Christmas murder/suicides

December 26, 2015December 26, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", access to guns, Accidents Happen Guns Kill, American gun culture, ASK campaign, Brady background checks, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, domestic shootings, gun industry immunity, kids and guns, murder/suicides, power and control wheels1 Comment

What an awful title for a blog post. In America it has come to be expected that shootings happen no matter the day, time, or holiday. When anguish, anger, mental illness, revenge, domestic difficulties, or economic difficulties happen in the lives of average people some “solve” the problem by picking up a firearm. Yes, sometimes broken homes, broken relationships, broken hearts, and broken minds lead to arguments or fights or abuse and physical, emotional, financial and psychological injury. But way too often, they also end in death. In domestic deaths, firearms are the most used method to kill.

That is the story of my sister’s death in a shooting over difficult divorce proceedings. No one thought it was possible. He was eccentric but not violent. He had issues unknown to most on the outside. He seemed like a nice quiet guy who couldn’t harm anyone. But he did. He had several guns and lots of ammunition. Two died when he shot them in his anger and misplaced concerns over difficult divorce proceedings. Why not just shoot those who you believe were causing the problem? That will solve everything, right?

Wrong.

Our family is without a loved one forever.

I have run across at least 3 murder/suicides during the last 2 days alone that were reported in media sources. There are surely more.

A New Jersey family is dead in an apparent murder/suicide. This one looks like an example of something going on that outsiders did not sense. From the article:

A New Jersey man shot and killed his wife and 8-year-old daughter before turning the gun on himself at a luxury high-rise apartment building, authorities said.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said the bodies of Michael Stasko, 53, his wife, Melissa, 49, and daughter, Nellie, 8, were found Friday night at the Windsor at Mariners Tower, an apartment building on the bank of the Hudson River in Edgewater. (…) “We don’t know whether it was financial, we don’t know whether it was familial, we don’t know really perhaps what was going through Mr. Stasko’s mind for him to do this,” Molinelli said.

We don’t know. That is often the case. A seemingly normal family obliterated because of a firearm in the home.

Closer to where I live this happened in Ashland, Wisconsin:

Police Capt. Jim Gregoire told the newspaper that officers responded and found a man with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officers also discovered in the home two women dead of gunshot wounds. The weapon investigators believed was used in the shootings was found next to the dead man.

Authorities have withheld the dead people’s names pending notification of family. Gregoire told the paper that process could take days. One of the women is from overseas, and the department will have to go through federal agencies to reach her family. Those agencies are closed for the Christmas weekend, he said.

Gregoire said there was no indication of what could have led up to the shootings. No one left any messages behind, he said.

No indication. Nothing appeared to be wrong. Further investigation may show something else but for now, it is a mystery.

A young Arizona father shot and killed his 2 young daughters and then himself in a domestic dispute with his estranged wife. From the story:

Two young girls were killed Wednesday night by their father, 37-year-old Levi J. Parker, according to Sheriff Chris Nanos. Parker then shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at 12:10 p.m. Thursday.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department received a 911 call just before 7:00 p.m. Wednesday night from a mother who said the father of her two young children threatened their lives.
“He made statements to her that basically led her to believe this was her last chance to talk to the kids alive,” Sheriff Nanos said.

Some people should not have guns. With rights come responsibilities and safe gun ownership is one of these. There were red flags and warning signs. Power and control over others motivates many men to kill their current or ex spouses, girlfriends and/or partners. The ultimate power and control is a gun.

I link to the website of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs where power and control wheels show how various ways of using power can end in tragedy when taken to the extreme. The post separation time can lead to abuse and using children to gain power and control as we see in this wheel from DAIP.

These are the stories of Americans who have access to guns, some maybe for self defense or for whatever reason people feel the need to own pistols. In the end, loaded guns in homes are more likely to be used to kill those inside than in self defense. Or were the weapons purchased with killing in mind? We don’t know why people buy guns in America. We just know that they do in greater numbers than in any other civilized society not at war. Guns are seen by some as security- as a way to keep themselves and their families safe from whatever fears are perceived to be lurking outside of their homes. By others they are used for purposeful crime and revenge.

This is our American tragedy. Domestic shootings happen daily. Suicides happen in large numbers. Our young people are shooting each other in urban areas. Toddlers are shooting people at a rate of once per week. Accidental discharges by “responsible” gun owners continue- mostly outside of the main stream media but reported in local news stories.

And we shrug our collective shoulders. We say we can’t do a thing about this. The gun lobby usually responds that people will find another way to kill themselves or others if they didn’t have guns. The thing is, that really isn’t true. Stabbings kill people but not nearly at the rate of firearms. Same with blunt objects. Suicide by gun is the preferred method because it is known to be the most lethal and effective. And it turns out that in states where more people own guns, more people kill themselves with a gun.

Laws can’t stop all of these shootings. But awareness can. Culture can. Changing the conversation can. Challenging the gun lobby’s myths that guns will keep us all safer can. Asking if there are loaded guns in homes where your children play can. Storing guns safely unloaded away from ammunition can. And laws can stop some of these shootings. As long as there is easy access to guns with no Brady background checks for domestic abusers, adjudicated mentally ill people and others who are denied purchases by licensed dealers who require these background checks, we can expect to see high numbers of dead and injured Americans.

Common sense has worked in other countries where stories like this at holiday time and every other day of the year are not in the news.There may be other problems in our neighboring countries and our friends across the oceans but gun violence is generally not one of them.

We are killing each other in great numbers here and doing nothing about it. We don’t do the research necessary to help with the causes of the violence and then we do little about the effects and the consequences. Thanks to the NRA and the corporate gun lobby, we allow people who shouldn’t have guns to buy them anyway. Thanks to our corporate gun lobby, guns are the only product unregulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Thanks to the corporate gun lobby, lawsuits are very difficult and almost impossible against gun manufacturers and dealers that could help right some wrongs. Thanks to the corporate gun lobby, average Americans walk out of gun stores with absolutely no training on how to use a gun or to the risks involved in owning one. Thanks to the corporate gun lobby and its’ friends in Congress and state houses, people with no training or permit or background check can openly or concealed carry guns around in public places. And as a result, guns are discharging accidentally or on purpose in places where families spend time. Like these at Accidents Happen Guns Kill– 3 at Christmas time alone. Lunacy.

Thanks corporate gun lobby.

We are better than this. We can also do something about this but we need our leaders to think straight about our national public health and safety epidemic without the interference of those who profit from selling the firearms used every day in incidents like the ones I included above.

Let’s get to work and make 2016 a safer year from gun violence than 2015 was.

A love affair with guns

December 4, 2015December 5, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, American gun culture, American gun laws, American gun ownership, ammunition sales, assault weapons, Assault weapons ban, Bill Maher, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, conceal carry permit holders, Congress members and guns, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, gun suicides, high capacity ammunition, kids and guns, mass shootings, Minnesota gun laws, NRA, Open Carry, Senator Ted Cruz, The Trace, Vox1 Comment

love_and_deathb Americans love their guns. They love them too much if we are to believe the statistics about the daily carnage in our country. And yes, let it be said that most Americans who own guns for hunting or casual use are careful and legal with their guns. That said, let’s also say that the fact that too many of those otherwise “responsible” and “law abiding” gun owners are not.

The difference between being irresponsible with your hammer or not careful with your knife and not being responsible or careful with your gun could be a lost life. Why? Because hammers and knives, when used for their stated purpose, can cause some bodily injuries or maybe even get used in homicides or to harm others but the infrequency of that compared to gun deaths and injuries is a fact. And guns inherent and obvious use is to kill a person or an animal.

Americans love their guns to death. Most gun deaths are suicide in our country. And then there are those pesky “accidental” discharges killing our children and toddlers once a week or so.

So, on Black Friday, apparently Americans bought enough guns to arm the Marine Corps. Stunning. And what is even more stunning is that many of these guns went to people who already own other guns. The truth is that fewer people and households own guns. But those who do own many of them. From the article from The Trace (linked):

Ater Thursday’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College claimed ten lives in Roseburg, Oregon, officials revealed that Christopher Harper Mercer, the gunman behind the attack, had owned a stockpile of 14 firearms. The number elicited shock from the gunman’s father live on CNN: “How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?” Ian Mercer asked. But as it turns out, owning ten or more firearms isn’t all that uncommon: According to a forthcoming study of gun ownership conducted by Harvard researchers, more than six million Americans already do. In other words, there are more people in America who own ten or more guns than there are residents of Denmark.

Amazing and concerning.

Take a look at this video clip of a Bill Maher show about how we love our guns and love to openly carry them for effect ( or at least how the minority of us love their guns).

And what does this have to do with recent mass shootings? It is not only my view that the easy access to guns has caused a lot of mayhem on the home front. It is now speculated that the shooters in the San Bernardino mass shooting were able to amass a virtual arsenal of weapons, ammunition and bomb making materials. It’s easy for that to happen in gun nutty America. Does anyone remember that Congress allowed the restrictions on certain types of assault rifles, including certain features, to expire?:

Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza reportedly used a Bushmaster .223 rifle, a type of AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, to gun down 20 children in their first-grade classrooms on Friday.

AR-15s were one of 18 semiautomatic weapons banned under a 1994 law that expired in 2004 despite broad public support and a drop in gun fatalities, USA Today reported at the time.

Since then, killers have used semiautomatics to target victims en masse at Virginia Tech; theFort Hood military base; anAurora, Colo. movie theater; aSikh temple in Wisconsin; and now an elementary school in Newtown, Conn..

Let’s see. Are we safer from mass shootings now that that has happened? What kind of weapons are often used? Right. AR-15s or AK-47s.

Sigh.

High capacity magazines designed to attach to assault weapons are easy to buy in our country. Perhaps we need to restrict the amount of ammunition one can buy at once and require background checks for ammunition as well. Remember the Colorado movie theater shooter’s on-line purchases of thousands of rounds of ammunition? The victims’ families do. It’s kind of hard to argue that it’s OK for someone to be able to buy this much ammunition with no background check or even with a background check for that matter. We are not talking your average deer or pheasant hunter here.

We don’t know yet how the San Bernardino shooters obtained the 2 assault rifles used in the shooting but all guns start out as legal purchases so presumably they can be traced to their original owner. But it’s easy enough to buy as many guns as one wants or needs for some kind of attack right here at home- terror attack, domestic shooting, school shooting, or whatever.

And don’t get started on California’s strict gun laws before you read this from the article above:

Despite California’s relatively tough gun laws, it is not difficult to legally buy semiautomatic rifles that critics call assault weapons but are marketed by gun makers as “modern sporting rifles.” C.D. Michel, a Long Beach lawyer who has brought numerous legal challenges against gun ownership restrictions, said that “none of these laws have proven to be effective.”

“There’s a substitution effect,” said Mr. Michel, who counts among his clients the National Rifle Association. “If you ban Rifle X, people will use Rifle Y. When you strip away the prohibited features, you have a bare rifle, if you will, that is not necessarily a banned assault weapon.”

Go online, and it is not hard to find semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles offered for sale as “California compliant.” This is despite a series of laws dating to 1989 that banned a number of specific brands, as well as certain generic features.
Also, Californians can still legally possess assault rifles that they owned before the prohibitions went into effect as long as they have registered them with the state. More than 100,000 such weapons are registered.

The ban on high-capacity magazines, as well as the requirement that a magazine be affixed to the gun, was meant to prevent firing dozens of rounds from a single magazine and then quickly reloading, as has happened in many mass shooting cases. The development of the bullet button took advantage of a provision in California law allowing the sale of a gun with a magazine that could be removed with a “tool,” rather than simply by pressing a release-catch with a finger.

You can see how gun lobby amendments or loopholes get added to otherwise strong gun bills so they get their way anyway.

Insidious.

And worse than that, it’s easy for those who are prohibited from buying guns legally from also getting them legally because we haven’t made it illegal. You know what I mean- buying guns from private sellers at a gun show, on-line a flea market or maybe from a relative or friend who doesn’t know that you are a domestic abuser.

And what about those “everyday” gun deaths that don’t get the attention they deserve. Those are the ones that take the lives of most Americans killed by guns. You know, like my sister’s in a domestic shooting. Those. Vox has again done us a great service by putting the data in a form that is easy to understand, even for our Congress members and legislators. From the article:

We know that many of the everyday gun deaths are preventable. The research, helpfully aggregated by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, shows that after controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, places with more guns have more gun deaths. The research is actually a bit weaker for mass shootings — in large part because such tragedies are, thankfully, somewhat rare, so they’re difficult to study. But the basic point is that we know restricting access to guns — and, better yet, confiscating guns — could help prevent thousands of gun deaths.

We don’t make sure that people like the shooter of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs have their guns taken from them because they could be a danger to themselves or others. So we let them keep their guns because…. rights. And now, of course, 3 innocent Americans just lost their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Often love affairs end in separation or divorce. It seems like the time is here to divorce the corporate gun lobby from the elected leaders who have been frightened into doing their bidding- sort of like the power and control an abusive partner has on their spouse or partner.

Yesterday the Senate was forced to take a vote on background checks and the terror gap loophole in our gun laws that allows known terrorists on the no fly list to purchase guns anyway legally. The Senate, while debating repealing Obama Care once again and taking away the rights of women to legal health care options, in it’s pandering to the gun extremists, voted to allow extremists, terrorists, domestic abusers, felons and others to be able to buy guns legally. The Brady Campaign sent a letter to Congress just hours before the shooting in San Bernardino warning Congress of the dangers to Americans if we don’t close the terror gap and require Brady background checks on all gun sales.

Sigh.

You can’t make this stuff up. In the face of 2 horrendous mass shootings, home grown terror or otherwise, our Senators failed us. Here is the list. You can thank those who had the common sense to understand that keeping our country safe from domestic abusers with guns who target a clinic that provides services to women they are trying to deny, should be a priority. And you can ask what the others were thinking when they voted to allow terrorists to get guns legally and to allow just anyone to purchase a gun with no background check.

It’s time to divorce the pandering, fear, paranoia and money interests from our own supposedly deliberative body of law makers who should vote their consciences rather than their fear of being re-elected. Do we have a democracy any more?

Those who voted no on these life saving measures will be held accountable. The American public is in no mood to just accept this any longer. They just may divorce some of their leaders and vote for those who are willing to stand up for the victims and survivors and understand that more guns have not made us safer. Indeed, the opposite is what is happening every day. 89 American families a day are mourning their loss of a family member to gunshot injuries.

This is the definition of insanity. We are better than this. It’s past time to demand common sense action. Go ahead and pray for the families if you think that will help. And think about them every day. As long as it isn’t your loss, it’s easy to divorce yourself from the carnage. But when suddenly it’s your loss, it’s a different story to tell.

Schools, shopping malls, Planned Parenthood clinics, hospitals ( a Denver hospital was held hostage by a gunman yesterday), colleges, gatherings of public employees in a public building, and any other place where shooters choose their targets should be free from gun violence. And no, you gun rights extremists, guns carried by law abiding gun carriers just don’t make a difference in shootings like this. That nonsensical argument needs to be put to rest once and for all. When the shooting began at the Planned Parenthood clinic, a gun permit holder wanted to get involved. He was told to get away. How would law enforcement know if he was the shooter in question or just a guy with a gun trying to take matters into his own hands.

And the love affair also extends to carrying guns around in nearly all public places, sometimes openly carried, by a bunch of folks who are flaunting their gun rights just because they can. There are plenty of people who shouldn’t be carrying guns but do so anyway because of flaws in our laws. Check out this article in the Star Tribune by someone who admits that he has enough prior mental difficulties due to depression and PTSD that he is a person who really should not be allowed to carry a gun. But he got his Minnesota permit anyway.

But debating the supremacy of public policy vs. my civil rights is of little use for the moment, because for the next five years I can walk into any federal firearms licensee storefront in Minnesota and walk out with a semiautomatic pistol, high-capacity magazines and all of the ammunition I can afford.

How many permit holders are there like me in Minnesota? That’s impossible to tell. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that each year 6.7 percent of U.S. adults 18 or older experience a major depressive disorder. And nearly two-thirds “do not actively seek nor receive proper treatment,” according to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

Doing the math, Minnesota can expect that thousands of the more than 200,000 citizens with permits to purchase — as many as 8,900 — will experience a major depressive disorder this year. Like me, they’re not appearing on the sheriff’s radar. Unlike me, they don’t receive treatment.

So we have more than a serious problem. It is really an emergency. But our legislators and Congress members put their heads firmly in the sand and hope it will go away. What they are really hoping is that they don’t have to deal with gun issues. Why? Because in their heart of hearts most of them actually are on the side of reasonable gun laws just like me. But they are afraid to say so because the gun extremists, a mere minority of Americana and even of law abiding gun owners, might go after them. So what? 92% of Americans and even gun owners and NRA members want their leaders to do the right thing.

One has to ask then, who are our leaders truly representing? Not me. Not you. Not the way too many victims and survivors. Not gun owners.

Who?

We need the question answered.

UPDATE:

Within moments of my posting this one, I ran across this disgusting article. One of the Senators ( Presidential candidate) who voted against common sense yesterday is going ahead to host a second amendment rally even in the wake of the latest mass shootings. Let’s see if you can guess who this is before I provide a quote. Did you get it yet? Here it is ( from the article):

According to a report in Politico, the event was previously scheduled, but not canceled because Cruz spokesman Catherine Frazier told Politico “even in the midst of horrific events like this, we should never rush to take away the basic liberties enshrined in our Constitution that are guaranteed to law-abiding American citizens.”

As Politico pointed out, the Crossroads Shooting Sports boasts that part of its mission is to “glorify God in all we do and to be a positive influence to all who come in contact with CrossRoads Shooting Sports LLC.”

Yes, of course. Senator Ted Cruz flaunting gun rights while the families of the latest victims have not yet buried their loved ones. I would say shame on him but he won’t listen because his mission is all about getting elected no matter what and pandering to God and gun rights extremists.

God help us all.

UPDATE #2:

Just when you thought things couldn’t be more ridiculous, I ask you to take a long look at the family of Nevada Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore packing heat for their Christmas card photo. Nothing says merry and happy and joy like a 5 year old holding a Walther P22.

She loves her guns and her right to look totally out of touch with America and likely many of her constituents. May she have a safe new year though with kids bearing arms, that is iffy.

Armed America- not polite at all

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, American gun culture, Arizona gun laws, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, conceal carry permit holders, constitutional carry, corporate gun lobby, Florida gun laws, gun rights extremists, law enforcement officer shootings, Minnesota gun deaths, NRA, The Truth About Guns, Tucson shooting, Wild West shootings, zombies2 Comments

An armed society is a polite society? Anyone with common sense knows this to be untrue. Let’s look at an article in “The Truth About Guns” about this oft used statement:

The accuracy of that image of an “armed/polite” society in the 19th Century West is not only debatable, it’s irrelevant: There are plenty of “armed societies” in the modern-day world, and most of them can be described as anything but “polite.” (…)

But there’s another problem with the “Armed society=Polite society” equation. Assume arguendo that the saying is true. Ignore the above evidence to the contrary and say, for the moment, that people are more polite when they know there’s lots of heat being packed.

What does that say about us, as gun owners? After all, the tiresome refrain of all anti-concealed-carry arguments is that if more ‘ordinary’ people are packing pistols, they will whip them out and start firing on the flimsiest pretext. Cut me off in traffic? BLAM! Take the last drop of half-and-half at Starbucks? BLAM! Look at me funny? BLAM!

Gun owners [rightly] view this assumption as dangerous nonsense, that the vast majority of people jumping through all the hoops necessary to obtain a CCW permit are sober, rational, and caring adults who would never allow their emotions to take hold of them and cause them to use deadly force inappropriately. Even when they’re not sober, rational or caring.

But doesn’t that Heinlein aphorism say otherwise? Doesn’t it imply, at least on its face, that the whole reason an armed society is a polite society is that in an armed society, the penalty for “impoliteness” might be summary execution?

So this gun owning blogger believes that the statement is generally wrong but he offers a qualifier:

If anything, the saying is backwards. Being “polite”—having a shared set of values that includes placing a high value on peaceful civic discourse—is a necessary pre-condition for the arming of a society. Arms in a “polite” society remain the tools of good citizens to defend themselves against bad ones. But arming a society without those shared values is a recipe for chaos, for violence for, well, Somalia, Beirut, Pakistan et al.

“An armed society is a polite society” sounds cute. It sounds witty and cool. It impresses all the gun enthusiasts on the bulletin boards. It makes for a great t-shirt to wear at the gun show. But it’s just not true and if it was, it would be a bigger argument against arming ordinary citizens than anything the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence could possibly devise.

Hmmmm. So the problem with the writer’s logic is that everyone in America who has a permit to carry a gun has shared values. The arguments are mounting every day in our country against this argument. It’s not just the Brady Campaign “devising” the arguments. The public has had #enough. And the writer ignores the fact that the gun rights extremists are pushing for permit less carry in many states and some already have this dangerous law. The public is not clamoring for these laws. It’s the corporate gun lobby who represents an decreasing minority of gun owners who push these laws in state legislatures:

Given its high profile, it’s easy to assume that the NRA represents the voice of American gun owners. But in fact, the organization’s membership numbers and survey data point a different picture. Only a small fraction of the nation’s gun owners are NRA members. Even among NRA members, there is widespread dissent from some key points of the organization’s orthodoxy. And on many gun control issues, the majority of gun owners who aren’taffiliated with the NRA hold opinions closer to those of non-gun owners than to those of NRA members.

Let’s start with the membership numbers. In recent years the NRA has said it has 5 million dues-paying members. There’s some reason to be skeptical of this figure, but let’s assume 5 million is right. Those 5 million members only comprise somewhere between 6 and 7 percent of American gun owners. That would imply that the overwhelming majority of American gun owners — over 90 percent of them — do not belong to the NRA.

1 in 10 gun owners belong to the NRA. Amazing. Take note elected leaders. As I spent time at a table at a local conference attended by 2600 people, I spent some time talking to gun owners who agreed with the literature we were passing out and our views on the issue of gun violence prevention. None of the people we talked to belonged to the NRA and, in fact, they said they don’t like the organization at all. One man told me that the gun rights extremists, like open carriers, are ruining it for the rest of the law abiding gun owners and hunters who just want to use their guns for hunting and sport. They believe in safety and saving lives before they pledge allegiance to an organization that does not represent them.

But I digress.

Let’s take a look at the last week of the American armed and impolite society.

The Minneapolis- St. Paul area have seen at least 5 gun deaths in the last week. That was before the most recent week-end shootings:

And if that was not enough, an Aitken area Sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed by a suspect who had terrorized his wife days before. The man had been hospitalized because of concern about his behavior. More from the story:

A week before he killed an Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy at the St. Cloud Hospital, felon Danny L. Hammond, 50, terrorized his wife and threatened to kill her after she told him she wanted to leave their marriage of 12 years, authorities said.

Korena Hammond told authorities that her husband went into a rage on Oct. 10 after she told him her plans. He held her hostage at their home overnight, pointing a 9-millimeter pistol at her head, forcing her to eat food that he said was poisoned and capturing her when she managed to flee the locked house. The next morning she went to her father’s house after Hammond agreed to let her go, according to a criminal complaint released Monday. (…)

A week later, Hammond was at St. Cloud Hospital early Sunday morning. He was not in custody at the time, and was being treated for medical reasons related to a domestic incident, according to authorities. Hammond was being supervised by law enforcement at the request of hospital staff.

According to the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office, Hammond got out of bed and then struggled with Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven M. Sandberg, 60. He somehow took control of Sandberg’s gun and fired several shots. Sandberg was fatally struck by at least one bullet. A St. Cloud Hospital security guard shot Hammond with a Taser. Hammond fell unconscious as a result and despite lifesaving efforts died in the hospital.

This is yet another case of domestic abuse that could have ended with the shooting of this man’s wife but instead tragically ended with the shooting of a law enforcement officer. And the old myth of an armed person being able to protect him/herself is proven wrong over and over again by incidents such as this one. The officer got into a fight with the suspect but the suspect got his hands on the deputy’s gun and was able to shoot him. It’s not the first time this has happened. Being armed does not guarantee that one can keep oneself safe.

It’s not only Minnesota. These kinds of incidents are happening everywhere. You can’t make some of them up because they point to the risk of guns in public places and in homes.

I am adding this one which just crossed my “desk”. A new gun permit holder shot himself in the leg while attending a movie in a Kansas theater:

A man was transported to Salina Regional Health Center on Friday night after he apparently accidentally shot himself in the leg midway through a movie at Central Mall.

Salina Police Department watch commander Sean Furbeck said the incident remains under investigation, but the gunshot wound likely was self-inflicted. He said police were not seeking anyone else in connection with the incident, which occurred at about 8:30 p.m. in one of the small theaters behind the ticket sales area. (…) “I feel really sorry that guy shot himself, but at least he didn’t shoot someone else,” Myers said. “That would have been 10 times worse.”

10 times worse. We have had 10 times worse actually. Remember the Aurora theater shooting?

Let’s start with a shooting at a ZombieCon event in Florida– Florida again which has some of the loosest gun laws in the country. From the article:

Chaos broke out at a zombie-themed street festival in downtown Fort Myers, Florida, after shooting left one man dead and five other people wounded.

Crowds of festivalgoers fled screaming through the streets after the shots rang out late Saturday at ZombiCon.

“It cleared out fast and cop cars and ambulances came,” said Savannah Holden, who watched the panic unfold from a hotel balcony.

One man died of a gunshot wound at the scene, police said, and five other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Four of them were taken to Lee Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Seriously. This is ludicrous. Notice that what most people did was to run away rather than try to shoot the shooter. Why? They were taken by surprise. They had no idea from where the shots came and their first reaction was to flee.

On another note, remember that gun extremists love to shoot at zombies on the gun range. They have zombies that are the faces and bodies of famous people like President Obama. Check out this site called Bleeding Zombies. There are the torsos of football players, terrorists, Nazis, etc. Why? What do shooters imagine while shooting at these targets? I think we know. This is our American gun culture gone totally out of whack.

Follow the money.

And then there was this shooting at the historical Tombstone, Arizona site:

Two people were shot in Tombstone, Arizona, during a gunfight reenactment when one of the actors allegedly used real bullets.

One of the actors, Tom Carter, was late to the performance and his weapon wasn’t checked, according to News 4 Tucson. During the shootout, he allegedly hit actor Ken Curtis with a real bullet.

Both were members of the Tombstone Vigilantes performance group.

“The Vigilantes immediately stopped the show and Tom was relieved of his weapon,” Bob Randall, the city’s marshall, said in a statement cited by the Tucson Sentinel. “During inspection of his weapon, it was discovered that there was one live round in the cylinder withfive expended casings indicating the gun had held six live rounds prior to the skit.” (…) Mayor Dusty Escapule told the Sentinel that the Vigilantes won’t be allowed to perform reenactments “until it can be determined all weapons are safely loaded with blank ammunition as required.”

Right. Guns are dangerous. When will that simple fact become part of our everyday language? Until it does, zombies- real or not and cowboys- real or not- will be shot every day.

And let’s get our history straight. The re-enactment of a shooting at the historical town of Tombstone is most likely a myth. Here’s the truth about guns and the “Wild West”.

This article in Politico after the shooting of Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona written by historian Katherine Benton-Cohen sheds light on what really happened in Tombstone:

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, during a press conference about the Tucson shootings, called Arizona “the Tombstone of the United States.”

Some journalists gave the word a lowercase “t,” but the sheriff was clearly referring to the infamous silver-mining town 70 miles from Tucson — site of the shootout at the OK Corral. (…)

The irony of Dupnik’s remark is that Tombstone lawmakers in the 1880s did more to combat gun violence than the Arizona government does today.

For all the talk of the “Wild West,” the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of gun control. When people now compare things to the “shootout at the OK Corral,” they mean vigilante violence by gunfire. But this is exactly what the Tombstone town council had been trying to avoid.

In late 1880, as regional violence ratcheted up, Tombstone strengthened its existing ban on concealed weapons to outlaw the carrying of any deadly weapons within the town limits. The Earps (who were Republicans) and Doc Holliday maintained that they were acting as law officers—not citizen vigilantes—when they shot their opponents. That is to say, they were sworn officers whose jobs included enforcement of Tombstone’s gun laws.

Today, in contrast, Arizonans can legally buy guns without licenses, and are able to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The state bans cities from passing their own, stricter laws. The legislature will consider a bill this session that would force schools to allow guns on campus — like Pima Community College, which the alleged shooter attended. (…) Arizonans, myself included, love to tout their vaunted independence and Western values. But when we perpetuate the idea that Arizona is some unchanging Wild West, we fall into the trap of a myth that only serves to embolden those who refuse to support commonsense restrictions on purchasing firearms.

Thanks to Arizona’s lax permit to carry laws, the Tucson shooter could carry his gun with little or no training. What shared values are involved in not requiring Brady background checks or some kind of knowledge of guns and how to shoot them before allowing people to carry guns around in public places? Carrying a gun in public places is an awesome and dangerous responsibility. This is the opposite of common sense.

Just like the myth of an armed society being a polite society, so is the myth of gun wielding cowboys in the American western frontier. Yes, shootings happened. But there were also laws to address where and who could carry guns in towns. What are Western values? Are they any different than the values held dear by the majority of Americans who know that keeping their children and communities safe from the devastation of gun violence is more important to an insane adherence to the second amendment.

October is Domestic Abuse Awareness month

October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, Americans for Responsible Solutions, Armslist, Barbara Parker, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Center for American Progress, Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, domestic abuse, Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, domestic shootings, Everytown for Gun Safety, Lautenberg amendment, Lucia McBath, Minnesota domestic violence law, Radcliff Haugton, Violence Policy Center

Domestic violence takes the lives of many every day. Domestic abuse that leads to loss of life can be prevented if we attempt to prohibit domestic abusers from getting their hands on guns since the majority of domestic deaths are by bullet. Domestic abusers by federal law are prohibited from buying guns. In 1997 the Lautenberg amendment added domestic violence misdemeanors to the category of prohibited gun purchasers.

But these purchases only apply for licensed dealers as was written into law in the Brady law. There are plenty of places where domestic abusers with intent to harm a partner, spouse, dating partner to get guns. These would be from private sellers at gun shows, flea markets and on-line sites like armslist.com which allow for gun purchases with no background checks. Do these sellers know anything about the buyers? Do they care? If no background check is required, how would a seller know whether the person to whom they are selling means to kill someone with their lethal product?

When Radcliffe Haughton bought his gun on Armslist.com, did the private seller know anything about this prohibited purchaser? Did the seller know that Haughton’s intent with that gun was to shoot his wife and in the process kill 3 others at a spa near Milwaukee?

Women in America are 11 times more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other high income countries. Why do we tolerate this?

Our nation’s lax gun laws contribute to the ease with which domestic abusers can acquire the weapon used to kill someone they know, love or loved previously. A gun is the ultimate power and control. We can do something about this and some states are. Minnesota is one of the states that passed a law two years ago to make it possible to take guns from known domestic abusers with orders for protection, restraining orders or stalking. From the linked article:

Around three U.S. women a day are killed by intimate partners, according to several domestic violence advocacy groups, including the National Network To End Domestic Violence. Experts on the topic say that women are in the most danger when leaving a relationship — and that’s why it’s imperative that authorities prioritize disarming abusers once a restraining order is granted.

