By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton Board of Health sees gun violence as a public health issue that it will look to address, possibly through new local regulations or an education campaign.
Board members at their meeting Tuesday did not commit to any specific action that they plan to take for now, although they are looking to explore the topic further by inviting police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter to meet with them next month.
“We’re still trying to decide how it is that we’re going to approach this,” board chairman Charles L. Rojer said after the meeting.
The topic comes amid a rash of mass shootings on college campuses around the country and calls around the state for New Jersey to get guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
Gun violence touches on a range of issues, including mental health, given the large numbers of gun-related suicides in the country each year, one board member said.
“Every 15 minutes, someone in the United States is committing suicide with some kind of a weapon, a gun,” said board member Linda Schwimmer. “To the extent that we can make mental health services — at least put out more and more information about the accessibility of them.”
At the meeting, the subject of gun control came up, and how New Jersey has more stringent laws than other states. It was not immediately clear if the board of health has the ability to enact some local gun control ordinance on its own.
“If you look at what’s going on around the country, you realize it’s a very difficult concept because there’s a large group of people who really want to have the privilege of owning a gun. And if they’re responsible individuals and they’re licensed, it makes sense,” Mr. Rojer said. “But if you start talking about these repeating guns and the huge cartridge holders … in a 30-second period, you can shoot dozens of folks.”
Health Officer Jeffrey C. Grosser said Wednesday that he thought it doubtful that Princeton could create municipal gun control laws, given that the state already has requirements for owning a gun.
As a community, Princeton has been spared the type of gun violence seen on the streets of nearby Trenton or in other high-crime parts of the state. But last week, Princeton University announced that it would be arming its Department of Public Safety with rifles to respond to an active shooter or someone brandishing a gun.
Also last week, Mayor Liz Lempert joined state lawmakers to support a proposed gun control bill aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
