mass shootings

Abrogation of duty

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Card File with Inscription High Priority.Our priorities are all screwed up. I could use another word here because that is how I really feel.

It turns out that the Department of Defense has been abrogating their duty when it comes to sending the names of military members who have become prohibited gun purchasers to the FBI’s instant check system. And Congress has been sitting on their butts doing nothing about the increase in gun deaths in America. So 3 cities decided to take matters into their own hands by suing the Department of Defense. That seems to be the way things get done in this country. Rather than doing what makes common sense our leaders are waiting for an order from on high ( NRA and Wayne LaPierre) before they can do the right thing for public health and safety.

From the article:

New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia said in court papers that the military’s broken system for relaying such information helped spur the massacre of 26 people inside a Texas church last month.

“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City is joining Philadelphia and San Francisco to stand up to the Department of Defense and demand they comply with the law and repair their drastically flawed system.” (…)

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va., seeks an injunction and judicial oversight to ensure ongoing compliance with the Defense Department’s obligation to submit records.(…)

Earlier this month, the Pentagon’s watchdog agency said it found a “troubling” number of failures this year by the military services to alert the FBI to criminal history information. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a review of the FBI database.

Troubling? Tragic.

There is no reason why insisting that the military branches send these records to the database so people can be denied gun purchases should be a problem. It would only be enacting laws already on the books. This is not an issue of the second amendment or gun rights. Yet, somehow it feels like it might be. It really is past time to do what’s right for the American people. 26 people were killed in Sutherland, Texas while attending church one day in early November. If the military had followed the rules and sent the criminal records of the shooter to the FBI database, it is likely the shooting would not have happened. But then again, there is that gap in the law that would have allowed the shooter to go to a gun show or on-line site to buy guns with no Brady background check. But we can’t go there.

If we don’t go there, we can expect the carnage to continue. If one of your family members or friends had been shot by someone who could have been stopped, you would be pretty angry. Congress should be angry. Are they? There is no evidence that they are. Mass shooting after mass shooting continue unabated with no action from our leaders. it is an American tragedy and a refusal of Congress to keep us safe from harm. Where does it say anywhere that people have a right to shoot other people with no reason? I haven’t seen that anywhere.

And can someone please tell me why the totally reasonable common sense legislation to ban bump stocks after the Las Vegas shooting didn’t go anywhere?

Only Congress can explain this. Please ask them to do so.

More than troubling. Total abrogation of a duty to keep us safe from harm.

Shameful.

There have been 340 mass shootings this year according to the Gun Violence Archive, unless another few occur in the next few days.

Where does this stop?

Remember the dangerous “default proceed” written into the FBI system when the Brady Law was enacted? The victims and survivors of the Charleston church shooting do. This is another abrogation of our duty to protect people from harm.

Thanks NRA.

The NRA tried to excuse this loophole by claiming it was a “safety valve”. For whom? This is beyond crazy ( see below).

Every day shooting after every day shooting continue unabated. Even on Christmas. This Arizona woman is now dead as are both of her children thanks to her ex-husband and a gun he obtained.:

A 38-year old woman and her two children were killed and a police officer was injured in Christmas Day shootings at a Phoenix apartment complex.

Anthony Milan Ross, 45, the woman’s estranged spouse and the father of the children, was taken into custody shortly after 10 p.m. Monday after exchanging fire with officers after a six-hour standoff, Phoenix police said Tuesday. Ross did not appear to be injured.

Happy Christmas.

What a nice way to spend Christmas for the neighbors of the woman as they waited for the end of the stand-off:

“It’s beyond crazy,” resident Gibson Daoud said. “It’s as sh–ty as it can get on Christmas Day.”

For hours, residents and visitors inside the complex were not allowed to leave and those waiting to return to their homes were not allowed in.

Power was cut to the complex about 7:30 p.m., and residents near the gunman’s apartment were escorted out by police SWAT team members.

Yes, “it’s beyond crazy.” Every day we let this happen is beyond crazy.
Our gun culture is beyond crazy. Thank you to Women Against Gun Violence Facebook page for this information:
more guns than cars
It doesn’t have to be this way. But this is the gun culture we have. There is no question that we can make simple and even difficult changes if we really care more about saving lives than making profits off of the sale of guns. Remember that guns are the only product designed to kill people and also the only product not regulated for safety by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The way things are going in America, that will likely change as the Trump administration de-regulates everything.
There are regulations for a reason. Our public health and safety should be at the top of the list of responsibilities for our leaders. Excuse me for being cynical that this is the case. The very least we can do is to follow the laws on the books to save a few lives here and there. If that life is someone you know or love, that would be of the utmost importance to you.
2018 is around the corner. If there is any logic at all, we should make a pledge to work together to save lives and reduce and prevent gun violence. Demand that our Congress members get a spine and stand up for what is right. Preventing the public health epidemic of gun violence should be a top priority for our leaders. If it is not, they should be looking for a new line of work.

Not at Christmas time…..

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Lutefisk-dinner-631Merry Christmas everyone. I am celebrating with my family and having a good time skating on the rink in my son’s back yard, enjoying the grandchildren and the good food. Christmas cookies, of course, are a part of the celebration with some good old Scandinavian favorites reminding me of my own childhood Christmas’ with a Norwegian grandpa and Swedish grandma and grandpa on the other side. 3 of my grandparents emigrated to Minnesota from their homelands, leaving to look for better opportunities in America. That is the case for many then and now. In spite of what our President says, immigrants who come here are not all coming in with aides and felony records. They are not rapists, criminals and miscreants. They are decent people who look to us as a better place.

Is it? Just saying…..

But back to Christmas. At our house we ate Lutefisk of course for the Norwegian side and Swedish meatballs for the other side. My Norwegian grandpa liked hardboiled egg and butter gravy on his Lutefisk. The Swedish grandparents liked the cream sauce. I remember that we couldn’t leave the Christmas Eve table until my Norwegian grandpa was finished with his Lutefisk. He was a bit of an ornery guy but he would actually playfully eat more Lutefisk on purpose to keep us from getting to the present opening tradition.

We don’t eat Lutefisk now at our family Christmas’. No one likes it. I can’t blame them. But it is still served at a few restaurants and a local Lutheran church serves a Lutefisk dinner complete with all the fixings and singing of the Lutefisk song that my mother used to sing to us. It is a very popular dinner. Meatballs and Alaskan Salmon ( caught by a local man- a friend- who spends some of his summer months in Alaska catching the Salmon.) It has come to be known by his name at local grocery stores and it is wonderful.

So as I reflect on my own Christmas’ past and present I am hoping that Americans who celebrate will experience some peace and joy. Many do not at this time of year. It is stressful and even depressing for many.  Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of my own father’s death from a massive stroke that left us making funeral preparations at Christmas time. His funeral, on Dec. 26th was packed with friends and family. He was a well-loved man with a kind and gentle spirit who left us too soon and left my mother to live as a widow for another almost 25 years.

