OPINION

Opinion: Living the consequences of extreme gun rights

John Owens
GUEST COLUMNIST

According to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, more than 30,000 people die from gun-related deaths each year…victims that never had a chance to weigh in on the gun safety conversation. I’m one of the 78,000 people a year who are lucky enough to survive a gun injury. Lucky is a relative term. I have a spinal cord injury. I struggle with relentless nerve pain. One gun, one bullet changes everything.

Little did I know that 4:29 pm, April 15, 2005 would be the last pain-free moment I’d ever spend in my lifetime. At 4:30 pm, I entered the outer lobby of a Detroit television station, and was shot at point blank range. There was no confrontation, no attempted robbery, no yelling and screaming. A young man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia quietly pulled a 33-caliber handgun out of his pocket and pulled the trigger. It’s amazing the pain one bullet can cause. It was a living nightmare, a nightmare I share with an estimated 309 people who are shot in America on any given day.

According to police records, the weapon involved in my case was purchased at a local gun show in the Detroit suburbs. The licensed gun owner claimed the firearm was stolen from his home. This seemed to be a plausible explanation. Privately-owned weapons are stolen in America with disturbing frequency: between 300,000 and 600,000 every year, according to researchers at Harvard and Northeastern universities. But police detectives believed the gun owner resold his purchases on the streets of Detroit, ultimately ending up in the hands of a person with a severe mental illness. My story has a familiar ring.

Jared Loughner, a paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed 6 people and wounded 12 others including former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011. Gabby, an NRA member at the time of her shooting, started Americans for Responsible Solutions, one of a handful of organizations pressing Congress for more sensible gun regulations. She has worked tirelessly with her husband, retired NASA astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly, on many legislation proposals to reduce gun violence and make communities safer. But so far, it has been a losing battle against the millions of dollars spent by the NRA lobby.

Personally, I don’t see gun violence as an abstract statistic or political battle. I experience the consequences of gun violence every day, a feeling I share with thousands of families who are impacted by this uniquely American epidemic. The physical and emotional cost is immeasurable, but there is also a dollars and cents price tag. Surgeries, rehab, wheelchairs, adaptive driving devices, pain medication, it goes on and on. According to a recent study, the direct costs and indirect costs of gun violence are $229 billion a year.

I acknowledge the right to bear arms is part of our constitution and culture, but I do believe the country needs to find a reasonable solution to reduce gun violence. While arguments for and against sensible gun laws are framed as a Second Amendment issue, I see it as a public health crisis.

I am saddened and angry that Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis voted recently to expand access to guns for people with severe mental illnesses – a vote that could result in more deaths, and more paralyzed bodies like my own. While the NRA continues to control many in Congress and the White House, I hope gun violence victims and families continue to share their pain, heartache and outrage. One gun and one bullet changes everything.

John Owens is a former special projects producer who worked for the NBC affiliate in Detroit, Michigan. He currently lives in Hendersonville.