“Often times, when she takes out that order of protection, she’s testing the relationship to find out if she can safely leave, and she’s testing the system to find out if they honor and respect what she says she needs help with,” said Kit Gruelle, an advocate who has worked with domestic violence survivors for 30 years. “Unfortunately, for some women these pieces of paper do become their last will and testament.”

There are no national statistics on the percentage of domestic homicide victims who had restraining orders against their killers at their time of death, but research has indicated that restraining orders are violated around 40 percent of the time. There’s also some evidence that strengthening gun laws for abusers may save lives: According to one study, states that restrict abusers subject to restraining orders from accessing guns have been associated with reduced rates of domestic homicides. (…)

“Having interviewed killers about this, there’s a moment of time and a window of opportunity for them to kill,” he said. “Many of the killers said something to the effect of ‘24 hours before the incident, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat,’ really obsessed. If they have a gun during that opportunity and access to her, it was going happen. If they didn’t have a gun, that moment may have forever passed.”

One study found that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes itfive times more likely a woman will be murdered by her abuser. Over half of all women killed by intimate partners between 2001 to 2012 were killed using a gun, according to the Center for American Progress.

Why would we make it easy for those who mean harm to be able to get guns? Good question. One has to wonder what the gun lobby and gun extremists are thinking about when they strongly resist laws to require Brady background checks on all gun sales? Are they actually thinking about the potential for the loss of human life? Or is making money more important? I think we know the answer. Any common sense suggestions about keeping guns away from those who shouldn’t have them ends with abject rejection and no middle ground possible.

Two days ago I spoke at an Americans for Responsible Solutions titled: “Harnessing the Advocacy of Women for the Safety of Women.” Women understand that when a gun is in the home, they are less safe. Day after day we are “treated” to stories about men who, in a moment of anger, jealousy, rage or depression, kill women, children, aunts, uncles, boyfriends, spouses, ex spouses, ex girlfriends, ex boyfriends and other sometimes innocent people who happen to be in the vicinity of the shooter.

My panel was about telling stories. I told the story of my sister’s shooting in a domestic dispute over a contentious divorce. My remarks started with one of my favorite sections of Anne Tyler’s book, the Accidental Tourist. Here is what I said:

Stories are important. Without them, I’m not sure the public would believe what goes on inside the homes of so many Americans. I often think of the scene in Anne Tyler’s book- The Accidental Tourist, when the protagonist, Macon Leary, a travel agent who hates to travel, goes on a business trip. Macon is lonely and wants every place he visits to feel like home. As he looks out the window of his plane taking him out of his comfort zone, Macon remarks that he can see the little houses below and wonders what is going on inside of those houses. He then concludes that we can never know what is happening in the privacy of people’s homes even while we are looking.

Macon’s son was also shot in a fast food restaurant and his marriage disintegrated as a result. This book mirrors real life even though fiction.

The other story tellers were Lucia McBath, whose son, Jordan Davis, was shot in Florida after a permit to carry holder decided he didn’t like the loud music coming from a car full of kids so he shot at the car and killed Jordan. So incredibly senseless and tragic. The shooter was unable to get off on a Stand Your Ground law and was convicted. Lucia is a beautiful composed woman who is a spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety. Following Lucy was Barbara Parker whose daughter Alison was shot and killed in Roanoke ,Virginia on live TV. Amazingly this mother could stand in front of a room full of people and speak with grace and dignity about this heinous shooting. And next was Ruth Glenn, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She was shot twice in the head by her husband- her abuser- and survived. Her son observed the shooting. Six months later, he shot and killed himself.

Since women are the majority of Americans at the moment and are affected greatly by domestic abuse and domestic violence, activating that group will change the way we are doing things. The gun lobby understands this about women. And that is why they are deceiving some into thinking buying a gun will allow them to defend themselves against a man who intends harm. They are wrong. Few, if any, examples of this occur. But we do know that many examples of women being abused and killed by guns are in the news every day.

We’ve all had #enough. It’s time for action.

Join me and the organizations working on the issue of domestic violence, domestic abuse and gun violence to make the changes we deserve. Saving lives is the bottom line.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs

Americans for Responsible Solutions

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Everytown for Gun Safety

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

Violence Policy Center

Center for American Progress

And the many many others in states and cities all over America. Together we can make a difference.

A deadly week-end in Minnesota

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, gun deaths and injuries, homicide/suicides, Mike the Gun Guy, Minnesota gun laws, Minnesota mass shooting, public health and safety, shots fired9 Comments

Warning- guns are hazardous to your health and safety. What about this have we failed to recognize or understand? It’s a conundrum but I do believe the public at least is beginning to pay attention. And if I and others keep alerting the public and our politicians about the dangers of guns and lax gun laws, something just has to change, doesn’t it? One thing I know is that we can work to change the politicians if they don’t change their resistance to gun safety reform measures. In just Minnesota alone in the past few days, we have had carnage and mayhem in our homes and streets.

In my last post, I wrote about the murder/suicide of a 5 member family in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. This incident is much talked about, as you can imagine. Not only is it a domestic shooting, it is a murder/suicide and it is a mass shooting. 5 are dead. The Gun Violence Archive site is keeping track of these incidents. Thank goodness somebody is doing this because the corporate gun lobby doesn’t want the public or politicians to have a real understanding of the scope of the gun violence in our country.

According to someone at that site who posted on a page of which I am a member, there have been 400 murder/suicides in 2015. That’s more than one per day. If this isn’t enough to make your hair stand on end, I don’t know what is.

And then, over the week-end 10 people were involved in shootings in 2 separate places in Minneapolis. One is dead, the others injured. If that wasn’t enough there was another murder/suicide in western Minnesota involving two men.

And we’re not done yet. A man in his 90s shot and killed his own son in a Twin Cities suburb. More details are coming but the man is being held in jail at this time.

Shots were fired in Rochester, MN over the week-end and after a brawl in downtown Duluth..The police didn’t buy the shooter’s claim of self defense. Guns and alcohol don’t mix.

By my count, that’s 9 dead, 9 injured and 2 incidents of gun fire where no one got hurt. And that’s all in a few days’ time. Stunning and total lunacy.

So, what’s the solution to this public health and safety epidemic? We should begin with common sense. And we need to fight the mistaken and misleading assertions by the corporate gun lobby. It’s time to be strong and fight back with the facts, tell real stories about gun violence and expose the nonsensical arguments of the NRA and others in the gun lobby. A blog post from Mike the Gun Guy encourages those involved in gun violence prevention to take off the gloves. When lives are at stake and shootings are taking the lives of so many people, being polite about it doesn’t change anything. We need to be noisy and insist that our voices are heard. Time to get to work. Are you with me?

Minnesota mass shooting

September 11, 2015September 12, 2015 commongunsenseAccent Signage shooting, domestic shootings, gun suicides, homicide/suicides, mass shootings, Minnesota shooting, NRA, Red Lake school shooting8 Comments

Many people are crying in Minnesota. Why? There has been another mass shooting in our state. We’ve had others. We had the Accent Signage shooting ( the 3rd anniversary is coming on Sept. 27th ). We’ve had the Red Lake school shooting. This time, 5 members of one family shot and killed in a murder/suicide.

The father in a family of five found dead in their Greenwood home Thursday shot and killed his wife and three teenage children before turning the gun on himself, sources told the Star Tribune Friday.

Brian Scott Short, 45, killed his wife, Karen Anne Short, 48; and his three children, Cole, 17; Madison, 15, and Brooklyn, 14, in their mansion near Lake Minnetonka, the sources said. (…)

The South Lake Minnetonka police came upon the “unspeakable” scene while checking on the welfare of the family, whose members had not shown up for work or school for a couple of days. The five bodies bore traumatic injuries and were scattered throughout the large house on Channel Drive.

