Chicago doctor on a mission to make gun manufacturers help pay costs of gun violence
Every year, Illinois taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the aftereffects of gun crime; expenses like ambulances, courtroom costs, and imprisonment.
Families of victims are on the line for funerals, lost wages, and additional child care.
Now, there's a new push in Springfield to get gun manufacturers to foot some of those bills.
Gun violence intervention advocates are urging state lawmakers to pass the first-of-its-kind Responsibility in Firearm Legislation (RIFL) Act.
Organizers said the RIFL Act would make Illinois the first state to hold gun manufacturers financially responsible for violence incurred by their weapons. This also includes resources for survivors and community violence intervention.
UChicago Medicine Surgeon Dr. Anthony Douglas has been pushing for the RIFL Act since January of last year.
"I was exhausted with calling time of death on people who look like me," he said. "I've called the time of death on more people than I can remember."
It was in the emergency room at UChicago Medicine, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when it happened. Violence was spiking, and Douglas was face to face with Chicago's gun violence victims in their final moments.
"There's nothing that really prepares you mentally, emotionally for when 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-, 16-, 24-, 60-year-olds look you in the eyes and ask you are they going to die," he said. "Those things stick with you.. You know, you don't forget being soaked in other people's blood at the end of the night."
So, he began to sketch out an idea where gun makers whose products are involved in an accident or homicide pay into a state fund to cover some of the costs taxpayers and victims' families currently pick up.
"Medical care, law enforcement, judicial costs, funeral and burial expenses," Douglas said. "This industry socializes the public costs but privatizes the profits."
The idea of making gun manufacturers pay some of the costs of gun violence has gained steam and the RIFL Act has gained a growing list of co-sponsors in the Illinois General Assembly.
Supporters have said the legislation would have helped people who have lost loved ones to gun violence, like Trevon Bosley.
"I lost my brother Terrell Bosley to gun violence on April 4th, 2006. He was a gospel bass player who was shot and killed at church getting ready for band rehearsal," Trevon said.
He's helping to lobby for the legislation's passage in Springfield. If it passes, advocates say gunmakers would pick up 7% of the overall cost of gun violence in Illinois.
"As it stands, they currently don't pay anything, while us as taxpayers not only pay the emotional burden, but we pay the financial burden as well," Douglas said.
Opponents of the RIFL Act, including the NRA, have argued it's unfair to make manufacturers pay, especially in cases where firearms are legally purchased and then illegally sold and used for crimes.
It would also mean a likely jump in gun prices, which might be politically unpopular.
Despite the opposition, advocates say they have the votes in Springfield, but said it still might not pass given it's an election year.
"We're in a re-election year, which means that it's challenging to have controversial bills be called for vote and legislators to have to make a decision," Douglas said.
Trevon Bosley said he's still optimistic that future families of gun violence won't have to endure what his family did.
"I think that my brother would be super excited to know that his little brother is continuing the fight and trying to make sure that other families don't go through the same experience," he said.
If approved, the RIFL Act would be the first bill of its kind approved anywhere in the U.S. The Illinois General Assembly's spring session ends on May 31, leaving lawmakers less than two weeks to pass the RIFL ACT before they go home for the summer.
Advocates hope Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) can help make that happen.