corporate gun lobby

Gun laws in Florida- and guns at Disney World

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Disney

I think we all know that Florida’s gun laws leave something to be desired. I will be traveling there with my grandchildren to visit Disney World and I’m looking forward to it. Like everyone else, we understand Disney World to be a happy place where people are safe from a lot of things that happen in the outside world. It is, as is intimated by the title, a world of its’ own. But just in case, Disney has issued some common sense safety advise so your experience will be a good one. Here’s a list of incidents and “altercations” at Disney World. See if you can find a reason for carrying a gun in the parks.

The Brady Campaign has issued its’ new state report card along with a video and website called CrimAdvisor. You can watch the video here:

According to CrimAdvisor, Florida is one of the best states in the country for felons to buy, carry and traffic guns. No surprises here really. According to the Brady Campaign’s rating system, Florida gets a score of -20.5 out of a possible 100 points. You read that right. It’s a minus 20.5. You can see a more detailed explanation of the report in the link above. Also Florida’s rate of gun deaths per 100,000 at 12.49 ranks the state as 20/50. Since the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law was passed in 2005, according to this article, gun deaths have increased in Florida. Here is one more article among quite a few about Florida’s recent increase in the gun death rate. States that have high gun ownership rates and weak gun laws also have higher rates of gun deaths.

I noticed a post somewhere a while ago with a comment from a gun rights extremist saying that he carries his gun at Disney World in spite of Disney World warning on its’ website that guns are permitted inside. Never mind. These guys know better than anyone else that they can and will carry wherever they want. And if they can’t they will pass laws to make sure they do. It’s an insane view of the world and is not making us safer. Disney World can prohibit guns in their parks.  In 2013 a grandmother on an Animal Kingdom ride found a loaded gun. She was with her grandchild. This is not the experience I want to have with my grandchildren. From the article:

The discovery of a gun aboard a ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom has raised questions about what park security does to keep firearms from slipping inside and whether its no-weapons policy for visitors is clear.

A grandmother handed a Cobra .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol to a park attendant Sunday after getting off the Dinosaur ride. “My grandma found it in her seat,” her young grandson told park security.

Minutes later, an apologetic Angelo Lista returned to claim the firearm, which was loaded with five hollow-point bullets — but none was in the chamber. He told the Sentinel it had fallen out of his buttoned back pocket during the bumpy ride. He was escorted out of the theme park.

He returned to the parks the next day without the gun.

Lista, 44 of Royal Palm Beach said he had no idea Disney prohibited guns on its property, raising questions about whether the company’s restrictions on firearms are explicit enough.

Disney spokeswoman Kathleen Prihoda said in a statement Wednesday that the company’s policy is no guns are permitted. The company’s website says “weapons of any kind” are not allowed on Disney property.

Disney officials would not say whether there are posted signs on property spelling out their restrictions. Prihoda would not say how often security intercepts a firearm brought into the parks or what happens when a gun owner is found to have one on property. She wouldn’t discuss any security measures.

The incident may not indicate a broader safety gap, said Dr. Abraham Pizam, dean of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida.

“Does it happen? Yes, it does. Does it happen frequently? Absolutely not,” Pizam said. “Security is one of the issues that if it works, everyone takes it for granted. But it if doesn’t work, everyone is a critic.”

Thousands of people are free to walk through the parks’ front turnstiles uninhibited unless they are carrying bags. Disney employees inspect and feel the bags for anything on the restricted list. There are no metal detectors at the entrances, and guests are rarely searched.

This bears repeating: “He returned to the parks the next day without the gun.” So the obvious question here is why this man NEEDED a gun while at Disney World. After stupidly leaving his loaded gun on a ride and getting caught, he evidently decided that gun wasn’t so important after all. Isn’t Disney the happiest place on earth? What’s the fear? What’s going to happen at Disney World that would require a gun? Most likely nothing. But this is the world of the gun rights extremists. They have been led to falsely believe that there is danger around every corner. The corporate gun lobby is masterful at deceiving people into this view of the world. Why? It drives up gun sales. Follow the money.

Let’s take a look at some pretty well known shootings in Florida:

There are many others. After the Stand Your Ground law passed, a long list of victims whose shooters have claimed self defense is available for our perusal. Take a look at this compilation of photos and information about shooting victims provided by the Tampa Times. I think we can safely say that blood is running in the streets. The gun lobby denies this of course. But facts matter. Real people are being shot every day. They have names, families, and most were contributing members of society whose potential will never be reached.

This is sobering information for visitors to Florida like myself. Let’s hope that all will be safe in the parks of Disney World. It will be interesting to see if anyone is noticeably carrying a gun around where my family and I will be enjoying the sun and the fun. I think most people believe in common sense when it comes to guns at Disney World. There is no need for loaded guns in a place where so many families from all over the world are gathered for enjoyment. Even gun rights extremists must believe this.

And I do like this image, courtesy of the Brady Campaign’s CrimAdvisor site.

Cross posted at www.commongunsense.com

The affects of Minnesota’s worst school shooting, Red Lake, 10 years later

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broken heart

(This has been cross posted at commongunsense.com.)