And what do people say? It was such a nice family. I can’t believe this happened in our peaceful suburban neighborhood. He seemed like such a good guy. How could this have happened? Yes. It happens. It’s America- the land of mass shootings. There has been one almost one a day this year. Many are not high profile like the Charleston shooting or the Aurora theater shooting or Sandy Hook. They are found in local media sources. They are often domestic in nature and often involve a murder/suicide. They happen because of the availability of guns not seen in any other first world country in the world.

In my last post I wrote about the high number of gun suicides in our country. In Minnesota it’s 80%. I wrote in the post before last about my friend who was coming from Vermont for our class reunion. Her husband shot and killed himself. He had some mental illness and had been struggling with it for years. I had a chance to talk to her about his death. As it turns out, my friend was also involved in a school shooting in the small school in Vermont where she taught. One was killed. It was a domestic shooting. The shooter came to shoot his girlfriend at the school where she worked.

Have we had enough of this insanity? When will it be enough? When can we talk about gun violence and the affect it has on our families and communities? When will we come to our senses?

At my class reunion, many know about the work that I do and are supporters. One man wanted to talk to me. He is a gun owner- a hunter. He got his permit to carry just because but he doesn’t carry a gun ever. He target shoots and he owns 10 guns.He believes in background checks for all guns sales and thinks we ought to have licensing and registration. He told me that he would give up his guns if that is what it takes to stop the insanity.

Where is common sense? It turns out that it’s everywhere but in the halls of Congress and our state houses. And that is just one problem. The rest is due to a gun culture that has spiraled out of control. When did this start my friend wanted to know? How did we get this way? Was it September 11th, 2001? Was it the election of President Obama? Is it the uptick of the fear and paranoia spewed by the gun rights extremists and the political far right? Is it the need for profit for the gun industry as sales decreased so passing new permit to carry laws or letting the assault weapons ban makes people think they must have shiny new guns?

I’m not sure. I just know that when we have this many mass shootings, something is terribly wrong. It’s senseless and tragic. Now a whole family is dead and the grief and affects of this are far reaching into the family of the victims and the entire community. Something needs to change.

I will end with this quote from the linked article:

“It is with great regret and a very heavy heart that I have to share some very sad news with you. There is no easy way to say this. … Brian and his family have been killed. The news is calling it an apparent murder-suicide. … No matter what the details are, the results are still the same … a very tragic loss for the extended families, friends, co-workers and this nursing community.”

UPDATE:

This follow-up Star Tribune article indicates that there were possible mental health and financial problems that could have contributed to the shooting deaths of the Minnesota family.

I would also like to add that one of my readers commented with an answer to my questions about how did we get to where we are now? It was 1977 in Cincinnati at an NRA meeting when a group who wanted to turn the organization into a lobby group instead of a group to support hunting sport:

In gun lore it’s known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. On May 21, 1977, and into the morning of May 22, a rump caucus of gun rights radicals took over the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association.

The rebels wore orange-blaze hunting caps. They spoke on walkie-talkies as they worked the floor of the sweltering convention hall. They suspected that the NRA leaders had turned off the air-conditioning in hopes that the rabble-rousers would lose enthusiasm.

The Old Guard was caught by surprise. The NRA officers sat up front, on a dais, observing their demise. The organization, about a century old already, was thoroughly mainstream and bipartisan, focusing on hunting, conservation and marksmanship. It taught Boy Scouts how to shoot safely. But the world had changed, and everything was more political now. The rebels saw the NRA leaders as elites who lacked the heart and conviction to fight against gun-control legislation. (…)

What unfolded that hot night in Cincinnati forever reoriented the NRA. And this was an event with broader national reverberations. The NRA didn’t get swept up in the culture wars of the past century so much as it helped invent them — and kept inflaming them. In the process, the NRA overcame tremendous internal tumult and existential crises, developed an astonishing grass-roots operation and became closely aligned with the Republican Party.

Today it is arguably the most powerful lobbying organization in the nation’s capital and certainly one of the most feared. There is no single secret to its success, but what liberals loathe about the NRA is a key part of its power. These are the people who say no.

And the rest is the result of how we got to where we are today.

Gun suicides must be taken seriously

September 9, 2015September 10, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, Armslist.com, Azana spa shooting, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Brady Center, domestic shootings, guns and suicide, homicide/suicide, kids and guns, mass shootings, public health and safety, Suicide-Proof Your Home

For far too long, we have ignored one of our country’s most serious public health problems- gun suicides. This week is Suicide Prevention Awareness week. Are we paying attention? The Brady Center has a new report out about the reality of suicide by gun which takes more lives than gun homicides. Let’s take a look at some of the points made in the report:

A gun in the home makes a suicide three times more likely according, to a 28-page report released today by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The Truth About Suicide and Guns finds that while gun ownership alone presents the greatest risk, when combined with the impulsive nature of suicide and the effectiveness of a gun, the combination is deadly. In fact, 71% of people who attempt suicide do so within an hour after making the decision. Further, death results 91% of the time when a gun is used because injuries are instantaneous and leave little time for medical intervention or for the victim to reconsider their decision.

“A gun in the home makes it too easy for someone to find a permanent and tragic solution to a temporary feeling. This report is not about the right to bear arms; it’s about arming people with facts,” said Brady Center President Dan Gross. “The facts are clear — there is one, surefire way to drastically reduce the number of Americans who die from suicide each year and, simultaneously, make American homes safer: Keep guns out of the home or store them safely.”

Suicide by gun has increased since 2007 which is affirmed by many reports. When I spoke to my own Police Chief, he confirmed that he had been seeing more local gun suicides. The report from Brady has some numbers:

A closer examination of the causes of these deaths reveals some important trends. Over the past decade, the rate of firearm homicide has continued a steady decline. At the same time, the firearm suicide rate has begun rising, increasing more than 13 percent between 2007 and 2013. The combination of these two trends is keeping the overall gun death rate essentially stagnant.

Access to firearms clearly increases the risk of suicide as the report highlights:

Intervention during this time of acute risk is key to saving lives. Most people who attempt suicide don’t really want to die, they are just so overwhelmed by their emotions they feel unable to cope. Indeed, the vast majority of people who make it through a suicidal crisis do not go on to die by suicide. A systematic review of 70 studies following patients after a non-fatal attempt found that, on average, only 7 percent (range: 5 to 11 percent) eventually died by suicide, whereas 70 percent did not attempt again.

A common misconception is that people who want to die will find a way to kill themselves, with or without a gun. However, studies suggest that the risk of method substitution is low. If a person’s preferred suicide method is unavailable, it is unlikely they will switch to a different one. Even if another method is used it is likely to be less lethal, thus increasing the odds of survival. (…)

Research has shown that reducing firearm availability can lead to reductions in firearm suicide rates. In one study, researchers measured the impact of changes in household firearm ownership on suicide rates in the United States between 1981 and 2002. They found that each 10 percent reduction in firearm prevalence was associated with significant declines in rates of firearm suicide (4.2 percent) and overall suicide (2.5 percent). The effect was even greater among children ages 0 to 19. A more recent study of suicide on college and university campuses between 2004 and 2009 revealed substantially lower suicide rates for students compared to all 20- to 24-yearolds. These differences were attributed to the ninefold decrease in firearm availability on campuses versus homes.

The availability of guns clearly makes a difference. Guns are more lethal than other methods of suicide and, as the report reveals, 90% of those who attempt suicide but fail don’t try again. So we can’t listen to those who say we shouldn’t deal with the risk of firearms since people will just use other means to kill themselves. It is simply not true based on the research.

