Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon on carjacking, women in politics and smoke … – Roll Call

I’ve worked with people who’ve held positions with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, or a variety of other positions where they were using legal skills. I think of Brian Fitzpatrick, John Katko, Kelly Armstrong, folks who might be at the slightly more moderate end of what’s left of the Republican Party. Of course, several of those are leaving.

Q: A year ago you survived a carjacking. You’ve always been an advocate for criminal justice reform. Did that change anything for you?

A: I was carjacked in 2021 just before Christmas. What was really shocking about it was they were 15, 17 and 19-year-old kids. And it wasn’t about selling a vehicle or chopping it up for parts — it was about excitement and joy riding, as I understand it. And that’s a huge spike we’ve seen across the country, with kids who have no expectations of success in life or just don’t see a future for themselves. This is a thrill or something they’ve heard about online, and it speaks to the deeper economic and societal problems that we have to address. 

The statistics on who’s using guns and getting in trouble show it’s folks in poverty, who don’t have educational opportunity, who are hungry — and those are all issues that I’ve been trying to work on and we’ve worked on as the Democratic caucus. 

The big thing we haven’t been able to get a lot of traction on has been closing the loopholes that allow people — including kids — who shouldn’t have access to weapons to get access to weapons. So background checks, outlawing ghost guns. I would like to be able to make more progress there, and we’d like some help from the other side of the aisle to keep those guns off the streets.