My Dad had a lot of common sense about everything, including hunting and gun safety. He taught me how to shoot a hunting gun but I didn’t like to hunt. But my family were great outdoors people enjoying hunting, fishing, boating, their beloved cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, snowmobiling, skiing, hockey, and others. Had he lived he would have been very sad and upset about my sister’s shooting death.

My brother who suffers from PTSD related to service in VietNam and Parkinson’s Disease, likely service related, doesn’t like Christmas. He never has. I am saddened by his physical condition and his deteriorating health. Our Veterans are vulnerable and at this time of the year, some are not merry.

So as some of us celebrate this time of year, some of us also have empty seats at tables and family celebrations because loved ones were shot and killed or used a gun to take their own lives. We remember them at this time of year because we celebrate without them at our otherwise happy family gatherings.

And so, before writing this post, this story of an American Christmas gone wrong came to my attention. It’s a story of a family tragedy. It’s a story of our political state. It’s a story of hate, evil and the awful fact that in America, 17 year olds can get their hands on guns and shoot a family over anger and the danger that comes with extreme political philosophy.

How does a 17 year old become a neo-Nazi? And why are neo-Nazis and White Supremacists on the rise in America? What has happened to our country?

This story makes me ill.  But I am writing about it because it does reflect a certain something that is happening in our country that frightens me. It’s not normal. It’s not right.

From the linked story:

Buckley Kuhn-Fricker was so disturbed by what she discovered about her teenage daughter’s boyfriend that she spent a tumultuous week pushing for a breakup. By Thursday, she texted a friend saying the “outspoken Neo Nazi” was out of their lives.

But just hours later, the family said that the 17-year-old boyfriend had shot and killed Kuhn-Fricker, 43, and her husband, Scott, 48, in their Reston, Va., home. It happened around 5 a.m. Friday, while the couple’s children and relatives were inside. They had gathered to celebrate the Christmas holiday.

Christmas will never be the same for the teen-ager in this family or any of the family members and friends who loved the two victims. She witnessed the killing of both of her parents and the attempted suicide of her neo-Nazi boyfriend who her parents unsuccessfully tried to get her away from to no avail.

Shootings have a wide ripple effect on many. PTSD is a factor for many victims and survivors and it doesn’t end with an arrest or the death of the shooter. We all pay in some way for this. That doesn’t sink in when a gun is available and used to “solve problems” or seek revenge or in anger at someone.

If you read on in the article you will see that this neo-Nazi teenager had a gun in his possession when he sneaked into his girlfriend’s bedroom. Why? Why does he carry a gun he cannot legally possess or carry while sleeping with his 16 year old girlfriend? What is wrong with this scene? Everything actually. This is lunacy and a particular American tragedy. It is not “making America great again.”

I have an uncomfortable, unsettled feeling about where we are right now as a country. It has been mounting all year to a crescendo of ugliness and divisiveness that is threatening all of us. But when our leader himself is fomenting fear, paranoia, name calling, racism, divisiveness, hate for anyone who disagrees or doesn’t believe the same as he does, blaming, stoking racist attitudes, what should we expect?

One thing we ought to expect is that our own leaders at the White House and Congress stop ratcheting up this ugliness. And Trump T.V. and N.R.A. T.V. is also right up there adding fuel to the fire. All it takes is one or two unhinged believers in a cause with a gun to cause mayhem and tragedy. How many times have we seen this in our country?

Let me refresh your memory:

Ft. Hood

San Bernardino

Pulse Nightclub

Kansas shooting of Indian men 

Hate shooting in Fresno

Chapel Hill shooting of Muslims

Sikh Temple

Las Vegas

Many of these happened before 2017 of course and we were somewhat surprised at the hate, intolerance, racism and anger that caused people with guns to kill other innocent people. But now we are also worried that this kind of hate is ramped up by leaders who are also intolerant, angry, show racist sentiments, anti-immigrant sentiments and make statements that fuel the anger and hate.

This is not the great America we deserve.

We are better than this.

On this Christmas holiday, our Better Angels need to be called out to save us.

Not at Christmas time- not now. Shootings know no boundaries nor stop for holidays. That is the America in which we live but that is not the America we want.

In the spirit of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, let us call out to Clarence and ask him to make us better as citizens, leaders and a country.

Merry Christmas all.

 

The dark before the light

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0be6f-winter-solstice-signToday is the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. Our national political situation feels very dark but I am hopeful that shedding light on the truth and evidenced-based research into the causes and effects of gun violence will help protect the vulnerable amongst us from their entitlement to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As we go into the new year it is worth remembering that almost 100 Americans lose their lives to gunshot injuries. That is more than 33,000 a year and another 70,000 or so are injured by guns. That includes transgender people and fetuses.  Mass shootings are happening far too frequently and affect our diversity of citizens. Science-based studies have been stifled about the cause and effect of gun violence.

Everyone is vulnerable to getting shot anywhere and that is not going to change unless we all speak out and stand up like this military officer did at his hearing to be approved by a Senate committee for a job at the Department of Defense.:

“I’d also like to, and I may get in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic assault rifle like an AR-15,” Dr. Dean Winslow, the nominee for the Department of Defense’s top health affairs job, said during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

Winslow was responding to a question from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asking if the Texas gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, should’ve received a “dishonorable discharge” from the military — the worst possible way to leave the armed forces — instead of a “bad conduct discharge” for assaulting his spouse and child.

He was not approved.

I guess we can’t speak our minds about guns and gun violence and talk common sense in America where gun violence takes more lives than in any other democratized country not at war.

In this new America since January of this year, speaking the truth and voicing your views are under attack and it is truly frightening.

What is also frightening is that the far right “Trump TV” is talking about a coup. What does that mean? Will there be armed people taking over the government? I fear that with all those armed insurrectionists out there with arsenals and the fomenting of paranoia of government coming from those in the government, it could lead to tragic consequences. Half of U.S. guns are owned by just 3% of gun owners. That seems like a signal that some folks in our country are ready for something- not sure what yet.

But maybe these two know something. Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist and nut job, and Roger Stone, friend of our President, made a video of themselves at a gun range getting ready for civil war if Trump either resigns or is impeached. Let’s take a look:

The visit was documented in a nearly one-and-a-half-hour-long December 19 video posted to Jones’ YouTube channel with the title “Roger Stone Prepares For Civil War After Trump Is Removed From Office: LIVE AUTO GUNFIRE.”

Jones set up the video by explaining that when Stone “was recently asked by TMZ what happens if Trump is assassinated or overthrown, he said it would cause a civil war.”

I suppose I don’t need to remind my readers that “overthrown” is a dark word fraught with accusations and pregnant with meaning to some. If the President leaves of his own accord, is asked to leave after things get too dicey or is impeached, this is not being overthrown as if in a third world country.

