The Bellingham Herald writes on our state tour’s stop in the city:

Supporters of a measure they say would reduce gun violence told poignant personal stories at a news conference Monday, Sept. 19, backing state Initiative 1491, which would allow courts to prevent people judged dangerously violent from having access to firearms.

It’s part of a statewide series of events near the site of firearm deaths. Tawnia Costan, 39, was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend Daniel Salas, 55, outside a home on J Street near Broadway Park in 2010. Salas turned the gun on himself as police closed in.

“This issue is deeply close to me,” said retired professional football player Riall Johnson, who said he has seen friends suffering from traumatic brain injury and depression who had access to firearms and killed themselves in a moment of distress.

Johnson, who attended school in Everett and has family in Bellingham, is field director of the Yes on I-1491 campaign. He said he has become a community activist since retiring after a nine-year career as a linebacker with the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL and several Canadian Football League teams.

“This thing happens to good people, people you look up to,” Johnson said. “(Access to a firearm) was just too easy. There should be a way to prevent that.”

. . .

Balcerak, Johnson and other speakers implored voters to approve I-1491, which would allow family members or law officers to seek an “extreme risk protection order,” or ERPO, from a court to confiscate weapons or prevent gun ownership by someone in extreme mental distress.

Read the full story here.