On Wednesday, members of the Alabama House Democrat Caucus held a press conference to promote their bills to curb gun violence by passing more restrictions on guns. Democratic lawmakers Chris England, Phillip Ensler, and Ontario Tillman have all sponsored bills that would add certain restrictions on gun owners in Alabama.
The legislators oppose the permitless carry bill that was passed last year and became law at the first of this year.
“Requiring a permit makes it easier for us to recognize who is supposed to have guns,” England said. There is, “An 11 percent increase in homicides in states that have passed similar laws.”
Alabama Today asked that instead of putting government limits on guns, why not build more prisons to lock up more people for longer periods of time that commit serious crimes.
“There is no correlation between firearm possession and the access to them and the number of prisons that we have,” England said. “We’re lawmakers. We’re responsible for governing systems. It is impossible to suggest to people that we are governing systems if our only answer is to build more prison space; because we can’t afford it at this point, and also building more prison space will not remove the proliferation of guns we have seen since January First of this year. It is indisputable at this point that there are more guns on our streets now than ever before in our history because it is easier for people who shouldn’t have them to carry them in public. I don’t know how that helps us in regard to public safety, and it certainly does not help us when we talk about adding more prison space.”
“Some of these proposals do have criminal penalties if someone violates them, so we all believe to be clear in accountability and enforcement, but building more prisons and locking people up for life for committing a crime is not where we stand,” Ensler said. “What we are saying is yes, if you commit a crime, there should be consequences, but if we want to get into the conversation of building more prisons, we need to focus on, as we have talked many times as a Caucus, is having better reentry programs. Having better services that help people stay out of prison in the first place. So, absolutely no. Building more prisons is not the solution to this. That would be an easy and cowardly way to try to address the issue.”
“We are a solution looking for a problem,” Tillman said. “We are fighting the symptoms instead of the root cause. The reason why people are in prison is because they have been convicted of a serious crime or a crime attaching prison time along with it. What we need to address is the problem of gun violence. We need to reduce it. We need to curb it. We need to stop letting our children be gunned down at their workplaces, at their churches, and different places like that. This is supposed to be a safe haven. What we need to do is represent all of the people of Alabama and protect the citizens of Alabama.”
“There is nothing normal or acceptable about this,” Tillman said of gun violence. “We are here today because we refuse to accept this as the new normal.”
“The leading cause of death of children in Alabama is gun violence,” Tillman said. “We are not trying to take away the Second Amendment rights of people to own guns.”
Tillman expressed his support for red flag laws, outlawing the Glock Switch, and “repealing dangerous laws like the before mentioned concealed carry.”
“These are common sense proposals that the majority of people support,” Tillman said.
“Gun violence is an epidemic that is impacting everyone,” Ensler said. “These are reasonable proven measures that have worked in other cities and other states, including in Republican states.”
“Rep. Drummond has been working on a bill that has gotten out of committee legislation to keep guns off of school campuses and making sure that parents are responsible,” Ensler said.
Ensler has introduced eight different measures. These include a ban on trigger activators or ‘Glock switches,’ a ban on ghost guns- guns that do not have serial numbers, a line item in the budget to fund hospital-based violence intervention programs in trauma centers, a red flag law, more mental health counselors in schools, and more, the creation of a grant program through ADECA for cities to implement programs to end gun violence.
“This is a preventable crisis,” England said.
Thursday will be day 15 of the 2023 Alabama Regular Legislative Session.
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