speakers at the event on Wednesday. CDC data showed that firearms are the second leading cause of death among children and adolescents in Utah. Additionally, in 2018, the state ranked third in the nation in suicides from youth firearms.
“We are failing nationwide about violence and gun violence … we are failing our children. It’s so sad to hear that the # 1 killer, especially as Utahners and Ogdenites, we really value our children. It’s heartbreaking to hear these numbers, “said Young.
Proponents stressed the importance of gun safety and safekeeping. Safe gun storage can help prevent accidental shootings among children and others, they said, but it can also reduce access for suicidal teenagers.
Terri McCulloch of the League of Women Voters plants a daffodil by volunteers from the Gun Violence Preventer Center of Utah and the League of Women Voters in Ogden on Wednesday during an event honoring the 429 Utahners who lost their lives to gun violence in 2020 Botanical Gardens is hosted. (Photo: Shafkat Anowar, Deseret News)
“It’s a casual crime when it just sits there,” said Terri McCulloch, president of the Weber County League of Women Voters.
On a broader scale, gun suicides accounted for 85.4% of total gun deaths in Utah in 2018. MaryAnn Thompson, a board member of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention, lost her brother Richard to a gun suicide in 1987.
Thompson claims that after finding a half-written suicide note, she tried to involve law enforcement, but officials refused to remove the firearms. She was also not allowed to remove them herself because of his rightful property. Richard died of suicide the next day, she said.
Despite the incident decades ago, laws in Utah regarding firearms have gotten worse, Thompson says.
She pointed to the inability of bills drafted to protect extreme risk orders to get out of the Legislative Committee multiple times. In the same breath, she criticized the recent legislative period, which dropped a required permit for a hidden weapon. Earlier versions of the bill had been rejected twice by Herbert.
“This shouldn’t be political, this shouldn’t be a political line drawn,” Thompson said. “There are many things you can do without depriving someone of their rights under the Second Amendment because I also think that the children in Parkland who were killed and (at) Sandy Hook had the right to live. “
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