Broken hearts. Broken dreams. Broken spirits. A broken community. It’s been 10 years since the worst school shooting in Minnesota- the Red Lake shooting. Ten years ago the teen shooter went to the home of his grandfather, stole his service weapons, killed his grandfather and his girlfriend and proceeded to his school. There he shot and killed 7 more and himself at the school. 5 were left injured.

This morning I heard a story on Minnesota Public Radio about the continued after effects of the March 21, 2005 Red Lake school shooting. The title of the article is what caught my attention- “Feeling scars at Red Lake, 10 years later”. From the interview ( which you can listen to as well as read):

The day has rippled across the Red Lake Indian Reservation since then. Today, about 6,000 tribe members live on the reservation, and just about every resident in those miles of stark landscape lost a friend or a family member, a loss that continues to sting.

At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting since Columbine, and it remains the largest mass homicide in Minnesota history. Including Weise, 10 people died. More, like May, were wounded, and many more saw things they can’t forget. (…)

Ten years ago, May was tall and strong and just getting to the age when people take you seriously in the Red Lake Nation. He played football and basketball, and he lifted weights in his free time.

By 18, he figured he’d have a real shot at a football scholarship, and a ticket off the reservation.

And he was in love. He planned to marry Alicia White, a girl in his class.

On the third Monday of March, his life shifted. Jeff Weise came into his classroom and shot five students and a teacher. May saw Alicia die. He saw his friend Dewayne Michael Lewis drop and then he charged Weise with a pencil, and was himself shot in the face. The bullet cut downward, ripping through nerves and lodging by his spine.

The last thing he remembers, he was on the floor with blood in his mouth.

Later in the story, one of the FBI agents, first on the awful scene said this as he reflected back on the day ten years ago:

“I learned that kids are capable of anything,” he said, “that they’re capable of planning.”

The fact that kids can get their hands on guns and cause this much tragedy and affect the lives of so many is an American tragedy.

Others are interviewed for this first part of a poignant series on the devastation left after a shooting that  took the lives of 10, including the shooter. It’s hard to read how the physical and emotional scars still remain- how the lives of so many were affected and how victims and survivors live with the trauma. Even law enforcement officers are traumatized and suffer life long problems after a mass shooting such as the one at Red Lake. Scenes like this are horrific and sometimes I wonder if the gun rights extremists recognize this. At some level they must. But their answer is so often that another gun would have solved the problem- particularly a “good guy with a gun”.

I am always puzzled and dismayed by this response to national mass shooting tragedies. Is there empathy for the victims? Do some on the side of gun rights believe this could never happen to them so why get upset and try to prevent more similar shootings? Since the Red Lake shooting in 2005 there have been dozens more deadly school shootings and many other gun incidents in our schools. Yet, we have been unable as a country to come together to have a civil national conversation about how we can prevent more of them. Surely passing some common sense gun laws such as requiring background checks on all gun sales would prevent some of the crime guns from getting into the hands of those who shouldn’t have them. We do know that the majority of the public supports this idea and understands that a measure like this won’t interfere with their own rights to own a gun for self defense and hunting. And the benefit is that it could prevent at least some shootings. But the corporate gun lobby has instilled fear into our public leaders who then become complicit in lack of action.

But it’s more than lack of strong background checks. It’s a gun culture where those who have them often don’t take safety measures to prevent those who shouldn’t have them from getting them anyway. This gun culture is one of often cavalier attitudes towards guns as if they are not actually deadly weapons that can kill other human beings. Some say they are just “tools”. Tools for what? It turns out that they are tools for killing innocent people. Guns are deadly weapons designed to kill other human beings and pose a risk to those who own them.

The Red Lake shooter knew his grandfather had service weapons that were apparently unlocked so provided easy access. Way too often the gun used in a mass shooting or other shooting comes from the home of the shooter or a close relative. The other notorious 2003 school shooting in Minnesota at Rocori High School was also a case of the young shooter accessing the gun of his law enforcement father.

Both of these shooters were diagnosed at some point with mental illness by health care professionals. Mental illness, teens and guns have been a theme in American school and other shootings. What should we, as a country do to help prevent people like this from gaining access to guns? One simple measure is storing guns safely- locked securely, unloaded.

Obviously improving our mental health services to teens and adults would go a long ways towards stopping some tragedies before they happen. But the easy access of guns just has to be in the conversation. The fact that it is often shoved to the bottom of the list is the measure of how insidious is our gun culture.

Mass shootings haunt the victims, survivors and the communities in which they occur. Shootings cost Americans greatly, not only financially, but some suffer life long disabilities as a result, or PTSD and other emotional problems. In this story, addiction to drugs and alcohol and mental illness also have plagued some of the victims. Life goes on- but for some it is not at all the life they hoped for or were planning.

It is important to listen to and read about these poignant stories of survival. Gun violence is insidious and affects more than just the primary victims and their survivors. There is a huge cost to our gun violence epidemic. How many more will pay before we demand action and changes that can make a difference? We are better than this.