But then again, the way things are going with attempts to ban words, stifle the media, shut down entire departments, “overthrow” regulations that are important for public health and safety, throwing people off of health care, attacking the FBI and the Justice Department, attacking immigrants and minorities, threatening to fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, tweeting false accusations, blaming past administrations, meeting in secret to pass bills and “investigate” former administrations, avoiding a serious investigation into the actual known threat of Russian interference in our elections and much much more, it feels like we are a third world country.

We are better than this. When conspiracy theorists and lunatics arm themselves to the teeth in preparation for a civil war, we are in a dangerous place.

But there are actually some things we can do. Certainly making sure that we resist these machinations to “burn down the house” as Rep. Adam Schiff said last night in an interview on the Rachel Maddow show. Peacefully resisting and protesting any move to shut down our freedoms of the press, freedom to express ourselves, and any attempt to take down our democracy are an option.

And regarding the ever contentious issue of gun rights and gun violence, the Brady Campaign has an idea. Start talking more common sense with friends and relatives over the holidays when people are gathered together and the conversation turns to politics  (which it most likely will given the chaos happening all around us).

Let’s take a look:

A good discussion always starts with a place of common understanding. Find the ideals that unite you both – like respecting constitutional rights, while also preventing gun deaths – and focus on those. Starting at a point of understanding and recognition of your shared beliefs will lay the groundwork for a more productive conversation, and remind you why you’re having this conversation. It’s important to emphasize working together to accomplish a common goal, rather than view this discussion as a quick way to change someone’s mind.

And more:

This step is the crux of what most people think of when they envision of a “political debate.” But it doesn’t need to be intimidating or scary. Keep in mind the tips we’ve given you up to this point – remain engaged and open, don’t get defensive, and continue to share your viewpoints in a calm, rational manner. It’s okay if you find a place where you disagree – that is bound to happen – but this is where you can share the results of common-sense solutions like background checks with your audience.

It is too important to our liberty, our freedom, our rights, our democracy, the safety of our families and friends, to excuse extreme thoughts and behavior. For there is common ground in the middle. We know this from the polling done for many years now. Almost everyone agrees on requiring background checks for all gun sales, for example. And many other measures to strengthen our gun laws are also supported by a majority of Americans.

If we treat each other with respect and dignity without name calling and attacking, we will be a better country. And if we have conversations and make policy in the light of day instead of secretly and in the dark, even if we don’t agree, we can at least understand how it happened and have a chance to rebut or attempt to change minds.

The one thing I know for sure is that arming up will lead to bad things. Loaded guns in volatile and angry situations will inevitably lead to chaos and tragedy.

In the new year, I have to hope that shedding light on the truth and finding common ground on many issues, but particularly on the gun issue, can bring our country out of the darkness of the gun violence epidemic where we have been hiding for way too long. This is about safety and the health of our communities and families.

Happy solstice. Happy holidays. May your holidays be peaceful and joyful. And stay safe wherever you are.

 

See their faces; say their names

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candlesOn Thursday of this week, my local chapter held a vigil on the 5th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting. Since we had a dozen co-sponsors who helped us spread the word about the vigil, attendance was higher than expected. Participants sat in the sanctuary of a local church listening to beautiful piano music played by a friend as slides with the faces of the 20 children and 6 adults massacred 5 years ago looped in front of them. Earlier this fall, we held another vigil for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting, equally well attended and a solemn reminder that real people lose their lives every day to gunshot injuries. At that vigil, we said the names of each victim and rang the bell 58 times. It was moving to say the least.

A local reporter asked me in an interview before the vigil why we would hold a vigil for mass shooting victims when they happened so far away. My response? I don’t suppose the families of those small children expected that it would happen to them or in their town. I don’t think the residents of Sutherland, Texas imagined that it could have happened in their town. I never imagined that gun violence would affect my family.

That is why we do this.

There were vigils all over the country sponsored by Newtown Action Alliance and many other national gun violence prevention groups.

The reason I mention that vigil is that only 2 months ago, we held a vigil for the victims of the worst mass shooting in our country. And then the church shooting in Sutherland, Texas happened in November taking the lives of another 26. There were slides with photos of those victims as well as their names on the screen as well.

It was sobering, moving and powerful. After remarks from the pastor of the church urging peace and reminding us that, for Christians, this is the season of lighting advent candles to remind us of the reason we celebrate Christmas. But there were people of all faiths in the sanctuary including the local Rabbi, the Quaker community and those who don’t practice with any faith group.

As the participants lined up to light candles in memory of the victims of all gun violence and in particular the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, the photos continued looping. It was seeing those happy faces of those 20 first graders that caused the tears and emotion as the candles were lit. Many of us also lit a candle for our own personal loss of a loved one and there were a number of victims in the sanctuary who cried over their own loss as well as the losses felt by way too many Americans.

As the vigil came to a close, we asked to honor the victims with action. That action included signing over 300 postcards that were mailed to our Congressional delegation urging them to support bills that would expand Brady background checks to all gun sales- something that makes so much common sense that 90-95% of Americans agree.

postcards

We have had enough. That was the overwhelming sentiment at our vigil and vigils all over the country to mark this particular anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting- the one we thought was even too much for our lapdog politicians.

Alas, none of these mass shootings are enough. In fact, the stunning fact that 51% of Americans think that in order to protect gun rights, some mass shootings are OK with them. 

Sigh.

This sad fact should make us wonder what in the world is wrong with us. These shootings just don’t happen anywhere else in the world in such large numbers or at all, actually.

At the same time as that 51% number revealed the insanity about our nation’s gun culture, people also said this ( from the linked article above):

About 61 per cent said the country’s gun laws should be tougher, while 27 per cent would rather see them remain the same, and 11 per cent want them to be less strict. That’s similar to the results of an Associated Press poll in July 2016.

What is happening in our country is just not normal. Nor is it inevitable. It is preventable. It is avoidable. It is lunacy itself.

5 years later, the victims’ families reflect on what happened and, of course, are still haunted by that day that changed their lives forever.

The ripple effect of gun violence spreads far and wide.

It is an American tragedy.

Something needs to change. We will not be held hostage by the corporate gun lobby.

As two of my friends who attended our vigil said, they both have granddaughters in first grade. Seeing those smiling faces hit home for them about how it would be if one of their own was massacred so violently and suddenly by a crazed person with a gun.

The enormity of our gun violence epidemic is very personal.

Say their names. Look at their photos.

Say their names.

 

Forced changes to gun laws

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forcingThe NRA and it’s minions accuse the side of gun violence prevention or gun control, as it is often called, of trying to force changes to gun laws that people don’t want and that would affect law abiding gun owners. Claims include gun registration somehow hidden in “gun control” laws, mostly laws that would require Brady background checks on all gun sales. How that would work is a mystery to me. Currently, and as long as the Brady law has been in effect requiring Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers (FFLs) to perform background checks on sales in their establishments. there has been no gun registration.

But to require private unlicensed sellers to do background checks on the very same people who often go to FFLs for their guns suddenly becomes gun registration. It isn’t true of course but facts don’t seem to matter to the gun lobby. Fear and paranoia are what sell guns and ammunition. And how this would affect law abiding citizens’ rights to own a gun is beyond me. The protests about this don’t fit the problem or the solution to the problem.

But further, as the claims go, following registration, confiscation is inevitable. Such nonsense is not to be believed. It just makes no common sense but never mind. I would remind everyone that this worked pretty well during the Obama administration and the 2016 election when the NRA, an arm of the Republican party, ramped up the fear of gun confiscation, driving sales of guns and ammunition.

Follow the money.

Can one say that forcing everyone to undergo a background check to acquire a deadly weapon is unlawful or would affect law abiding citizens rights? No, but never mind the facts.

We have laws for a reason. They are mostly to protect people from harm. And that is one of Congress’s main missions.

So this past week when H.R. 38, Concealed Carry Reciprocity or “arm anyone” passed in the U.S. House, there was no talk of just enforcing the laws already on the books or doing something harmful to law abiding gun owners. Maybe that is because this law, if passed in the Senate and signed by an eager NRA supported President, would supercede the laws of many states. Currently 12 states require no training or permits for people to carry guns. So anyone can carry regardless of their status. That is because, anyone, including presumably felons, domestic abusers, those who have been adjudicated mentally ill and others don’t need to get a background check from local law enforcement to carry a loaded gun around in public. And further, these same dangerous people, if living in a state that does not require universal background checks can buy a gun(s) with no background check from a private seller on-line or at a gun show. 1 in 5 guns are sold without background checks.

This is a double whammy for innocent people living in places where stricter laws preclude these folks from buying and carrying.

I don’t have to remind my readers that in the last year and a half two of the nation’s worst mass shootings have taken the lives of dozens of Americans. And in the last few months two mass shootings have killed many innocent Americans. In light of this fact, one would think that our Congress would consider strengthening our gun laws to prevent these from happening. For some of them could have been prevented with stronger regulations or following the laws we already have.

But one would be wrong. In light of that, Congress went ahead with its’ adherence to folly and lunacy by loosening gun laws. This week, the 5th anniversary of the heinous massacre of 20 first graders and 6 educators will occur. There will be hundreds of vigils around the country to mark that anniversary.

What are we doing? Continuing to allow the shootings to happen unabated and shrugging as if it’s inevitable.

95% of Americans agree to universal background checks. Who are these people representing anyway?

We know the answer.

We only need to google news stories to find the truth.  As just one recent sampling of the news stories I found that , these yahoos- “law abiding” gun owners, had gunfights on the streets of Texas over road rage. There were 3 incidents of this in a few days. One assumes it was legal for the perpetrators to carry but if H.R. 38 becomes the law of the land, that won’t make one whit of difference. We won’t know. Anything goes.  Check it out:

Investigators said two men involved in a crash on Westheimer and South Kirkwood fired on one another, sending bystanders-including Erica-scrambling to take cover.

A woman nearby was grazed in the ear and taken to a west Houston medical center for treatment, while one of the shooting suspects was transported by Ben Taub Hospital.

All these incidents highlight a need for everyone to be prepared for the unexpected and to keep your eyes open.

That highlighted paragraph is from the last shooting mentioned. Two men squared off with their guns, presumably legal gun carriers, endangering bystanders, pedestrians, car passengers and law enforcement.

“…be prepared for the unexpected…”

Why should the majority of us who don’t carry guns and don’t want them where we live, work, drive, play and learn, have to be prepared for lunatics with guns around? One woman died and one was grazed with a bullet in these incidents. The other one frightened a young mother who was driving with her 3 year old when a man pointed a gun at her.

There are no excuses for this but our Congress excuses it all by hiding behind the “rights” thing. Or what exactly do they think? Or are they thinking at all? This is just about paying the gun lobby back for their contributions in their elections. Or maybe they actually believe that we will all be safer with more loaded guns around everywhere. If that is the case, the truth and facts prove them wrong.

If one of their own was involved in one of these incidents, would they think differently? Oh right. One or two of their own have been shot and seriously injured. Of those, one- Gabby Giffords- is working hard to prevent shootings. The other, Steve Scalise, is still, inexplicably, in the pocket of the gun lobby.

The shooter of Scalise “escaped the system”. This happens far too often in America leading to avoidable, senseless gun deaths and serious injuries. We can’t allow anyone to escape the system. We are talking here about people who shouldn’t have deadly weapons having them anyway. This is not acceptable or normal. Innocent lives are shattered by a system made to protect gun rights under cover of the second amendment rather than to protect citizens from harm. Our Congress has a duty to protect the citizens from harm. They have failed to protect us. They have failed to protect their own.

Gabby Giffords’ shooter is the very person who would be allowed to carry his gun into another state legally if H.R. 38 passes through the Senate. Arizona is a permitless carry state. No permits required. Therefore no background check by law enforcement when applying for a permit to keep someone from carrying who shouldn’t. It’s optional to get a permit. One can’t assume that the gun carrier went through a background check to buy that carried gun.

It’s not optional to get a driver’s license in any state. If you drive a car, you have to have a license. If you buy a car, it has to be registered. There are reasons for that. Gun permits are not like driver’s licenses. If they were, we would call it gun licensing which the gun lobby hates. There are similar requirements, state to state, for getting a driver’s license. That is what allows states to be confident that someone from Texas driving in Arkansas has gone through a permit and driver’s test to get a license to drive and is legal to drive. The same is not true of gun permits. From the above linked article:

States honor one another’s driver’s licenses under a voluntary agreement. There’s no federal mandate. States also have fairly uniform requirements for issuing driver’s licenses. If you’re renting a car to someone with a New York license who is visiting Texas, you can be pretty confident the New Yorker has passed a road test. Guns are different. At least 26 states will issue a gun permit to someone without requiring that person to ever actually shoot a gun.

And, of course, we must talk about the hypocrisy (sometimes on both sides) in the argument about states’ rights, commonly used by conservatives. In this case, states’ rights to pass their own gun laws would be trampled by the bill under consideration.

And finally this incident just came across my emails. A young man who had an open arrest for a murder was, thankfully, rejected for a gun purchase at a Walmart store. Luckily for everyone, Walmart did their lawful duty and took the time needed to stop this man from getting a gun legally:

Laura Cutilletta, the legal director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Beardsley offers a sharp example of why the new definition poses a danger to the public.

“Somebody who’s wanted for a crime is not someone who should have a gun,” she said, “Not only have they broken the law, but they have evaded the law.”

U.S. Marshals picked up Beardsley for murder on Nov. 14,  just as the three-day waiting period was running out, sources close to the case said. He did not have a gun, according to a Marshals spokesman.

But our very own Justice Department has inexplicably loosened our laws so that FFLs don’t have to reject a gun purchase if there is an open arrest. Why? Good question. And these could be the kind of people who could carry a gun around in public places.

No one ever said politics was easy or uncomplicated but the issue of gun rights seems particularly fraught with controversy and inconsistency.

And finally, regarding “everyday” shootings, there was another school shooting- in New Mexico. The shooter was known to the FBI for having threatened a mass shooting but they closed the case because he didn’t have a gun at the time.  Two are dead as a result of another case of not paying attention and flagging dangerous people like this guy- because rights. When gun rights supercede common sense, this happens over and over and over again.

This is not an either/or all or none situation. Gun rights have co-existed with reasonable gun laws and can continue to do so. Making strong laws is for the good of us all. The fact that we can’t come together about this is tragic and deadly.

We all deserve better than this. These things are not inevitable and they are not normal. We are shirking our responsibilities as Americans to keep our communities and families safe from gun violence.

What is the N.R.A. doing?

commongunsense, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

mafiaAs the Russian investigation by Congress and the special counsel Robert Mueller continue, we are learning about the extent of the influence of the Russians into corners we did not necessarily expect. But we shouldn’t be surprised at anything. Ever since Trump was elected it’s been a surprise a day and daily chaos and dysfunction, if not corruption.

Is that by design, incompetence, craziness or whatever other word has been used to describe what is going on? Kleptocracy has been mentioned as a cause for this American travesty. It’s so hard to determine what is going on but things are coming into closer focus.

It’s becoming more difficult to discern the difference between the NRA and the Republican party of late. What exists today is not your father’s or grandfather’s NRA. Back in the day, the NRA was a sportsmen’s organization, supporting hunting and shooting sports and training people ( and kids) how to properly handle their guns and be safe with them while hunting and shooting for sport.

Today? Not so much. A hostile take-over of the organization occurred in 1977 and it hasn’t been the same since.

After the corporate gun lobby managed to get laws passed to allow just about anyone to carry guns in most of our states, the NRA stood to make some money by offering classes to instruct prospective permit holders how to safely carry loaded guns in public and about the laws in a particular state. (You can even get a free gun on this site if you sign up).

Sigh.

One wonders, as an aside, what will happen if the NRA and the corporate gun lobby gets HR 38 ( Concealed Carry Reciprocity) or “arm anyone” bill passed into law? Why? Because 13 states don’t even require any hours of training before allowing someone to pack heat in public places and 3 have some version of the idea of “constitutional carry”. What will happen to the NRA revenue stream if classes are not required? They can hope that the bill to allow the legalization of gun silencers passes ( which by all rights it should not after the Las Vegas shooting) so a new source of revenue will open up.

That bill, too, is the clever theft of language to change something into something it isn’t. You just have to love that the bill is named the “Hearing Protection Act“.  The bill was included in a House Natural Resources Committee bill called the SHARE Act. Seriously- what do gun silencers have to do with natural resources? Another theft and co-opting of language. The goal is to remove gun silencers from the National Firearms Act which was passed for good reason after the mafia used gun silencers and machine guns to silence their enemies.

We get it. If we allow silencers ( and then possibly machine guns) to be sold like every other firearms instead of the now very strict regulations,  the consequences will be dangerous. Because of that law, it is extremely rare but not unheard of for them to be used in crimes. 

Back to “constitutional carry”. This is the stealing of a right ( second amendment) as written in our Constitution to make it into something it was not intended for. Tricky but we get it. It is the theft of the right to be safe and to make sure those who carry loaded guns are at the least, minimally trained to carry that deadly weapon.

You would think this is only common sense. But you would be wrong.

What about bump stocks? They are still being sold. Will Congress pass a law requiring at the least, a Brady background check before purchasing? Or will they be outlawed all together after the Las Vegas shooting?

This is insanity and more mass shootings waiting to happen.

The NRA has become an arm of the Republican party. That is pretty well known. But in the last few days we have discovered that a prominent member of their organization helped arrange a meeting between a Trump campaign leader and a Russian for the alleged purpose of helping Trump get elected.

This is like a spy novel. The intrigue is fascinating. Now we know what we have suspected. The NRA is an extremist organization and not in existence to just support shooting and hunting sports. They are a lobbying organization with a lot of power, control and influence in Congress and on our sitting President. This is dangerous.

As shooting deaths rise and lapdog politicians work to help the NRA and others in the corporate gun lobby with profits and more influence, we are becoming less and less safe from gun violence. I say this is an untenable situation.

Sigh.

Let’s take a look at the above linked article about Russian influence in the 2016 election:

 A conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the National Rifle Association and Russia told a Trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign.

A May 2016 email to the campaign adviser, Rick Dearborn, bore the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, the N.R.A. member said he wanted the advice of Mr. Dearborn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, then a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Dearborn’s longtime boss, about how to proceed in connecting the two leaders.

Russia, he wrote, was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and would attempt to use the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., to make “ ‘first contact.’ ” The email, which was among a trove of campaign-related documents turned over to investigators on Capitol Hill, was described in detail to The New York Times. (…)

The emailed outreach from the conservative operative to Mr. Dearborn came far earlier, around the same time that Russians were trying to make other connections to the Trump campaign. Another contact came through an American advocate for Christian and veterans causes, and together, the outreach shows how, as Mr. Trump closed in on the nomination, Russians were using three foundational pillars of the Republican Party — guns, veterans and Christian conservatives — to try to make contact with his unorthodox campaign.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

The hypocritical calling for Hillary Clinton to reveal her ” acid washed” emails or lock her up is coming back to bite the Republicans and their supporters.

There are really no coincidences here. More from the article:

Indeed, evidence does appear to show deep ties between Mr. Erickson, the N.R.A. and the Russian gun rights community that were formed in the years when many American conservatives, put off by the Obama administration’s policies, were increasingly looking to Mr. Putin as an example of a strong leader opposing immigration, terrorism and gay rights.

The N.R.A. was one of Mr. Trump’s biggest backers during the campaign, spending tens of millions of dollars to help elect him.

Follow the money. Follow the influential lobbyists and you will get to the bottom of the mystery. For it’s nothing short of a mystery as to what is going on today. There is no common sense in any of this intrigue. There is danger. There is collusion. There is corruption. There is trouble.

If this is what we have become, God help us. We are no longer a democracy.

Guns should not be influencing national elections or our local or state elections. No Mr. Wayne LaPierre, the guys with the guns should not be making the rules. This is insanity itself and we must #resist.

Thanksgiving peace and safety

commongunsense, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving DayHappy Thanksgiving. May it be a peaceful and safe holiday for all of us. In my neck of the woods, there is no snow forecast so hopefully the roads will be more safe than is often the case at this time of year for traveling. I will be traveling to celebrate Thanksgiving with my son, daughter and families. As our family celebrates I will know that some will not be as lucky as ours. Poverty and homelessness affects many families in our country.

So going into the holiday, I want to talk about some things that did happen with guns and some that didn’t. A man, another man in a domestic abuse situation, threatened to shoot up a church and a casino in Las Vegas but was stopped before he had the chance to carry it out. Why does this sound familiar?

