The Other 60 Percent

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:



Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School brought renewed national attention to preventing gun violence, at least 2,200 people have died by gunfire in homicides and accidental deaths, according to an analysis by the Huffington Post. Yet even this horrific figure does not fully describe the toll of gun violence. At least as many people have died by their own hands: nearly 60 percent of all gun deaths are suicides.

Mostly, the people who die by gun suicide would not have died but for their access to firearms. In fact, the urge to die by suicide is often overwhelming but brief. According to one study of people who attempted suicide but survived, more than two-thirds took action within an hour of deciding to kill themselves.

Someone who has access to a gun within that hour-long window and who uses it is very likely to die: about 85 percent of suicide attempts by firearm result in death. Other attempts by other means are much less likely to be fatal. For example, attempted drug overdoses are fatal only 2 percent of the time.

If you have a gun in your house, I urge you to take careful responsibility for ensuring that it is locked away from anyone who might use it in a suicide. And if you or someone you know ever considers suicide, please call 1-800-SUICIDE for help.

Equal Protection Under the Law

As a member of Congress, I begin each term by swearing an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I take this obligation very seriously and keep a copy of the Constitution in my pocket at nearly all times.

In order to uphold this oath, I recently joined more than 200 of my colleagues in urging the courts to overturn the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a matter that, today, had its moment before the Supreme Court.

DOMA, which was passed into law in 1996, prevents the federal government from recognizing even those same-sex marriages that were lawfully performed in one of the states. The law has fractured our legal system and led to bewildering complications for same-sex spouses.

Among the many problems: DOMA may prevent a legally married woman from fully inheriting her wife’s property upon death, an issue in today’s Supreme Court case. It may prevent a legally married man from applying for citizenship on behalf of his foreign-born husband, as happened to a Princeton couple recently. It may prevent the same-sex spouses of federal employees from gaining access to health insurance.

In short, DOMA forces the federal government to choose among legal marriages, treating some as worthy and some as unworthy. And it requires federal officials to treat loving, committed couples as though they are strangers in the eyes of the law. These hurtful consequences are all the result of DOMA’s insistence upon treating some citizens as less equal than others – a clear violation, it seems to me, of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress