Massacre survivor among speakers at gun-bills hearing

PROVIDENCE — “One minute we were singing and laughing and the next we were just trying to survive.”

Her voice breaking, Erica Keuter of East Greenwich brought the horror of the October 2017 massacre of 58 Las Vegas concert-goers home to Rhode Island on Tuesday night, to a State House hearing room packed with lawmakers openly skeptical about the need for any more gun laws, including an assault weapons and school grounds gun ban.

“On October 1, 2017, I was having a wonderful time listening to country music with friends ... when a lone gunman fired more than ,100 rounds from his hotel room on the 32nd floor,’’ Keuter told the House Judiciary Committee.

‘We were sitting ducks, and he just took aim,’’ she said, killing 58 people, injuring another 851 people, “all within 11 minutes.”

“When we first heard the gunfire, we were not sure what it was ... until the yelling and screaming began,’’ she said. “I dove for the ground and my husband dove on top of me to shield me from bullets.... We felt the blast of the bullets as they whizzed by us....I heard screaming and crying, smelled gun powder and saw the carnage that one person can do with these firearms, all of which were legally owned.”

“I saw so much blood,’’ she said. “I still fear being in large crowds.”

“If you take one thing away from my experience,” she told the lawmakers, “it’s that gun violence can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone.”

The lawmakers listened silently, respectfully, sparing her the questions a number of the lawmakers lobbed at the earlier speakers, including Col. James Manni, the new superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police, and other advocates for bills Gov. Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Peter Neronha are pushing to ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and guns on school grounds.

“Why are we addressing a problem that doesn’t exist?’’ state Rep. Dennis Canario — a retired Portsmouth police officer — asked repeatedly.

“Just because it didn’t happen yet, doesn’t mean it won’t happen,’’ Manni responded.

The hours-long hearing was encapsulated in the back-and-forth between Canario and Manni, a former SWAT team commander, about the proposed ban on guns within 300 feet of a school, except in the hands of police, retired law enforcement officers and people hired to provide security services.

Asked his views on teachers carrying guns, Manni said: “A recipe for disaster.” Among the dangerous scenarios he listed: police arriving at a school under siege by a shooter, not knowing who and why anyone else on the scene is pointing a gun.

“The problem in the schools is not the concealed-carry holder,’’ Canario said. “Can you answer the question why we are addressing something that isn’t a problem?”

“Yes,’’ said Manni, giving a rundown of the “different levels’’ of people with concealed-carry weapons permits, including those who have met the current “sub-standard’’ qualifications.

“The qualification is the easy part,’’ he said. “And the standard is very low ... less than 70 percent hits on target to successfully qualify ... But the training is not there, sir .... Active shooter training, decision shooting, night firing.

“In all due respect, a good percent of the people that have concealed-carry permits are not trained for the type of scenarios we are talking about, especially in schools ... Any police officer who has been involved in a critical incident knows how fast it happens, how violent it is, and how many rounds actually miss the target even with the most highly trained people firing.”

Canario persisted: “If we were to pass this law today, do you think it would stop the next school shooting tomorrow?”

Manni: “No, sir, I don’t know if it would stop the next schools shooting but ... I think the risk of interjecting a firearm into a school, the chance of it being taken from a pocketbook, being stored improperly, a student getting at it, being stored in a desk, a janitor carrying one in, misplacing it, I think the risk of that is much greater than an active shooter coming into a school and engaging.”

Canario: “I agree, but I’m going back to the law-abiding, concealed-carry holder who knows how to use a firearm ... They are our first line of defense. They are there. They can take out the shooter before that shooter takes out 10 more kids.”

And so it went for hours, with 65 people — including NRA lobbyist Darin Goens — signed up to testify. People from both sides of the debate packed the State House. The yellow “Gun Control Doesn’t Work” T-shirts and buttons outnumbered the gun-control advocates in their own red-and-orange T’s after the Rhode Island Firearm Owners League put out an urgent call to its followers on Facebook to show up for Tuesday night’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.

“ALERT!!’’ the gun-owners group posted. “A LOT OF BAD BILLS that needs [sic] to be stopped,’’ including the proposed school-grounds ban: “If this passes they will go after the next place you can’t carry such as church, grocery store, golf club, etc. to a point where the CCW [concealed-carry permit] permit is pointless!”

But the other side was also busy, lining up people — including Las Vegas shooting-survivor Erica Keuter — to testify.

Taking to Twitter, state Rep. Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, a Providence public school teacher, wrote: “What part of Prevention don’t you understand? We can’t wait for a mass shooting in Rhode Island to ban assault weapons. Those are weapons of war. And, one more thing, we do not need guns in our schools. Our schools are sacred places of teaching and learning #EndGunViolence.”

And in another tweet she wrote: “I got up this morning and made a list of family friends, students that I lost to gun violence. My list is up to 11. Every time a loved one dies, a piece of my heart is shattered. Sad.”

The 2017 Rhode Island firearms death-count 41, according to state Health Director Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott.