Casey urges action on gun control, highlights legislative accomplishments
Michael Palm | Herald-Standard
During a recent visit to the Herald-Standard, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., touted several legislative accomplishments, including the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act and Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act).
Michael Palm | Herald-Standard
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., called for the Senate to debate and vote on tougher gun legislation in a visit with the Herald-Standard Tuesday. “I just think there’s a list of common-sense gun measures we should try to pass,” Casey said.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., expressed continued frustration with Congress’s approach to gun control while also recounting legislative successes in a visit with the Herald-Standard Tuesday.
The 57-year-old Democrat from Scranton, seeking a third term, has supported expanding background checks, implementing restrictions on military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
Casey last week condemned Congress for not voting on gun control reform.
“Measures like this have zero impact on the right to bear arms, zero impact on hunters, zero impact on someone who needs to buy a gun for protection,” Casey said.
Casey argued that taking no action on gun control in light of recent school shootings, including a mass shooting in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead, isn’t “the good old American way.”
“If passing one bill means there’s one less school shooting in one community 10 years from now, it’s worth every hour we spend on that,” Casey said, adding that the idea that school shootings are going to become normal is a “defeatist attitude.”
Casey said he was open to the idea that schools might need additional help in keeping students and staff safe, whether it’s physical infrastructure or more support for law enforcement.
“If some people want to have more law enforcement in schools, more security personnel, even if they’re not police officers, sure, we should be open to that,” Casey said.
A 14-year-old Uniontown Area High School student was arrested for allegedly planning to shoot four people at the city school in January. School districts throughout the area, including Albert Gallatin, Frazier, Brownsville, Uniontown Area and Connellsville Area in Fayette County; Ringgold, Charleroi Area and Beth Center in Washington County and Mount Pleasant in Westmoreland County have all had to deal with threats of gun and other forms of violence in recent months.
Several local school districts have rolled out new security measures this year in response to elevated concerns about school safety, including hiring security guards as police officers, buying new metal detectors and expanding bag searches.
“If certain schools that have been under threat or have had particular problems need more help from law enforcement, we ought to figure out a way to try to help,” Casey said. “But I want to make sure that the people who are confronting a shooter or securing a school are trained in law enforcement.”
Casey alluded to a recent poll commissioned by the National Education Association that found that 74 percent of educators oppose arming teachers.
“Teaching’s hard enough,” Casey said. “We ought to give (teachers) resources to allow them to teach, not give them the additional and very serious, very grave burden of having to protect the children in addition to having to teach them.”
Pennsylvania’s senior senator noted several second-term accomplishments, including the passage of his Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act in 2014 and his Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act) in 2013.
The ABLE Act allows families who have a child with a disability to save for their long-term care through 529-style savings accounts, while the Campus SaVE Act requires uniform reporting standards for sexual assaults on college campuses and requires schools to provide clear guidelines to students on their sexual assault policies.
“We’ve got a long way to go to root out and hold people accountable for sexual assault,” Casey said. “But this was a substantial step forward.”
Casey also noted that his office had closed more than 34,000 constituent cases since 2012, including many Social Security and veteran cases.
Casey said that lack of wage growth remains a “pernicious” problem and that wage and retirement insecurity are still traumatic for workers and families despite a low unemployment rate.
“(That) leads to a kind of cry for help,” Casey said. “And a lot of folks in 2016 said, ‘Neither party is answering my plea for help. I’m going for door number three.’ That’s where we are now. So we’ve got big problems, but I think we can come together and solve them.”