From the article:

A man was arrested after he threatened to open fire at a local church, along with the Las Vegas hotel casino where his estranged wife worked, according to the FBI.

There is no question any more that domestic abusers frequently end up as mass shooters. Why? Anger issues mostly. This man was angry that he wasn’t getting a green card. Why he thought shooting up a church and a casino would accomplish that is the question. But when a gun or guns are available, men ( mostly men as it turns out) use them too often to take out their anger on others. It’s the guns stupid.

Had this man carried out his threat we would have been talking about another heinous mass shooting in America. Be thankful we aren’t talking about it.

And then there is the continued irresponsibility of gun owners ( gun rights advocates love to say that most “law abiding” gun owners are responsible but then that isn’t true is it? For example, this latest example of a Minnesota gun owner apparently leaving his/her gun accessible for young children who, like children do, handle the gun and shoot someone:

 A 3-year-old northern Minnesota child was apparently shot by a 5-year-old Sunday morning, Nov. 19, the Otter Tail County sheriff’s office said.

The victim is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, the office said without releasing any names.

A dispatcher got the 911 call around 7:30 a.m. and learned about the shooting in Deer Creek from a caller, who said it was an accident.

There are no accidents when it comes to incidents like this. Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

That family is thankful that no one was killed in the “accidental” shooting and maybe they will have more common sense now.

Also in Minnesota a literal good guy with a gun managed to cause a local mall lockdown when he walked in the mall with a gun in a case looking for a store to service his gun. 

Naturally people reported a guy with a gun walking around in the mall. We understand that shootings happen in malls and everywhere else. From the article:

Eden Prairie police said they received a report at about noon that a person with a weapon was inside the mall. Police put the mall in lockdown and searched the building.

A mall employee reported to police during the lockdown that a man carrying a gun case had entered the Scheels store, where he intended to get his gun serviced. He left the mall after being told there were no gun services at that Scheels location, according to a statement from police.

So this is the problem with a “good guy” with a gun theory. No one knows who is a good guy or a bad guy because they often look the same. The public understands that too many “law abiding” gun owners commit mass shootings and everyday shootings. We have experienced weekly.
This incident was not an incident. We can all be thankful for that.

A man accidentally shot himself and his wife in their Tennessee church after he had taken his gun out during a discussion about weapons in places of worship, police said.

The man, 81, and his wife, 80, both suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The incident happened Thursday afternoon as members of the First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains — about 60 miles southwest of Knoxville — were gathered at the church for a pre-Thanksgiving lunch, Tellico Plains Police Department Chief Russ Parks told ABC News.

The church members were discussing weapons in places of worship on the heels of the shooting at a Texas church earlier this month that killed over two dozen people, Parks said, and “one of the gentlemen said, ‘Well, I take my gun with me everywhere.'”

Just another instance of the myth of law abiding good guys with guns and how they will save the day in public places. Don’t believe it.

I hope that all in that church discussion are thankful nothing worse happened when the man irresponsibly showed off his gun and then pulled the trigger “accidentally.” It could have so much worse. Perhaps they will have more common sense when thinking that a gun in church could be the ticket to safety.

This Army Veteran set things straight about the risks of carrying guns everywhere and the “good guy” with a gun myth in this piece:

The problem with this narrative (besides a lack of research or data suggesting more guns does indeed prevent violence broadly) is that killing another human being, even a “bad” one, is not easy. This is not “Call of Duty”: Despite the damage that modern weaponry can inflict, there is a reason that soldiers and law enforcement officers receive thousands of hours of training in firearms and tactics. This training is physical, mechanical and, most importantly, psychological, because in order to efficiently and effectively kill other human beings in high-stress situations, one must be conditioned to negotiate that stress. (…)

When I see a young man openly carrying a firearm in public, whether to prove a political point or because he honestly believes at he could be called upon to stop an active shooter, I can only think of how much could go wrong. I do not see a “good guy with a gun”: I see a naive human who is more likely to exacerbate a tragedy than stop it. Is this person a civilian who has forgot to clear their weapon? Are they disciplined enough to avoid accidents? And if a mass shooting does occur, how do I know they will have the skills to take out the bad guy rather than, say, an innocent bystander?

I am a gun owner, a military veteran and a proud American. I believe in the essential right to bear arms, but with that right comes the obligation of responsible ownership. If a young man is brazen enough to brandish a powerful weapon just to attract attention, why would I trust they have the maturity to use it responsibly?

Exactly. There is no way of predicting what will happen in a mass shooting and someone with a gun who decides to take action to save the day could cause many more problems that he would solve.

This article from Vox explains it in charts and graphs:

If Texas is an example of this concept in action, though, it sure doesn’t seem to work. Before another armed person intervened against the Sutherland Springs gunman, he had already killed at least 26 people and injured approximately 20 others. He managed to shoot more than 40 people before “a good guy with a gun” reportedly helped stop him.

Not to mention that if the gunman didn’t have access to firearms, “a good guy with a gun” wouldn’t have been needed in the first place.

But the theory has remained prominent in conservative circles — as the NRA has argued that the right to bear arms and lax gun laws are necessary not just to stand against government tyranny but also for self-defense and protection.

 What I am saying here is that the NRA and corporate gun lobby myths are easily debunked and fewer and fewer people believe them. When virtually almost everyone in the country wants background checks on all gun sales, I would say that the NRA myths are failing. And for that I am thankful.

The public has common sense. The public also feels less and less safe with people with guns around everywhere they go. We are all vulnerable to gun violence. It happens everywhere but the answer is not more guns everywhere. The answer is to make sure that guns are less accessible to people who could be dangerous to themselves or others. Guns are a risk to their owners and those around them. I have given enough examples in this blog but so far the NRA, an arm of the Republican party, believe they are in charge.

That will change. We’ve all had enough of the constant gun violence and mass shootings.

Be thankful this holiday if your family has not been affected by gun violence. It is coming to  a point where almost every family will have been affected by gun violence in one way or the other. I can’t tell you how often I hear stories about someone’s family member who has committed suicide by gun or a friend who was murdered in a domestic shooting. it is so common now that it’s become part of our lives.

That is something we need to reject. It is NOT normal nor is it inevitable that the carnage that takes the lives of 100 Americans a day occurs without credible solutions offered by our leaders.

I will be thankful for my family around me and know that one person is missing from the Thanksgiving table of her adult kids and her grandchildren. She will be missed. My sister loved holidays and entertaining and did it well. We are thankful for that happy memory of her.

I urge you all to have a thoughtful discussion over Thanksgiving as inevitably the conversation will turn to politics. How could it not with the daily chaos and tweeting coming from our President? One of the discussions you could and should have is about asking if there are unlocked, loaded guns in the homes where kids and grandkids play and hang-out. ASKing saves lives. Safe storage of guns is key to public and private safety. More on this in my next post as new information has come out about lack of storing guns safely leading to stolen guns used in crime.

And one last thing- please remember the day 54 years ago that President John F. Kennedy was shot by an assassin in Dallas, Texas. I will never forget that day.

Stay safe everyone. Be responsible. Be thankful. And be safe.

Constant carnage

commongunsense, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

PrintI must give credit to my friend Kandi for this phrase. She messaged me about a toddler shot and injured in St. Cloud, Minnesota. What the heck? A toddler. But yes, constant carnage and it’s just another day.

From the article:

 

Through investigation, police say it appears the shooting was accidental due to negligent storage of a firearm. Authorities said they believe the child accidentally shot himself with a loaded firearm that was within his reach. The boy is still hospitalized in stable condition.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult. This adult had a felony conviction on his record. He can’t own guns legally. But he had one anyway and allowed access to it by his toddler child.

Just another day in America.

Where is common sense?

Toddlers cannot be responsible enough to handle guns, period. (see story above) In my neighboring state of Wisconsin ( I can see it from my windows) toddlers can now hunt. What could possibly go wrong?

In Northern California, a gunman shot up people at 7 crime scenes, ending at an elementary school, where he injured 2 children. At the end of this spree ( mass) shooting, 5 were dead and 10 injured. It barely made the news. Why? Maybe because only 4 died?

From the article:

“I really don’t know what his motive was,” Mr. Johnston said. “I think he was just on a rampage. I think he had a desire to kill as many people as he could.” (…)

Mr. Johnston said that investigators had reviewed video from the school’s security system that showed the gunman walking the hallways and entering a restroom, but appearing to get frustrated that the classroom doors were locked.

The school went on lockdown at the sound of gunfire, Mr. Johnston said.

“We would have had a horrific blood bath in that school if that school hadn’t taken the action when they did,” he said.

The alarming thing here is that the man manufactured his own assault weapons at home. How? Here’s how:

The AK-47, perhaps the world’s best-known gun, is so easy to make and so hard to break that the Soviet-designed original has spawned countless variants, updated and modified versions churned out by factories all over the globe. Although US customs laws ban importing the weapons, parts kits—which include most original components of a Kalashnikov variant—are legal. So is reassembling them, as long as no more than 10 foreign-made components are used and they are mounted on a new receiver, the box-shaped central frame that holds the gun’s key mechanics. There are no fussy irritations like, say, passing a background check to buy a kit. And because we’re assembling the guns for our own “personal use,” whatever that may entail, we’re not required to stamp in serial numbers. These rifles are totally untraceable, and even under California’s stringent assault weapons ban, that’s perfectly within the law.

This is lunacy. Time to pass laws to make this illegal.

The shooting in California started with a shooting of the man’s wife. Too often mass shootings are the result of domestic violence that lead to anger and the shooter takes it out on innocent Americans.

And to make matters even more ridiculous, our very own President tweeted condolences to the wrong community after the shooting in California. Either there are so many mass shootings of late that he can’t keep track of them or he is being his usual uninformed and hopelessly unprepared for his job. From the article:

Mr. Trump’s Twitter response, which has since been deleted from his account but is timestamped at 11:34 p.m. on November 14, mentioned another mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which occurred on November 5, killing 26 people and injuring 20 more.

“May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and Law Enforcement has arrived,” Mr. Trump wrote in the tweet, offering thoughts and prayers to the wrong town.

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I thought that his tweets were part of the official Presidential record. Can he delete these lies and misinformation? That is a huge problem right now. The misinformation about shootings and gun policy are ubiquitous in the public sphere. Just take for example the usual talking point from the far right extremists that since California is a liberal state with strong gun laws, how does a shooting like this happen? Remember that the shooter made his own guns. And further, many of the guns used in crimes in California come from other states where gun laws are much weaker. In spite of that, California’s gun death rate is lower than in most other states.

But never mind the facts. And these are the folks, and the President, who love to accuse others of #fakenews. The hypocrisy is hard to stomach.

We have passed laws to keep guns away from domestic abusers but there are ways to get around it and there are too many loopholes that allow these angry folks to buy ( or manufacture) guns anyway. Too often someone in their lives know that they are potentially dangerous with guns. We could pass Gun Violence Protection Orders to make it harder for them to have guns. Will we?

We could save lives and prevent shootings.

On the political front, we will have 2 new Democratic governors who spoke openly about their support for gun violence prevention measures. And they won- not by a small margin. Talking about guns works. The public found that issue to be one of their top issues. Finally.

No need to be afraid to talk about gun violence. How can it be avoided when the constant carnage is killing so many people that soon enough all of us will know someone who has been shot.

We can actually do something about all of this. The public does understand that which is why they voted for candidates who spoke out about solutions. As a public health issue, gun violence needs a cure. The American Medical Association is becoming more concerned about deaths and injuries due to gunshots as well they should. In a new article, the Journal of the American Medical Association writes that physicians should treat gun violence like a public health problem and look for the cause of it like in other illnesses:

Guns kill people. More background checks; more hotel, school, and venue security; more restrictions on the number and types of guns that individuals can own; and development of “smart guns” may help decrease firearm violence. But the key to reducing firearm deaths in the United States is to understand and reduce exposure to the cause, just like in any epidemic, and in this case that is guns.

The constant gushing of gun deaths has hollowed out a huge hole in America. Every day, toddlers shot with a gun found in the home. Every day, women killed by abusers. Every day, guns used in suicides. Every day, every day, every day, every day………..

This column by conservative columnist David Frum opines on actions taken in America after all of the mass shootings. It is not what you would think is common sense:

So it’s not at all true that “nothing changes.” In fact, a remarkable research paper published in 2016 by Harvard’s Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin found that between 1989 and 2014, the most probable policy response to a mass shooting was a loosening of gun laws. (…)

This may explain why gun advocates insist that the immediate aftermath of a spectacular massacre is “too soon” for the gun discussion. They want the pain and grief and fear to ebb. They want ordinary citizens to look away. Then, when things are quiet, the gun advocates will go to work, to bring more guns to places where alcohol is served, where children are cared for, where students are taught, where God is worshipped. More killings bring more guns. More guns do more killing. It’s a cycle the nation has endured for a long time, and there is little reason to hope that the atrocity in Las Vegas will check or reverse it.

Ordinary citizens cannot look away. They must be noisy and insistent that our gun laws are strengthened, not loosened.

This is a moment in time that can make a difference. The constant carnage is digging a deep hole in our collective memories and day to day lives. Stay constant in the demands to act to prevent gun deaths and injuries.

And to our elected leaders, we must demand that they represent the vast majority of Americans ( almost 100%!) who support requiring Brady background checks on all gun sales and strongly support many other common sense measures to end the carnage. This Quinnipiac poll is stunning in that it reveals the truth about how our leaders have failed us:

That marks the highest level of support since Quinnipiac first asked the question in February 2013 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Let’s get to work and do what almost all Americans know is the right thing to do.

The corporate gun lobby should not be calling the “shots”.

