SENATE MEMORIAL 8

53rd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2018

INTRODUCED BY

Jeff Steinborn

A MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE PUBLIC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT AND THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION STUDY COMMITTEE TO STUDY AND EVALUATE POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO DECREASE THE RATES OF SUICIDE BY FIREARMS AND GUN VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS.

     WHEREAS, the frequency of firearms attacks and gun violence has continued to increase since the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty first-grade students and six adults were gunned down; and

     WHEREAS, the gun violence archive, a nonprofit corporation formed to provide access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States, reports that in 2017, there were sixty-one thousand three hundred forty-nine gun-related incidents and fifteen thousand five hundred fifty-two deaths; and

     WHEREAS, of the total number of gun-related deaths or injuries, seven hundred thirty-two were children aged eleven and younger and three thousand two hundred thirty-two deaths or injuries involved teens aged twelve to seventeen; and

     WHEREAS, the most recent mass murder in New Mexico was on June 11, 2016 in Roswell, New Mexico, where one adult and four children aged three, seven, eleven and fourteen died as a result of gun violence; and

     WHEREAS, the most recent school shooting on December 7, 2017 in Aztec, New Mexico, resulted in the death of two students and the suicide of the shooter; and

     WHEREAS, there is a national trend of increased use of guns in student suicides, which is greater than that of student homicides in schools; and

     WHEREAS, from 1999 to 2015, the suicide rate among New Mexico youth aged ten to twenty-four was consistently at least sixty percent higher than that of the United States, according to department of health statistics;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the public education department and the legislative education study committee be requested to study and evaluate potential solutions to decrease the rates of suicide by firearms and gun violence in schools; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the public education department and the legislative education study committee be requested to provide a report of their findings and conclusions to the legislative education study committee by October 1, 2018; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the secretary of public education and the chair of the legislative education study committee.

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