Month: April 2017

NRA Convention myths and facts

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Trump NRAStarting tomorrow Atlanta will host the annual NRA Convention. It should be yet another testament to the more and more extreme agenda of the leadership of the NRA. Nationally and in states all over the country, the gun lobby’s leaders and lobbyists have been pushing for ever more dangerous laws to undermine public safety.

Donald Trump will speak at the convention on his 99th day in office. He must believe that the American public will find this to be one of his key accomplishments in his first 100 days. The accomplishment will be for the corporate gun lobby and, if you follow the money,  for gun industry profits.

There is little real support for these bills except for the NRA’s leadership and lapdog politicians. Americans for Responsible Solutions released new polling data that shows that most gun owners and NRA members do not agree with the agenda of the organization:

As the National Rifle Association (NRA) prepares to kick off its annual convention in Atlanta later this week, a new national survey of gun owners finds overwhelming opposition to the dangerous policies and positions supported by the Washington gun lobby. The poll, released today by Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, also finds that a many gun owners believe that the NRA has become increasingly out of touch with them on important gun safety issues and shows that a majority of gun owners believe the NRA has lost its way, straying from its original purpose and mission. (…) The poll illustrates a disconnect between the views of gun owners and the priorities being pushed by the gun lobby. Key federal legislative priorities named by the NRA, including federally mandated concealed carry, deregulating the sale of gun silencers, and eliminating gun-free school zones, receive very low support from gun owners themselves.

There is a disconnect not only between gun owners and the corporate gun lobby but between the general public as well. That is because the NRA and other pro gun organizations are out of touch with the real America. Their agenda is all about power, control and money. In a recent post, I mentioned that the NRA has become now a talking head for the agenda of the political far right:

The right-wing conservatives now ascendant in Washington are not so shy about their ties to the gun group, and the NRA and its allies are championing policies that would formerly be regarded as fringe. At the federal level, the NRA’s top legislative priority is a bill that would require states to honor each other’s laws governing the concealed carrying of handguns. Another gun-rights measure pending in Congress would legalize silencers, and a third would abolish gun-free school zones.

So let’s review, shall we?

The NRA now has a “seat” at the White House like in no prior administration.

The NRA spent $30 million to get Donald Trump elected.

The NRA spent political capital and actual capital to make sure that the open Supreme Court seat went to someone they wanted- Neal Gorsuch.

At least one NRA Board member, Ted Nugent, has dined at the White House with Donald Trump- last week. You can’t state clearly enough how offensive Ted Nugent has become and yet still retains a Board position with the NRA. Why was he dining at the White House along with someone who seems to share his views- ex VP candidate Sarah Palin- the one who shoots bears from a helicopter and loves her guns. Ted Nugent is not what we would call a fine upstanding citizen who should be dining with any President in my opinion.

The NRA’s extreme agenda is now in the “mainstream” of our government and will be apparently pushed by our very own President.

Americans continue to die from gunshot injuries at the alarming rate of 90 per day and around 32,000 a year.

Mass shootings continue on a pace more rapid than in past years.

Veterans are shooting and killing themselves in gun suicides daily but the House and perhaps the Senate will decide that not only is that OK, they will make it more possible.

Alex Jones, right wing conspiracy theorist and who believes the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, is a friend of our President.

Common sense is nowhere to be seen at the federal level concerning a national public health epidemic.

Americans generally do have common sense about gun policy, but as long as the corporate gun lobby has a hold on our political leaders, the public’s wishes will be ignored.

“Corporations are people” but corporations don’t get shot and killed. The gun lobby is a corporation formed by the gun industry and the leaders and lobbyists of the pro gun movement. As long as this is the case, we can expect to see shootings continue unabated.

Here are some facts to lead us into the week-end’s festivities:

While the NRA has been placing friends and allies in the Trump Administration and getting favors in return, it has also been relying on relationships with legislators and even President Trump’s own family to push its legislative goals in Congress. NRA allies in Congress and the White House have already delivered some quiet victories for the gun lobby that will endanger public safety. In February, Congress passed and President Trump signed legislation behind 3 responsiblesolutions.org #ResistTheGunLobby closed doors that eliminated a President Obama-era rule that prevented mentally impaired individuals from accessing firearms.12 The rule had required the inclusion of records into the NICS background check system of recipients of Social Security disability benefits who also required a fiduciary representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder.13 And in March, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would make it harder to keep guns out of the hands of veterans with severe mental illnesses by effectively prohibiting the Veterans Administration from sharing those records with NICS while also removing the 174,000 records already included in the system. This will put the veterans who most need our support at increased risk of doing harm to themselves or others. The most recent statistics available from the VA found that an average of 20 veterans per day die from suicide.14 While these are early victories for the NRA, their real agenda is focused on policies that would undermine law enforcement and put public safety at risk, making communities across the country less safe.

And more, from the ARS article, from the mouth of NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre:

In January, before President Trump was even sworn in, LaPierre made the NRA’s new mission clear, warning members that the “forces that conspired to keep Donald Trump out of the White House are coming together to sabotage his administration,” seeking to “inflict their revenge.”46 A month later LaPierre compared antiTrump protestors to “terrorists” and joined Trump’s attacks on “leftist media” and the “fake news.”47 LaPierre and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox are both slated to speak alongside Trump at the NRA’s annual meeting.48

Revenge. What is that exactly? And what are we talking about here? What I am talking about is public health and safety and protecting lives. The NRA and corporate gun lobby don’t seem to care a whit about that because… rights……money……loyalty…….power……control……..business.

The alternative facts and fantasy of more guns everywhere making American great again continues. Facts don’t matter when it comes to the gun extremists. They want what they want. And what they want is not good for America. A visit to the NRA headquarters is featured in a recent New York Times article takes on the fantasy world of the gun lobby in which we put our heads in the sand and ignore our real problems with guns and gun violence. From the article:

The film star stands tall at the National Rifle Association’s National Firearms Museum — true, only as a cardboard cutout of himself. But the cardboard fantasy of the good guy gunning down the bad guy is what makes the museum work as an enjoyable escape from the life-and-death reality of American gun carnage.

There are thousands of ingenious, gleaming rifles and handguns in displays about America’s gun-rich history of colonialism, immigration, expansionism and vigilante justice. But it is the gallery devoted to Hollywood and its guns and good-guy shooters that best illustrates the power of fantasy now driving the modern gun rights debate.

“Go ahead, make my day,” Clint Eastwood growled famously to a movie bad guy before dispatching him — kaboom! The museum narrative identifies the actual movie guns, not the actors, as having the “starring” roles in assorted western and terrorist-fantasy shootouts. The gallery includes some of the blank rounds actually fired in movies, as opposed to the live rounds bedeviling real life beyond the film screen.

During a visit, the difference between “acting” and “acting out” necessarily comes to mind. Why is there no stream of gripping films about the thousands of troubled Americans with easy access to guns who can lethally act out their darkest grievances on family and society day after day? Shooters nowadays must rise above the B-movie level to get noticed amid the 30,000-plus annual toll of gun death. They need a different twist in motive or a record-high death toll — or maybe the live delivery of death on Facebook, as happened last week — to jolt a jaded public. Inert politicians, of course, remain far more sensitive to the gun lobby than to routine gun mayhem.

(…) The N.R.A.’s latest priority is rooted in its ultimate fantasy that society will be safer if ordinary Americans are allowed to routinely pack a pistol. The organization is pushing Congress to pass a national concealed-carry reciprocity law to make it easier for people with state concealed-gun permits to carry their firearms nationwide. This is part of the campaign to make gun possession ubiquitous among ordinary citizens. All states permit some concealed carry, but under vastly different safety controls. That is why opponents wisely fear that national reciprocity is a ploy to sell more guns and undermine stronger local and state gun controls.

Fantasyland for sure. Evidence and real shootings every day lend the lie to the fantasy about more guns making us safer. Survivors and family members have found out that what they see on TV or in the movies is fantasy. What happens in real life is no fantasy.

The fantasy is that the NRA leaders and lobbyists live in fantasyland as they promote their agenda. One has to wonder when this fantasy bubble will burst. In the ARS polling ( from article above) an interesting question was asked and here is the answer:

  • The NRA is out of touch with gun owners on gun safety issues. 67 percent of the gun owners feel that the NRA used to be an organization dedicated to gun safety, but it’s been overtaken by lobbyists and the interests of gun manufacturers and lost its original purpose and mission. Less than 50 percent of gun owners feel that the organization represents their interests.

It’s past time for a change. As the myths and fantasies of the NRA continue to be perpetuated by those at the top, including now our President, people are dying. It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

UPDATE:

This Media Matters article sets the record straight about the myth that the NRA is a Civil Rights organization as often touted by their leaders:

Despite targeting a civil rights hero, the NRA has routinely attempted to co-opt the civil rights movement by, among other things, calling gun regulations “equally as unconstitutional” as Jim Crow laws and bemoaning that “too many Americans don’t think of the Second Amendment as a civil rights issue.” In August 2015, NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action media liaison Lars Dalseide compared a Seattle ordinance that would fund gun violence research by imposing a tax on the sale of guns and ammunition to Jim Crow-era poll taxes.

In March 2014, NRA board member Ted Nugent wrote in a column for conspiracy website WorldNetDaily that gun owners “must learn from Rosa Parks and definitely refuse to give up our guns,” in response to a law that banned assault weapons following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Nugent went on to call Rosa Parks his “hero” and has previously called himself “Rosa Parks with a Gibson.”

The NRA can in no way be compared to our nation’s real Civil Rights organizations and actions taken to push for those rights. The organization was founded on the idea that it would support hunters and hunter and gun safety. The fact that the leaders and lobbyists use their efforts to increase profits of the gun industry and their control over elected officials by couching it in civil rights language is dangerous and fantasy. I am betting that even many who pay their dues to the organization have no idea that the leaders make this claim.

Nugent is no Rosa Parks.

Wayne LaPierre is no John Lewis.

False facts are not facts.

Myths are fantastical thinking.

The definition of fantasy:

  1. obsolete :  hallucination

  2. 2:  fancy; especially :  the free play of creative imagination

  3. 3:  a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived: such asa :  a fanciful design or invention a fantasy of delicate traceryb :  a chimerical or fantastic notion His plans are pure fantasy.c :  fantasia 1 the organ fantasy of Johannes Brahmsd :  imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters spent the summer reading fantasy —called also fantasy fiction

  4. 4:  caprice served to fulfill the king’s fantasies

  5. 5:  the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to psychological need an object of fantasy; also :  a mental image or a series of mental images (such as a daydream) so created sexual fantasies

  6. 6often attributive :  a coin usually not intended for circulation as currency and often issued by a dubious authority (such as a government-in-exile)

 

 

 

Another anniversary-Columbine

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Columbines blooming fresh in the springtime. Colorado state flower.In my recent post, I wrote about the 10th anniversary of the Virginia Tech mass shooting. That mass shooting occurred on April 16, 2007- ten years ago.

“April is the cruelest month” wrote T.S. Eliot.  The poet could never have predicted how true that has become for America. The poem deals with depression and what April can mean for those who are suffering from depression. Eliot’s poem takes on new meaning considering those who suffer from grief and loss over loved ones shot and killed and/or injured in the month of April. There are too many to count since 1999.

Today is the anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Yes, remember that mass shooting? It was the first school shooting to really capture Americans as it unfolded almost in real time. It was the first one that made people wonder how it could have happened and also what in God’s name could we do to stop school shooters from randomly shooting classmates.

An article with facts about Columbine provides us with the basics about the shooting. There are facts in the article but they were not fast. It was a slow moving shooting that day. The grief of the families and friends has not healed fast. Grief is under the surface until something triggers the day. A birthday. A holiday. And today, an anniversary of that day.

The article names the victims. They were somebody’s son, daughter, niece, nephew, sister, brother, father, uncle, friend. They were real people who in an instant became named victims.

Cassie Bernall, 17
Steven Curnow, 14
Corey DePooter, 17
Kelly Fleming, 16
Matthew Kechter, 16
Daniel Mauser, 15
Daniel Rohrbough, 15
William “Dave” Sanders, 47
Rachel Scott, 17
Isaiah Shoels, 18
John Tomlin, 16
Lauren Townsend, 18
Kyle Velasquez, 16

We must also remember that 20 were injured and now live with their memories and injuries- physical and emotional.

Some have already forgotten and don’t want us to remember. Others will never forget. Just as I will never forget the night I learned that my sister had been shot and killed. That memory never goes away.

And those of us who have lost a loved one look back and wonder what could have stopped the event? Was there anything anyone could have done? Can we make sure other families don’t have to remember these anniversaries?

We could, at the least,  try to stop the shooters from easily accessing guns they shouldn’t have in the first place.

Here is how the Columbine shooters obtained their guns, being too young to purchase on their own:

Robyn Anderson, a friend of Klebold and Harris, bought the shotguns and the Hi-Point 9mm Carbine at The Tanner Gun Show in December of 1998 from unlicensed sellers. Because Anderson purchased the guns for someone else, the transition constituted an illegal “straw purchase.” Klebold and Harris bought the TEC-DC9 from a pizza shop employee named Mark Manes, who knew they were too young to purchase the assault pistol, but nevertheless sold it to them for $500.

They planned ahead. Nobody knew. That is often the case but also too often someone knew that something was not right but didn’t report it or do anything about it. From the “fast facts” article above, a statement from the mother of one of the shooters:

In the first television interview since her son Dylan killed 13 people at Columbine High School, Susan Klebold speaks to Diane Sawyer. Klebold states that “If I had recognized that Dylan was experiencing some real mental distress, he would not have been there,” she says. “He would’ve gotten help. I don’t ever, for a moment, mean to imply that I’m not conscious of the fact that he was a killer, because I am.”

We have done little or nothing to change gun laws and our gun culture in spite of horrendous mass shooting after mass shooting. We see the same things. We talk about the same things. We watch the coverage of shootings repeatedly on the news but nothing changes. The gun lobby says it’s not the guns,stupid and we couldn’t stop these shootings no matter what we do. And Presidents attend memorial services. And families grieve. And politicians put their heads in the sand and hope no one asks them what they want to do to stop shootings from happening so families don’t have to continue remembering the day their loved ones were shot. And we go on and on and on……

This article urges passage of stronger laws and points out that states that have laws requiring all gun sales to go through a background check have fewer shootings. In other words, laws do matter. Facts matter. From the article:

Research shows that background checks are effective when it comes to saving lives. States with universal background check laws experience 48 percent less gun trafficking, 47 percent fewer deaths of women shot by intimate partners, and 17 percent fewer firearms involved in aggravated assaults. States with universal background check requirements also have a 53 percent lower gun suicide rate, and 31 percent fewer suicides per capita than states without these laws.

We CAN do something. We can pass stronger gun laws such as requiring Brady background checks on all gun sales. We can pass Gun Violence Protection Orders so that families and friends can ask that guns be taken from those who could be dangerous to themselves or others. We can pass stronger laws against straw purchasing. We can wake people up to the fact that if something doesn’t seem right, it isn’t and action is necessary. We can identify that there are risks to owning guns and casually selling them to just anyone. We can hold “bad apple gun dealers” accountable and make sure guns are not being sold or exchanged with people who clearly should not have them and end as crime guns.

We can’t let Columbine be forgotten. That is what the gun lobby wants. If we forget the victims- their names and faces, maybe we will just go along and do nothing to cause “trouble” for politicians. They want to avoid the unavoidable. They want to gain the favor of the gun lobby who represent an increasingly small group of Americans who think that the “guys with the guns make the rules.”  Or they just don’t want to deal with what has become a national public health epidemic. It is not and will not be easy. But that does not mean we shouldn’t do it.

Victims continue to speak out but who is listening to them? Tom Mauser, father, of  Columbine victim Daniel Mauser, has reached out to the NRA and wants them to listen. To no avail. With every subsequent mass shooting, he will comfort other parents if they ask for him to do that. He understands. He is active in the movement to prevent gun violence. In his words ( from the article):

“For the first 10 days, I didn’t speak to the media at all. I was just in shock. […] And then suddenly, I was so angry knowing that the NRA was meeting in town that I went and spoke in front of 12,000 people.

[…]It can be shocking. After I spoke, I suddenly realized I’m going to start getting calls from the media, I’m going to start getting people who are angry at me. You really have to be prepared for that.

[…]It can get pretty overwhelming. When you become an activist, you tell your story a lot. You live that story every day anyhow, it’s not like you don’t think of your loss. But when you go in front of other people and speak about it, it’s so much more. “

We have our stories. We have the facts on our side. But the facts and our stories don’t seem to be enough. They should be but we are living in a world where big money speaks and makes policy that advantages corporations and thumbs its’ corporate and political nose at the victims and survivors.

The truth is that on April 20, 1999, 12 students and one teacher were brutally and shockingly and unexpectedly murdered for no reason other than two seemingly angry and possibly mentally ill young men wanted to shoot other kids. There is no other explanation.

What say you gun lobbyists and gun extremists? Is this OK with you? Is it just about mental illness? What if these two couldn’t have so easily accessed guns? What then?

The Columbine is Colorado’s state flower, thus the name of the school. Often names of flowers have significant meanings. For the Columbine flower there is a message:

Wherever your journey takes you stay steadfast in your faith, love and friendships. Believe in things that are not yet seen.

We have not yet seen the majority of America’s leaders step up to the challenge of gun violence. There is actually common ground on solving the issue of gun violence. The majority understands that doing something about this epidemic will save lives.

Where is common sense?

Virginia Tech-moving stones

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Virginia TechIt’s Easter tomorrow for those who practice the Christian faith. It’s also the Passover season for Jews. What will the victims and survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting be doing and thinking about on the 10 year anniversary of what was our nation’s most deadly and heinous mass shooting until the Sandy Hook shooting took the lives of 20 first graders and 6 educators and the Orlando nightclub shooting took the lives of 50- yes 50 innocent Americans?

When will we ever learn?

The grief of the Virginia Tech shooting victims is matched by the grief of 90 families a day after a gunshot injury became a gun death due to homicide, suicide or an “accidental” gun discharge. This is the daily carnage and the daily news in America in spite of holidays, families pleading for common sense and brave elected leaders willing to stand up to the corporate gun lobby and demand that the devastation be, at the least, reduced and at the most prevented.

We know there is no way to stop all shootings but shouldn’t we at least try? When a public health epidemic that takes the lives of so many people every year (32,000-33,000) we always get busy to study why and then recommend changes or cures that can prevent the cause of the disease or cause of death.

In America, instead, we are making things worse by loosening gun laws at the state and federal level. Why? Good question. I don’t really believe that the gun lobby wants people to die. They couldn’t could they? They must be affected by the photos and videos of all of the shootings that take place on a regular basis everywhere.

So why do they resist gun safety reform and efforts to prevent shootings so vigorously?

It’s a question that we must ask and it needs an answer.

Following the money is one answer. Power and control is another.

Meanwhile, while we are trying to figure out how to work around the money and profits of the gun industry and the outsized power of the NRA and other organizations, mass shootings continue unabated:

Perhaps because Virginia Tech’s fatality count was so high, most of the school shootings that followed didn’t receive the attention they might have in the decade prior to the massacre.

Are these kinds of shooting becoming normalized to the public or is it they don’t want to hear about them because they feel helpless to do anything about them? They are NOT normal and we can’t let them become normal. It is simply not normal for someone to walk into a school and spray bullets around killing random, or sometimes, selected victims.

And of course, the “everyday” shootings happen without much media coverage and every day, ordinary people’s lives are changed forever. You may know some of these people. They are living close to you- in your neighborhoods and communities. They are remembering lost loved ones every day. This is not normal.

Memorials to victims have become normal. Flowers, candles, teddy bears, hearts, cards, bell ringings, stones.

Memorials sprout up all over the country. In the case of Virginia Tech it was stones. From the article in The Trace:

Without realizing it, the kids at Virginia Tech were propelled by the same instinct that leaves mourners in America’s cities searching their surroundings for a way to honor shooting victims whose deaths often go unnoticed outside their neighborhoods. In Lexington, Kentucky, last fall, high schoolers laced track shoes to a chain link fence in homage to a slain 15-year-old runner, Trinity Gay. After a homicide in New York City, lampposts sprouted roses and sidewalks glittered with liquor bottles. In Cincinnati, a menagerie of stuffed animals was deployed to guard the home of a 9-year-old. (…)

The permanent memorial was dedicated with a ceremony on August 19, 2007, four months and three days after the massacre. Thousands of people gathered on the lawn that day, sporting their Hokie colors of maroon and orange. The university president spoke. A bell tolled 32 times. Each original stone had been placed in a mahogany box with a hinged lid, like a miniature coffin. Later, the boxes would be delivered to the families of the victims.

Uma Loganathan can hardly remember the dedication; grief seems to have blurred many of her memories from that time. What she does remember is that first semicircle of stones set earnestly upon the grass, their rough edges befitting of her sorrow.

“Befitting of her sorrow”…. Can anything befit the sorrow we all feel after losing a loved one to gun violence? Or having a close call as did my friend Lori Hass, mother of a Virginia Tech survivor?

Like other survivors, I got into this GVP movement because of what happened. But that’s in the past and what we’re working for is a future where there’s less gun violence and where we’re doing more to prevent it. Our goals are to take the evidence and the policies that work and begin to apply as many as are appropriate. For example, we understand that domestic violence situations become exponentially more lethal when there’s a firearm introduced. Road rage with a firearm can turn lethal. Confrontation in the streets become lethal when there’s a firearm. Toddlers have killed more Americans than terrorists if you look at the numbers over time — all because somebody was careless and left firearms out and unsecured.

Lori Haas speaks during a vigil outside the U.S. Capitol on April 16, 2013, to remember those murdered and demand congressional action on gun legislation.

ALAMY

We want policies that make us all safer. We think domestic abusers shouldn’t have access to guns. We think that there should be a background check on all buyers — how do you stop a prohibited buyer from purchasing a gun if you don’t do a background check to figure out if he or she is prohibited? We believe that you should have to have hands-on training around concealed carry. We think there should be penalties so that gun owners must properly store and secure their firearms so that children can’t get access to them. We think there should be limitations on the type of firepower that everyday citizens can carry on our street. The efficacy of a lot of those policies have been proven in other states and those states have fewer deaths. New York’s gun death rate per 100,000 is in the low, low single digits. Virginia’s is 10.9.

It’s devastating for all of the families, me included, to relive the trauma each time another school shooting occurs. And you can’t help but relive it. What we’re also really traumatized by is the fact that someone else is now added to the club nobody wants to be in: the one where your loved one’s been shot and killed or injured. But [that] club is strong, the club is active, the club is compassionate and supportive. I know dozens of families from dozens of mass shootings. Every day we have gun violence in America, so there is a camaraderie that’s very understood by those [who have experienced it].

Ten years ago tomorrow, the feelings will re-emerge of how things went down that day ten years ago. Lori gives a very moving testimony to how one family experienced the horrendous shooting of 32.

Tomorrow will also be Easter. A stone figures prominently in the Easter story. Stones can be moved but they are hard to move and they are hard to destroy. Tombstones are made of stone for a reason. They signify a marker where a loved one is buried and they are there mostly forever. So are the memories of our lost loved ones.

Tomorrow, please remember these 32. See their photos. Say their names.

We Will Not Forget

Families have approved and released these official biographies and photos of our 32 fallen Hokies. Please join us in remembering and honoring their lives by clicking on their names or photos.

And then work with Lori Hass, Colin Goddard, Andy Goddard and the millions of us involved in preventing the next one of these shootings. Colin has been an advocate for gun violence prevention since he was shot and injured in the shooting. The film, Living for 32, features Colin’s story and his efforts to expose the lack of Brady background checks on all gun sales.

We should not have to erect stone memorials to victims. We should not have to move stones to get the attention of the public and elected leaders about our deadly gun violence epidemic. We should expect that our leaders do this without question in the name of the victims and common sense. If we are to change the conversation and change the culture, we need more than memorials, thoughts, prayers, flowers, etc.

WE NEED ACTION. Get involved in the name of the victims and just because losing 90 Americans a day to gunshot injuries is not normal and not acceptable. Let’s get to work.

 

Minnesota’s latest gun madness

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madnessWe ought to be angry. We ought to be outraged over the madness that is gun violence. There are a lot of things about which to feel outrage in this political atmosphere. One of them just has to be the continuing devastation of gun violence in our country- in every state. We ought to be outraged that we aren’t talking about the risks of gun ownership that causes so many senseless and avoidable deaths and injuries. We ought to be outraged that so many people who should not be able to get their hands on guns get them anyway because we have failed to pass measures to stop them.

For example-  A St. Thomas University  (Minnesota)  student, handling a gun in a dorm ( where guns are not allowed by the way) “accidentally “discharged the gun and injured another student when a bullet went through the wall of a dorm room.

Accidental? Seems purposeful to me when someone brings a gun into a place where they are not allowed and then takes it out for some reason and irresponsibly shoots an innocent person. More from the article:

A University of St. Thomas student was accidentally shot Friday night inside a residence hall, authorities said.

The student was injured seriously enough to require surgery after a gun was accidentally discharged in another room, sending a bullet through a wall in Flynn Hall, the university said Saturday.

Guns don’t shoot people of course. People do.

In St. Paul a family is decimated and devastated by a domestic homicide/suicide committed during a custody battle over a young child:

Hernandez Foster said that the 20-year-old man suspected of killing her family members was involved in an intense custody dispute with one of the slain young women over the 18-month-old girl. Accounts from her and others who knew the family reveal the night’s carnage as a sprawling act of domestic violence. (…)

“Our lives will never be the same again,” she said. “I want to make sure that the investigation prevails and that we find all the details of the madness that happened.”

Their names are Maria McIntosh,  Wade McIntosh, Olivia McIntosh.

Madness it is. It happens every day in America because we have done nothing to stop it.

This more recent article details the angry phone call between the parents of the young child before the shooting occurred. It appeared that there had also been domestic abuse but not documented.

Yes, it was purposeful and happened because of anger, anxiety, custody of a child, loss of control and…. an available gun.

Two people shot at each other in Prior Lake, MN from their cars and were injured:

Witnesses reported seeing gunfire coming from one of the vehicles and directed toward the other around 8 p.m. on County Road 21 near Carriage Hills Parkway, said Police Chief Mark Elliott.

Why? We will hopefully find out but the reason doesn’t really matter does it? All we know is that these two irresponsible gun owners decided to “solve a problem” with guns fired from moving cars not thinking about where the bullets would end up. Bullets do fly for long distances and often hit innocent “targets”.

And it was purposeful.

In another Minnesota shooting, something strange happened:

The charging document continues that Johnson cooperated with police, saying he met Glover at Don’s Car Wash a couple months ago. Johnson said he was the manager there, and had recently fired Glover. He also explained that he was letting Glover live in his garage, adding Glover was “a really good guy” and had gotten “caught up in some s***”. Johnson said another friend made allegations that Glover had stolen some coins and was going to come over to see if they were there.

“I got worried,” court documents say Johnson tells detectives. “I grabbed my gun and I loaded it and it was sitting in the garage.”

The documents also say Johnson admitted to snorting methamphetamine earlier that day. He goes on, describing how he started boxing up Glover’s belongings that were in the garage, also talking about how he thought Glover may have tampered with the ammunition in his gun. Johnson says Glover arrived about a half hour later, walked up to the garage and an argument broke out over the theft accusations.

Glover, documents say, pushed past Johnson, saying he was going through his stuff to look for drugs. Johnson says Glover came out of the room in the garage, Johnson held the pistol up and Glover said “you pull a pistol on me?” and “I’m going to break your f****** neck”. Johnson told police Glover was 4-5 feet away and he pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. Documents say Glover took a breath and froze. Johnson says he started pulling the trigger again, this time the gun firing, Glover saying “you shot me” over and over. Johnson said Glover started towards him then, and Johnson fired two more times.

See if you can figure this one out. It seems that drugs were a factor. Paranoia. Anger. Suspicion. And a gun was available. Two men who had worked together, one for the other, are now forever linked together by a shooting. One is dead. The other is charged for murder. Nothing will ever be the same. And for what?

I guess one could always say that shootings are strange because they are not normal. The gun lobby seems to believe they are because as long as their second amendment rights are preserved there are bound to be some consequences. The consequences are death and injuries.

But one more- A Grand Rapids father with diagnosed depression over many years had a gun. He used it to kill himself and shoot and injure his own son:

Both parties had been shot in the head in an attempted murder-suicide scenario, said Sgt. Bob Stein, an investigator with the Grand Rapids Police Department. The boy remained in critical condition Friday in a Duluth hospital, Stein added.

“He’d been suffering with depression since the age of 14,” said Stein of the elder Krauss.

A 9mm handgun was found at the scene and is presumed to have been the weapon involved, Stein said. The man had a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon and had purchased the gun on March 22, Stein said.

Is this what we have come to expect now? People with guns in their homes can and do use them to commit tragic acts like this one which would have been far more difficult without that gun accessible. Another Minnesota family is devastated by gun violence and will never be the same.

It was purposeful. The shooter had a valid Minnesota permit to carry that gun. He was supposed to be safe and responsible with the gun. But he wasn’t. Why did he have a permit? Under the loose “shall issue” permitting system in Minnesota it is assumed that people who get their permits do not have problems that could make them dangerous to themselves or others. This is not the case, of course.

