NATION
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2020
THE OBSERVER — 7A
Gun restrictions face uphill batt le
By Lisa Marie Paine
Associated Press
Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via AP
A critical care nurse on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, leans down
to speak to a COVID-19 patient at a hospital in Robbins-
dale, Minnesota. As offi cials met to discuss approval of
a COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, Dec. 10, the number of
coronavirus deaths has grown bleaker than ever.
One-day U.S. deaths
top 3,000, more than
on D-Day or 9/11
By Heather Hollingsworth
Associated Press
MISSION, Kan. — Just
when the U.S. appears on
the verge of rolling out a
COVID-19 vaccine, the
numbers have become
gloomier than ever: More
than 3,000 American deaths
in a single day, more than
on D-Day or 9/11. One
million new cases in the
span of fi ve days. More
than 106,000 people in the
hospital.
The crisis across the
country is pushing med-
ical centers to the breaking
point and leaving staff
members and public health
offi cials burned out and
plagued by tears and
nightmares.
All told, the crisis has
left more than 290,000
people dead nationwide,
with more than 15 million
confi rmed infections.
The U.S. recorded 3,124
deaths Wednesday, Dec. 9,
the highest one-day total
yet, according to Johns
Hopkins University. Up
until last week, the peak
was 2,603 deaths on April
15, when New York City
was the epicenter of the
nation’s outbreak. The latest
number is subject to revi-
sion up or down.
Wednesday’s toll
eclipsed American deaths
on the opening day of the
Normandy invasion during
World War II: 2,500, out
of some 4,400 allied dead.
And it topped the toll on
Sept. 11, 2001: 2,977.
New cases per day
are running at all-time
highs of over 209,000 on
average. And the number
of people in the hospital
with COVID-19 is setting
records nearly every day.
A U.S. government advi-
sory panel convened on
Thursday to decide whether
to endorse mass use of Pfi z-
er’s COVID-19 vaccine to
help conquer the outbreak.
Depending on how fast the
FDA signs off on the pan-
el’s recommendation, shots
could begin within days,
inaugurating the biggest
vaccination campaign in
U.S. history.
In St. Louis, respira-
tory therapist Joe Kowal-
czyk said he has seen entire
fl oors of his hospital fi ll up
with COVID-19 patients,
some of them two to a
room. He said the supply
of ventilators is dwindling,
and the inventory is so thin
that colleagues on one shift
had to ventilate one patient
by using a BiPAP machine,
similar to the devices used
to treat sleep apnea.
When he goes home to
sleep during the day at the
end of his grueling over-
night shifts, he sometimes
has nightmares.
“I would be sleeping
and I would be working
in a unit and things would
go completely wrong and I
would shock myself awake.
They would be very vis-
ceral and very vivid,” he
said. “It would just really
spook me.”
In South Dakota, Dr.
Clay Smith has treated
hundreds of COVID-19
patients while working at
Monument Health Spear-
fi sh Hospital and at Sher-
idan Memorial Hospital in
neighboring Wyoming.
He said patients are
becoming stranded in
the emergency room for
hours while they await
beds on the main fl oor or
transfers to larger hospi-
tals. And those transfers
are becoming more chal-
lenging, with some patients
sent as far away as Denver,
400 miles from the two
hospitals.
“That is a huge burden
for families and EMS sys-
tems as well when you take
an ambulance and send it
400 miles one way, that
ambulance is out of the
community for essentially a
whole day,” he said.
Smith added that some
patients have gone from
thinking “I thought this was
a hoax” to “Wow, this is
real and I feel terrible.” But
he has also seen people with
COVID-19 who “continue
to be disbelievers. It is hard
to see that.”
“At the end of the day the
virus doesn’t care whether
you believe in it or not,” he
said.
In New Orleans, city
Health Director Dr. Jennifer
Avegno described a recent
visit to a hospital where she
watched doctors, nurses,
respiratory therapists and
others risk exposure to the
disease in a long, futile
attempt to save a dying
COVID-19 patient. Some
broke down in tears after-
ward, she said.
“These are seasoned
emergency and critical care
personnel,” she said. “We
do not cry very often —
and especially not a number
of us all at once.”
She cited “the sheer
exhaustion of giving their
all for similar patients over
and over and over again for
the past nine months, cou-
pled with the knowledge
that much of this could
be prevented with really
simple measures.”
In Virginia, Gov. Ralph
Northam announced a mid-
night curfew and expanded
mask rules to require the
wearing of face coverings
outdoors, not just inside.
In New York City, which
was ravaged by the virus
in the spring, one doctor
sounded a note of opti-
mism, saying that at least
physicians are more capable
of managing the virus now.
“Early in the spring we
did not know enough,” said
Dr. Jolion McGreevy, who
directs Mount Sinai Hos-
pital’s emergency depart-
ment. “We really are oper-
ating from a place of
knowledge, now — which
is a big leap from where we
were in the spring.”
WASHINGTON — The
gun debate in America
soon will enter a new
chapter with a Democrat
in the White House after
four years under President
Donald Trump in which
gun control advocates
developed a long wish list
for reform amid a spate of
large-scale mass killings in
places like Las Vegas, El
Paso and Parkland, Florida.