As part of the release of this new report, a father speaks in a video about his 13 year old son who shot himself on impulse with a gun the father had forgotten he had in the house. Below is the story told by Farid Naib :

Cayman Naib had a bad day. He found a gun and used it on impulse to shoot and kill himself. Now his father is telling his story. If only there had not been a gun handy. Guns make it much easier and are more lethal than other potential methods of suicide. From this linked article about guns and suicide:

The harrowing fact of suicide demands a story: “Why?” But from a public health perspective, an equally illuminating question is “How?” Intent matters, but so does method, because the method by which one attempts suicide has a great deal to do with whether one lives or dies. What makes guns the most common mode of suicide in this country? The answer: They are both lethal and accessible. About one in three American households contains a gun. The price of this easy access is high. Gun owners and their families are much more likely to kill themselves than are non-gun-owners. A 2008 study by Miller and David Hemenway, HICRC director and author of the book Private Guns, Public Health, found that rates of firearm suicides in states with the highest rates of gun ownership are 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women, compared with states with the lowest gun ownership—though the rates of non-firearm suicides are about the same. A gun in the home raises the suicide risk for everyone: gun owner, spouse and children alike.

Guns are lethal weapons designed to kill. There is a risk to having them that must be discussed.

Stories are important if we are to change the conversation, change the culture of guns and change laws to save lives. As I wrote in my last post, this is what the gun lobby doesn’t like. Victims’ families are supposed to be quiet and not tell their stories. They are inconvenient and painful. It’s difficult to watch and listen to Naib’s story but if we are to make change, stories like his and the many others who have lost someone to a gun suicide must be told.

A friend who I met through my work at Protect Minnesota, has worked to call attention to gun suicides since her daughter used a gun to take her own life. I asked her for a statement and this is what she said:

Angela’s life did not have to end, along with so many others that have died from self inflicted gunshot wounds. If the legislatures listened to someone other than the NRA and the gun manufactures, if they had then Angela would be alive because at least one of the four hospital stays the last year of her life would have come out on a background check and she would not have been able to purchase a gun and use it to end her life.

The medications she was on where more regulated than the gun and bullet she used to end her life. In 2011 Angela was 1 of 19,900 people that committed suicide by gun, that number has grown every year. Every year 64% of gun violence deaths nationwide are suicide.

Please reach out to someone you know is struggling, if you are struggling please reach out to a friend or family member or call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1 (800) 273-8255.

Yes, background checks can work to keep suicidal people from getting guns. In fact, in states with expanded background checks, gun suicides were reduced:

Background checks are the most effective way to restrict access to firearms. An estimated 40 percent of gun sales in the United States are completed without background checks. “One of the conclusions of the study is consistent with a key observation Everytown made a year ago: that background check laws are associated with reduced rates of firearm injury and death including suicides,” said Ted Alcorn, Research Director, Everytown for Gun Safety. “Everytown’s research shows that in states with background check requirements, people are safer: controlling for population, there are 48 percent fewer gun suicides in states that require background checks for private handgun sales than in states that do not.”

In 2013 alone, 21,2175 people killed themselves with a firearm. That makes up 51 percent of all suicides from that year. (…)

Suicides involving firearms are fatal 85 percent of the time, compared with less than 3 percent for pills, according to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “If someone in the home is contemplating suicide doesn’t have access to a firearm, it’s likely that they will be attempting with less lethal means,” said Everitt. “Ninety percent of people who survive an initial suicide attempt will not go on to complete another attempt. Being able to intervene after a potential first attempt is very important,” Everitt said.

There’s really no doubt about it. We can prevent some of our nation’s suicide deaths by passing stronger gun laws and making people aware of the risk of easily accessed loaded guns in homes.

It’s also important to note that some of our mass shootings and many domestic related shootings result in suicide. From the first linked article:

Mass murder is a form of suicide in that the perpetrator of such atrocities is often an enraged and fatalistic individual who intends to die at the scene of the massacre. From this perspective, the increase in mass shootings over the last ten years is very consistent with the increase in suicide.

An example of a mass shooting that ended in multiple homicides and the suicide of the shooter was the Milwaukee area mass spa shooting which was also a domestic related shooting. The firearm was obtained without a background check through Armslist.com by the shooter. The result was 3 dead and 4 injured, including the wife of the shooter. The shooter couldn’t buy a gun through a licensed dealer because he was a domestic abuser. Easy access to guns makes these kind of shootings easier to accomplish.

There are many other mass shootings like this one. And domestic murder/suicides are just part of our daily media coverage all over the country. In fact, there was just a recent domestic incident in California involving a firefighter who shot his wife, a sheriff’s deputy, and then himself. Guns and suicidal individuals are a really dangerous combination.

So what can we do about this? From the Brady Center’s report:

Limiting access to firearms has been shown to reduce suicide rates in many countries outside the U.S., including Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand. A study of the Israeli Defense Forces found that a change in policy, requiring firearms to be stored on base while soldiers took their weekend leave, resulted in a 40 percent decrease in suicide. Much of this decrease could be attributed to the policy change since the weekday suicide rate did not change significantly. Following a 1996 firearm massacre in which 35 people were killed, additional regulations were passed that made gun laws stronger and more uniform across Australia. The reforms included a ban on semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns, a national gun buyback program, registration of all guns, and background checks on all gun sales. Researchers found that the new gun laws accelerated the rate of decline for suicide by firearm, doubling it from 3 percent to 7.4 percent per year. (…)

A broad consensus exists among leading public health experts that means reduction is an essential component of any comprehensive suicide prevention strategy. According to the World Health Organization’s global report on suicide prevention, “Restriction of access to means plays an important role in suicide prevention, particularly in the case of suicides that are impulsive.” In the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, a joint report issued by the U.S. Surgeon General and the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, one of the 11 goals outlined was to “promote efforts to reduce access to lethal means of suicide among individuals with identified suicide risk.”

We don’t have to shrug our shoulders and believe that there is nothing to be done or no solutions. There are. Take a look at these suggestions from the Brady report:

Considerable evidence links the presence of a firearm in the home with increased risk of adolescent suicide. A review of data from case-control studies reveals that adolescents who died by suicide were four to five times more likely to have a gun in the home, even after adjusting for potentially confounding variables, such as previous mental health problems. Although suicide and mental illness can be closely related, 40 percent of suicide completers under the age of 16 were found to have no known psychiatric disorder. For young people without mental illness, a loaded gun in the home was found to increase suicide risk 32 times.These data show that for many young people the availability of a gun in the home is the most significant predictor of suicide.

Educating parents about lethal means reduction should be an important part of any effort to prevent adolescent suicide. Many parents are unaware of the risks of having a gun in the home, particularly for older adolescents. Therefore, parents should be encouraged to store household firearms safely (locked and unloaded, with ammunition stored separately) or to remove them altogether. In one study, keeping guns locked and unloaded was found to have a protective effect, reducing odds of death by 73 percent and 70 percent, respectively. However, removing firearms from the home is the most reliable and most effective way to prevent youth suicide.

Brady’s Suicide-Proof Your Home campaign provides simple, practical steps that all parents can take to reduce a child’s risk of suicide at home, such as removing or locking up firearms and medications. It builds on the familiar concept of childproofing, with the goal of showing parents that much as locking a cabinet can keep curious toddlers safe from harmful chemicals, locking a gun and securing ammunition separately can keep a troubled teen from making a deadly mistake.

If we don’t take the public health problem of suicide seriously, we will be neglecting our youth and others whose lives could be saved by some simple common sense solutions. We have far too many deadly mistakes in America. Senseless deaths like those I have written about here leave families devastated and often wracked with guilt. It doesn’t have to be this way. I hope you will join the Brady Campaign/Center and other organizations working to prevent gun violence to educated the public about solutions that can make a difference.

Anniversaries and actions

August 5, 2015August 5, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, Armslist.com, Brady background checks, Charleston church shooting, corporate gun lobby, Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, domestic shootings, guns and women, Lafayette theater shoot, Million Mom March, on-line gun sales, private gun sellers, Sikh Temple shooting

Anniversaries are important. Couples know that it’s important to remember each other on their anniversary. Forgetting is not a good idea for obvious reasons. My wedding anniversary is in August. It just happens that it’s on the same day our 3rd grandchild was born so we never forget this one.