I can’t leave this post without writing about the latest news story that barely got a mention in the media because of all of the other strange things going on in the national news. But another domestic dispute spilled into a workplace at a San Bernardino elementary school where a teacher, the shooter and an innocent 8 year old boy are dead. The shooter apparently had a domestic dispute with his estranged wife:

“He came in, and very, very quickly upon entering the classroom started shooting,” Burguan said.
Anderson also reloaded after firing what is believed to have been a .357-caliber revolver, the police chief said.
Burguan said preliminary information indicates the two were recently married.
“I’m told that their marriage was relatively short. They’ve only been married for a few months and they’ve been separated for about the last month, month-and-a-half, roughly, when this incident took place,” he said. “But there’s nobody that in the investigation has come forward to say that they saw this coming.”
Her name was Karen Smith.
The thing is, people often don’t see it coming. But when a gun is available to settle what the shooter believes is a problem or is jealous or angry or depressed, things happen quickly and we learn the story later. I know this one from personal experience. (Her name was Barbara Lund).
In addition, this shooter should definitely not have had a gun:
The police chief said Anderson “does have a criminal history.”
Court records showed that he had faced criminal charges of brandishing a weapon, assault and crimes against public peace in 2013, with those charges later “dismissed or not prosecuted.” There had also been two petitions for temporary restraining orders filed against him by women in previous years.
California does have strict gun laws. We don’t know how or where he got his gun. Guns are often available to those who want them through many channels. And since we have not chosen to close the channels, we have come to expect that these things will happen.
We do have some facts that matter about guns and domestic violence however that should make us all pause- and then get to work. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has this to say:

Guns pose a particular threat in the hands of domestic abusers.1

  • Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a firearm.2
  • Domestic violence assaults involving a gun are 12 times more likely to result in death than those involving other weapons or bodily force.3
  • More than two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims between 1980 and 2008 were killed with firearms.4
  • In 2011, nearly two-thirds of women killed with guns were killed by their intimate partners.5
Whether purposeful or accidental, what I know and what the stories tell us is that we need a whole lot more common sense and courage to prevent some of these shootings. Both seem to be in short supply.
Some states, including my own, have passed laws to remove guns from domestic abusers. This seems like a very good idea given what we know. But until we pass even more laws, such as universal Brady background check laws to prevent prohibited purchasers from getting their hands on guns no matter where they go to buy them, we are failing women and children. And one bill that has been introduced in Minnesota ( and other states and passed in California) is a Gun Violence Protection Order. Of course as long as lapdog politicians are in charge of legislatures and the Congress, this, too, does not even see the light of day. And we are failing our families because of this lack of courage and conviction.
As long as we let the gun lobby make the rules and hijack the conversation, we are failing our families.
I don’t know about you, but I will not stop working to prevent and reduce the devastating gun violence that has affected so many families and communities in my state and in our country. It doesn’t have to be this way and I just know we are better than this.
Are you angry and outraged yet?
Let’s get to work and insist that our leaders do something about our serious public health epidemic of gun violence.

Gun lobby distractions

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Motivational speechThis post has been edited to update it since it was first posted.

 

Ever since Donald Trump was elected, chaos and distractions have been the rule and the name of the “game.” Lies, tweets, providing false news stories, ignoring or denying some very real dangers to our democracy from the Russian interference in our election, National Security Advisor fired, failed immigration orders, failed health care plan, etc. Not one department or policy area has been left alone. The long tentacles of those in absolute power are reaching far and wide. Gun policy is no exception. Licking their chops, the corporate gun lobby has pursued with some success an agenda that includes getting more guns into the hands of more people in more places. On the face of it, you have to wonder why anyone would want this. It makes no common sense that as a culture and civilized society we would choose to have loaded guns everywhere carried by just about anyone.

Executive VP of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre knows the rules well. He once said this and he meant it:

No Wayne. You made up the rules. This is not how Americans want our gun culture and our gun policy to be.

It seems to be of utmost importance to a minority of Americans who make claims that the second amendment gives them a right to do whatever they want with their guns because…. inalienable rights to own a gun.

Let’s talk a minute about rights. What are they? Is the meaning of the word clear to us all? I took a look at this Wikipedia article about the word rights:

There is considerable disagreement about what is meant precisely by the term rights. It has been used by different groups and thinkers for different purposes, with different and sometimes opposing definitions, and the precise definition of this principle, beyond having something to do with normative rules of some sort or another, is controversial.

And herein lies a basic problem with the arguments over gun rights. The several sides of the issue of gun rights and gun violence prevention would meet in the middle of the issue because that is where the majority stands and has stood for decades at least. In the interest of saving lives, the two sides approach it from different angles. One side, the majority, believes that people can have rights to own their guns but those rights come with responsibilities and common sense. The other side, claiming rights to the same life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness believes that that includes owning and carrying guns in order to protect their rights and lives.

Unfortunately for the one side, gun deaths are not decreasing and instead are staying the same year to year or increasing. More guns in more places carried and owned by more people who should not have them has not made us a safer nation. Those are facts. In states with more gun ownership and weaker gun laws, gun deaths are higher than in others on average. From the report from the Violence Policy Center:

“Year after year, the evidence is clear that states with fewer guns and strong gun laws have far lower rates of gun death,” says VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand. “States with strong gun violence prevention laws consistently have the lowest gun death rates in the nation. In states with weak gun laws and easy availability of guns, the rates of death by gunfire are far higher.”

The nationwide gun death rate in 2014 was 10.54. The total number of Americans killed by gunfire dipped to 33,599 in 2014 from 33,636 in 2013.