But any hope that Joe
Biden will usher in a new
era of restrictions on fi re-
arms is highly unlikely
because of the same polar-
ization in Washington
that has tripped up sim-
ilar efforts under past
administrations.
The items on the agenda
— largely relegated to the
political shelf in recent
years — include renewing
a ban on AR-style rifl es,
universal background
checks, restrictions on
high-capacity magazines
and a federal red fl ag law
designed to prevent people
at risk of harming them-
selves or others from pur-
chasing a fi rearm.
But all of those will
require Congress to act.
And regardless of the out-
come in two Senate races
in Georgia that will deter-
mine which party holds the
majority in that chamber, it
will be a tall order to get a
majority of lawmakers on
board.
One key reason is
because the issues have
become so polarized.
Years ago, gun politics
crossed party lines, and
it was easier for Republi-
cans and Democrats to fi nd
common ground.
“It used to be a
cross-cutting issue, there
used to be Democrats that
were very pro-gun and
Democratic legislators who
won districts in part on
their pro-gun views,” said
Matt Grossmann, an asso-
ciate professor at Mich-
igan State University and
director of its Institute for
Public Policy and Social
Research who follows gun
politics. “And you just
don’t have that anymore.”
Kathy Aney, East Oregonian, File
Clay Winton, owner of Crosshair Customs in Baker City, chats with customers at the
2018 Pendleton Gun Show at the Pendleton Convention Center. Efforts to impose re-
strictions on fi rearms soon will have a supporter in the White House. But it’s unlikely
that items gun-control advocates have pined for will have much chance of passage
given the tight margins in Congress and the increased polarization over gun issues.
The number of fi re-
arms in circulation has
mushroomed in the past
12 years, starting in Pres-
ident Barack Obama’s
administration when gun
owners feared he would
push through signifi cant
restrictions.
It continued unabated
during Trump’s lone
term. In the fi rst years
of his tenure, Americans
amassed fi rearms amid
fears about new gun mea-
sures following mass kill-
ings. The gun buying
picked up even more steam
in the past year as civil
unrest, economic turmoil
and the pandemic pro-
pelled unparalleled buying
sprees.
And with the pandemic
dominating the conversa-
tion, guns took a back seat
in the 2020 election.
Gun control groups still
want to be heard, however.
For one, they want uni-
versal background checks
that would require the
review for virtually every
sale of a fi rearm, and a ban
on online sales of fi rearms,
ammunition and parts.
Among the legislative
proposals, the one viewed
as having some bipartisan
support is a federal “red
fl ag” law that would make
it easier to temporarily
confi scate fi rearms from
someone deemed a risk
to themselves or others.
Currently, fewer than two
dozen states have such
laws on the books.
Gun control groups
also are more aggressively
underscoring the fears
they have about the abun-
dance of guns in homes of
Americans. They worry
about the toll it will have
on households where fi re-
arms are present, both
through murder-suicides
and suicides.
During a news confer-
ence Thursday, Dec. 9,
announcing their priorities
for Biden to take executive
action on guns, Everytown
for Gun Safety cited sta-
tistics that show calls into
domestic violence hotlines
and suicide hotlines up,
and gun violence in cities
on the rise.
Their list of priorities
includes restricting access
to untraceable “ghost
guns” and cracking
down on people who are
able to purchase a fi rearm
if the FBI background
check isn’t conducted
within the required
three business days.
There are other steps
Biden can take adminis-
tratively. Among the key
items likely to be pur-
sued is a rule enacted in
the waning weeks of the
Obama administration
but scrapped by Trump
soon after taking offi ce:
requiring the Social Secu-
rity Administration to pro-
vide information to the
gun-buying background
check system on recipients
with a mental disorder so
severe they cannot work
or handle their own ben-
efi t checks. The rule would
affect an estimated 75,000
benefi ciaries.
The most coveted piece
of legislation by gun con-
trol advocates has been
a renewal of the ban on
“assault weapons” that
expired in 2004. Biden
played a central role in
pushing through that
decade-long ban, and he
has pledged to push for
another ban on the semiau-
tomatic long guns that have
surged in popularity since
their return to the market.
Much has changed
since that ban was pushed
through — from the polit-
ical landscape to the satu-
ration of those fi rearms in
the civilian market.
From one end of Union County to the other
your CARE continues with a comprehensive provider care team
dedicated to putting the health of you and your family first!
These providers are now taking new patients in BOTH locations!
Korrie Dubray, ANP — Jamie Jo Haddock, NP-C — Raffaella Betza, MD
At both locations, this flexible provider care team and their staff are dedicated to
caring for you and your loved ones with primary care and family medicine.
CHANGE THE WORLD
With a Gift for the Future
Take your charitable giving to the next level.
Passionate and forward-thinking visionaries like you help us continue
OHSU’s tradition of heath care excellence. Transform human health
– and change the world – with a planned gift to OHSU. Whether it’s a
scholarship, annuity, endowment, IRA charitable gift, or other ideas,
we’ll work with you to make a difference.
Call us or visit us online. Learn how you can reach important financial
goals while building a better tomorrow.
OFFICE OF GIFT PLANNING
503-228-1730
giftplanning.ohsufoundation.org