May I reiterate: To all government entities responsible, please begin a media campaign informing the public what CNMI laws concerning guns and firearms are already on the books as of June 1, 2023.<\/p>\n
My interest in current CNMI gun laws came just before Christmas 2022 when a guy appeared in front of my kitchen window walking away from the window where I was washing dishes. I never saw his face but could see he had a large pistol\/ sidearm in his right hand. I went to the main desk at the police department in Susupe and asked if that was against the law. I was told it was not against the law and that he was not breaking a law.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, given the incredible amount of gun deaths in the U.S. mainland, the May 21st<\/sup>\u00a0shooting of a 7-year-old in Kagman, one of my former students on Tinian shooting and killing a police officer on Tinian and injuring another policeman several years ago, a murder and suicide inside a law office here on Saipan also a few years ago, one can\u2019t say we don\u2019t have gun violence here in the CNMI.<\/p>\n Let the publication of what current laws exist begin a community dialogue, perhaps with legislators, Department of Public Safety officials, and lawyers holding community town halls throughout the islands with ideas for new legislation or changes to laws that exist.<\/p>\n My first thoughts about the islandwide publication of existing gun laws were that they might prevent some abuser of a gun from using a plea of \u201cnolo contendere\u201d<\/em> or ignorance of the law. Instructions on gun safety, current gun laws in existence, and punishment or fines for breaking the laws might be given with the issuance of a gun license. Certainly gun serial numbers would be registered at the time of purchase and a search of criminal records and mental instability might also be undertaken before a gun purchase be allowed. A periodic unannounced inventory of someone with a number of guns, say someone who has or had a rifle range, might be taken to ensure no guns have been released or sold to private parties in the CNMI.<\/p>\n Again, the saving of one life or many lives would make this proactive<\/em> approach by the CNMI government, businesses, lawyers, and concerned citizens in general beneficial to the safety of the entire CNMI. The Marianas Visitors Authority could include a message about gun safety and CNMI legislation concerning guns to visitor bureaus and travel agencies in Japan, Korea, and China.<\/p>\n Thank you to all who are being proactive<\/em> in saving future lives and decreasing the number of deaths and injured CNMI citizens due to violence, reckless endangerment, abuse, and illegal possession of guns.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joey Connolly<\/strong><\/p>\n Chinatown, Saipan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May I reiterate: To all government entities responsible, please begin a media campaign informing the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":328594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[26,23602],"class_list":["post-393375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-cnmi","tag-joey-connolly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}