America’s gun death rates — both nationwide and in the states — dwarf those of other industrialized nations. The gun death rate in the United Kingdom was 0.23 per 100,000 in 2011, and in Australia the gun death rate was 0.93 per 100,000 in 2013. (These are the most recent years for which data is available. Data for these countries is available at GunPolicy.org, hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia.)

State gun death rates are calculated by dividing the number of gun deaths by the total state population and multiplying the result by 100,000 to obtain the rate per 100,000, which is the standard and accepted method for comparing fatal levels of gun violence.

Another report from the Violence Policy Center about the impacts of gun violence:

VPC research finds that in 2014, gun deaths even outpaced motor vehicle deaths in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Nationwide, motor vehicle deaths are on a steady decline thanks to proven public-health based injury prevention strategies informed by consumer product safety regulation standards designed to reduce death and injury.

To reduce the toll of gun violence in America, a similar public health approach is urgently needed. Today, guns are the only consumer products in the United States that do not have to meet federal health and safety standards. The federal government should regulate firearms for health and safety just like any other consumer product.

I met with a young man last week who had attended a meeting at which I spoke in January. He was interested in the issue of gun violence prevention from the point of view of a gun owner who agrees with background checks on all gun sales and other reasonable  measures. Several people he knows and even relatives have died in hunting accidents and gun suicides. He did not think of these as gun violence but has changed his thinking and understands that his involvement would be instructive for the cause of gun violence prevention.

On the same day as this man attended one of the Protect Minnesota trainings he also attended a conceal carry permit class. His take? He never wants to carry a gun. When the permit trainer and a lawyer explained the responsibility of a gun carrier if they decide to aim their gun at someone or actually shoot someone, he determined that that was not for him.

This gun owner does not see things as black and white but rather he sees the world from the point of view of someone who likes to hunt and own guns but understands that his rights are limited in the interest of public safety.

But some do see this as black and white and getting their way. A recent article from The Trace does a good job of outlining why the gun absolutists want to trample on the rights of the rest of us to be safe:

“We’re the Trumps,” he said. “We’re the grassroots.”

Like President Trump and his top advisor, Stephen Bannon, constitutional-carry activists are unconcerned by any wider distress their agenda may cause. Like the new White House, they see the trampling of existing norms as the removal of obstacles.

“Once you cross over this PC concept,”  Harris said, “then you have an enormous number of issues that come out of the gate.”

Those issues include the abolition of gun-free zones in schools, and deregulation of tightly controlled weapons categories, like suppressors and machine guns, which have been subject to strict laws for nearly a century. Rather than a drastic break with current public safety standards, he said, such changes would merely represent government “getting back on sound fundamental principles.”

This sums it up. Like Trump and his extreme advisors who want to disrupt just about everything our country has done or stood for in the last few decades, these gun absolutists want their way no matter what. No matter the lives lost as a result. No matter that public safety will be in danger. No matter that the majority of Americans don’t want what they want. No matter that over 32,000 Americans die every year from gunshot injuries. No matter that about 90 Americans a day die from gunshot injuries in gun suicides, homicides and “accidental” gun discharges.

No matter common sense.

This is where we are now. No compromising. No discussion. Executive orders or bills passed with no hearings, no expert testimony, no input from citizens. Just pass things and get your way no matter whose rights you trample or what process you didn’t follow.

People identified with severe mental illness and can’t manage their affairs can now purchase guns. People who don’t have permits to carry loaded guns around in public being able to carry everywhere and anywhere. Does any of this make any sense even with rights?

The answer, of course, is NO.

We are being distracted from the gun violence epidemic before us that we can actually address with strong gun policy and good research about the causes and effects of gun violence. We are being distracted by the agenda of the gun absolutists whose view of the world and the gun culture is far different from what Americans actually want and need.

Here is a great article from Peter Ambler of Americans for Responsible Solutions about the need for research and understanding the risks of owning guns:

It’s time for Congress to stop serving at the will of the gun lobby and to start providing the resources our institutions of public health need to understand our country’s gun violence epidemic so that we can do something about it.

Gun violence robs communities of their leaders, schools of their students, and families of their loved ones. We know that if we gave our scientists and researchers the opportunity, they would produce results. How much longer will we have to wait before we let them try?

That is what we should be talking about now.

With their very own nominee , Neil Gorsuch, about to take the oath of office for the next Supreme Court Justice, the gun lobby and gun abolutists must be feeling jubilant at getting their way once again. Time will tell if that works out for the absolutists.

Meanwhile, we need to work on the real problems and not the solutions looking for a problem.

We are better than this.

Let’s get to work. Join an organization that is working on gun violence prevention and gun safety reform. Listen to the facts and act when you see that your voices are not being heard. Make noise. Speak up. Stand up for the victims and their families and friends and ask your elected leaders to do the same. Ask them to hear the real stories of victims.

Just as Trump seemed to have changed his mind about his policy in Syria after seeing the photos and videos of children strangled after exposure to serin gas, show your leaders photos of those whose lives were lost to senseless gun violence. Here is my photo (of my sister who was shot in a domestic related shooting incident by her estranged husband):

photo of Barbara