August is a month, like all months, of shooting anniversaries. The one that is most important to me is the day my sister was shot and killed by her estranged husband. That would be Aug. 5th- 23 years ago. It might seem like it was really a long time ago. It was. But I can remember the details as if it were yesterday. I can remember the phone call. I can remember the feeling of disbelief and then of a slow reality that this was happening to my family- to my family. Not someone else’s. But mine. How could that be? Things like this only happen to someone else.

I can remember how painful it was to have to inform my mother that her oldest child had been murdered. That was for me. Only I couldn’t do it. She was at her cabin far away in a remote place with a visiting relative. It was night time. It was a 3 hour drive. What to do? We waited until morning and my husband made the call. It was so difficult. She was brave. And she came right home to be where she needed to be. With family. Now what?

We huddled. We cried. We railed. We read the newspaper accounts since the shooting was committed by someone well known in the city where he lived. They were getting a divorce. He was resisting. He was in contempt of court for refusing to cooperate. This had been going on for several years. My sister was moving on to a new relationship. He had already moved on to a new relationship. Things were not going well legally. She and her new guy were delivering legal papers that came to my sister’s house ( he had moved out some time before the shooting). He must have asked them to come inside. They did. She felt protected by her man friend. That didn’t work. He shot and killed them both.

But I try not to remember these kinds of details. What good does it do? My sister is not here any longer to enjoy the grandchildren she would never know and love or my grandchildren that she will never know. She didn’t get to be at her oldest son’s wedding or be the beloved aunt at my own children’s weddings. She didn’t get to see her life through to actually be divorced from the man who shot her and move on to a relationship with a man who loved her and was ready to be with her as they grew old together. Her potential was never reached. Lives lost are lives not lived and lives of people who had much to give to the world and their families and communities. Memories can’t make a difference in the world.

My sister was a beautiful woman- an actual beauty queen. She was intelligent, athletic, educated, caring, daring, creative and loving. She was an artist. She was a pilot. She played tennis well. She was a biker. She loved music and plays. She loved her children and her family and welcomed everyone in. She was a bit frenetic, talking as she did other things and creating some chaos in her wake. It was always interesting and exciting being around her. She attracted a lot of attention and was loved by many. She was a strong and independent woman as well. And she knew her marriage needed to end. She stood up for herself in the divorce process and that is what makes for trouble sometimes. She was trying to leave this relationship. It often takes women 7 or 8 times to get out of an abusive relationship and it is while they are trying to leave that can be dangerous for women. Abuse takes many forms. It was not physical abuse in my sister’s relationship. It was rather more emotional and financial abuse. You can check out the Power and Control wheels developed at Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs for more information.

The majority of women killed in domestic disputes are killed with a gun.

So it is in my sister’s memory that I do what I do. Her shooting death changed the lives of her family and friends forever. For me, it launched me into advocacy to prevent senseless gun violence. I have been working towards common sense gun laws and changing the gun culture for the last 15 years since I marched in the original Million Mom March on the National Mall. It’s been an interesting ride. There have been challenges, some defeats and some victories. I am part of a movement that is changing every day.

One of the big changes that has not been achieved is making sure all gun sales go through background checks. The Brady background check law came into effect after my sister was shot. It would not have made a difference in her case because my now ex and dead brother-in-law would have passed one. He was a “law abiding” gun owner until suddenly he wasn’t. He was a “responsible gun owner”. Or was he? He had loaded guns sitting around all over his house- a fact we learned after the shooting. He was a gun nut. He loved his guns. My sister was nervous about this. No one thought anything about it because- well just because. Awareness of the danger of guns in the home came for me after this happened to my family. I grew up in a house with guns. Hunting guns. Not handguns or AR-15s. No one had those where I grew up. I learned to hunt. My husband is a hunter. We are gun owners. But we are more savvy now about the facts and we understand that a woman in the US is 11 times more likely to die of a gunshot injury if she lives in a home with a gun than women in other high income countries. We know that children are also at risk when loaded guns are accessible to them. Women and children were not being shot in the numbers they are today as when I was growing up. The organization founded to support hunting and gun safety has turned into a huge and well funded lobby organization in large part supported by the gun industry that makes profits with every gun sale.

But I digress.

Just because an expanded background check system would have unlikely affected the outcome in my sister’s shooting does not mean it won’t for many others. We also now know about the effect of the private sale “loophole” in the Brady law. Occasional sellers have become much more than occasional. It is estimated that about 40% of gun sales go without background checks through private sellers at gun shows, flea markets, classified ads, and now, on-line sales.

A great and informative article about how easy it is for people who shouldn’t have guns to get them anyway was written by a Tennessee woman. This woman goes through the process of how easy it is to get guns from sites like Armslist.com. We know now that the shooter in Chattanooga got 3 of his guns through this site- no background check, no questions asked. You can do your own research like this woman did and find out for yourself what she found out. The majority of gun sales on this on-line exchange are through private sellers.

I did my own exercise looking at the number of handguns for sale just in the Minneapolis area on Monday of this week. I narrowed my search to private sellers. I found that there were 45 handguns for sale in the area and 27 of them were private sellers. That means that 60% of the handguns for sale on Monday, August 3rd in Minneapolis alone were offered by private sellers. Who knows who the buyers might be? Private sellers don’t have to find that out. As the author of the above blog says, some private sellers sell guns to people they know shouldn’t have them and many sell these guns “inadvertently” to people who shouldn’t have guns. But when you are a private seller, you must understand that people who are buying from you could very well have an order for protection out for themselves and their intent just may be to use that gun to kill a spouse/partner. It happens every day. That person could be like the shooter of the Lafayette theater who was only voluntarily committed to a mental institution.

The only way someone like the Lafayette shooter gets his/her name into the FBI data base is when they are involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. A voluntary commitment doesn’t rise to the level of concern apparently for a gun purchase. Who got that provision into our gun laws? Who got the provision about no background checks for private sellers? Who got the provision that a gun has to be handed over to a seller after 3 days even if a background check was not completed because of something called a “default proceed”?

These questions are finally being asked and some are being answered. What we have is a flawed system, in part written and supported by the gun lobby and its’ bought and paid for politicians, that is allowing guns to get into the hands of people who should not have them. All the way around, something is wrong. Something is wrong with all of the shootings happening every day in America no matter where the shooter got a gun or who the shooter is. The fact that this is not more alarming and immediate to our leaders is shameful and downright inexcusable.

So the effort to make families and communities safe from devastating gun violence goes on. People like me with stories to tell will keep telling them to call attention to the scourge of gun violence all over our country. Many groups and individuals are successfully pushing back efforts of the gun lobby to get guns everywhere and in the hands of anyone. We will succeed when politicians feel the pressure from even the gun owners and NRA members who are fed up with the shootings. Most gun owners are nice people who own guns for sport, recreation or maybe even for self defense. They are hopefully practicing responsible gun ownership. But even responsible gun owners have episodes of anger, depression, relationship problems, too much alcohol or leave a gun unsecured for a child or teen to find.

It’s about laws. It’s about culture. It’s about the guns. It’s about the memories of lost loved ones.

Today I dedicate my blog post to my beautiful sister who was shot and killed 23 years ago.

UPDATE:

I want to add that today is also the anniversary of the Sikh Temple shooting that took the lives of 6 inn0cent people in a terrible mass shooting. From this article:

Members of the Sikh community and the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin say they’re using the tragedy to teach others about understanding and compassion for others.

“We have a lot of shootings going on around the city, around the world, around the nation. How we can make a bigger impact — so that we can spread message of love and compassion?” Dubey said.

Love and compassion rather than hate and intolerance of others can make a difference. Keeping guns away from those whose anger and intolerance is dangerous will make a difference.

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commongunsense

Blogging for gun safety reform and changing the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Common sense gun laws and gun safety reform and gun rights are not mutually exclusive.

Domestic shootings

Christmas murder/suicides

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Armed America- not polite at all

October is Domestic Abuse Awareness month

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