As I write this,  Senators Chris Murphy and John Cornyn are working on a bill that would fix some of the problems in our background check system that allowed the shooter at the Texas church to get a gun he shouldn’t have had. I’m all for it.It’s a fix around the margins but it’s a fix. It’s so interesting that when a shooting happens in a Senator’s state, he/she is under pressure to act ( Senator John Cornyn). Wouldn’t it be great if all Senators wanted to act whether the shooting happened in their state or another of our 50 states because they do, of course.

The constant carnage is killing us.

A broken background check system

commongunsense, , , , , , ,

Background checks workThe shooting of 26 at a small church in Texas is now history and America has turned to other things. That is the way things go here. The victims and survivors have not forgotten though. If we let this shooting, like all of the other mass shootings and every day shootings go the way of Wikipedia and move on, we can expect to see many more.

What will we do about saving lives land preventing shootings?

We are not helpless to fix this national public health epidemic. Some laws are broken and need to be fixed and we need some new laws that, in this political atmosphere are unlikely to be passed.

Our background check system for gun purchases is broken. There is absolutely no rational reason not to require a background check on every single gun sale. We require them for adopting a pet, for a whole lot of other important jobs and responsibilities. But because the corporate gun lobby has co-opted any common sense discussion about reforms to our gun policy and gun culture, we have allowed people to buy guns without background checks all over our country.

easier to get a gun,,,

The Charleston loophole has not been fixed even after 8 were shot and killed in a small Charleston, South Carolina church in 2015:

Roof was able to buy the weapon after the investigator assigned to complete his background check wasn’t able to find his police record, which contained a confession for drug possession. Under federal law, NICS has three business days to finish vetting a gun buyer, or the sale can proceed. When the deadline expired with his background check still incomplete, Roof got his gun.

Last summer, the story of Roof’s dead-end background check helped expose a loophole that annually allows upwards of 3,000 persons deemed too risky to own a gun to acquire a firearm via so-called “default proceed” sales.

And so, we see the results every day. There really are hardly words to describe the shooting in a small church in the small Texas town of Sutherland, Texas. How can one family lose 8 people at once in a shooting? How can a shooter shoot and kill and 18 month old baby?

The shooter had serious problems while in the air force:

Devin Patrick Kelley’s June 2012 escape from Peak Behavioral Health Systems in New Mexico occurred months after he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and her child, according to an El Paso Police Department report obtained by CNN affiliate KVIA on Tuesday.
Kelley was picked up after the Santa Teresa, New Mexico, facility listed him as missing. The documents said officers had been warned that Kelley was a danger to himself and others and that he had sneaked firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base, where he had reportedly threatened his commanders.

All of this and he was able to buy guns.

This is America. This is not normal or inevitable. This is a public health epidemic of huge proportions. Americans and Texans are angry, sad, upset, shocked,

There is no doubt that we need to make some serious changes and make it harder for certain people to get guns. It wouldn’t hurt law abiding citizens if it was harder for them to get a gun either for the good of the whole and for saving lives. If people go through background checks and lengthy processes for other things in their lives, they can do the same to acquire a gun. This is a no brainer and the majority concur.

So put on your game faces and let’s get to work on crafting, supporting and passing a policy that will save lives. Brady background checks have prevented the sale of 3 million guns since the system was authorized and set up.

 

What is wrong with us? Every day we watch the carnage. A few days ago a family was wiped out in Scottsdale Arizona over financial troubles.

They were a nice young family with small children. And now they are no longer.

Just another daily domestic shooting.

This is not normal. It’s time to do something quickly before it’s a friend of yours or a family member who picks up a gun and uses it to “solve a problem.”

Ask your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 4240 and your Senators to co-sponsor S. 2009 to expand and fix the Brady background check system.

Guns vs. trucks

commongunsense, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

car 2Of course the talk turned last week to the terror attack in New York City as it should have.  The reaction was horror and outrage. Our President wanted immediate action to ban citizens from certain countries from entering and to make our already extreme vetting more extreme.

Not so much after the Las Vegas shooting when it was much too soon to discuss any policy changes because…. rights. Never mind that #45 rarely mentioned the victims of the NYC terror attack because he was too busy blaming Senator Schumer for the law that allowed the “terrorist” to enter the U.S. in 2010. He was wrong.

The reaction to the New York City terror attack was outrage and the cry to take immediate action to change laws. The reaction to the Las Vegas shooting was outrage but let’s not do anything about it.

There have, of course, been other terror attacks in the U.S., including many that included mass shootings. But those who owe allegiance to the corporate gun lobby prefer not to acknowledge the attacks involving guns as terror attacks.

So let’s consider a few things that have made the news or have been brought to our attention since the Las Vegas shooting and during the most recent terror attack:

Ought we to have truck control since that seems to be the new terror method used by extremists?

Could someone with a carried gun have saved the day in the NYC attack?

No.

And speaking of the gun lobby myth that armed citizens can and should save the day in a public shooting, check out this article about how that idea backfired in the latest Walmart shooting in Colorado. (It is not uncommon for shootings to occur at Walmart stores but this one was more deadly than most) . From the article:

But police in Thornton, Colo., said that in this case the well-intentioned gun carriers set the stage for chaos, stalling efforts to capture the suspect in the Wednesday night shooting that killed three people. (…)

But the videos showed several people in the store with their guns drawn. That forced detectives to watch more video, following the armed shoppers throughout the store in an effort to distinguish the good guys from the bad guy, Avila said.

Investigators went “back to ground zero” several times as they struggled to pinpoint the suspect, he said.

And finally this, from the linked article:

In a 2014 FBI report, researchers examined more than 100 shootings between 2000 and 2012 and found that civilians stopped about 1 in 6 active shooters — usually by tackling the gunman, not shooting him.

The corporate gun lobby is deceiving us.

We must do a better job of getting out the common sense discussion about how risky it is to have loaded guns sitting around the house ( or in public places). This Texas mother had a gun. She shot and killed her two young daughters.

A domestic shooting in Wisconsin took the lives of 3. The headlines call this an altercation. When a gun is readily available altercations turn to death in seconds.

This Minnesota couple is dead from a murder/suicide– another altercation between people who knew each other or had a relationship.

Deer hunting season opened this week-end in Minnesota. Every year there are mishaps with hunting guns that end in injury or death.

But sometimes those hunting “accidents” are actually intentional shootings.

Last year, a Minnesota father of 4 was out hunting and was murdered in the woods. The rifle used has now been found. Armed with a hunting gun, someone shoots someone out in the woods intentionally and it often appears to be an “accident.”

On top of everything else, gun deaths are on the rise in America. No thanks to the corporate gun lobby’s refusal to support any effort to lower gun deaths. From the article:

Overall, the firearm death rate rose to 12 deaths per 100,000 people last year, up from 11 in 2015, according to the report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before that, the rate had hovered just above 10 — a level it had fallen to in the late 1990s.

Death rates rose from 90 per day to 104 per day.

Stunning.

So yes, trucks are a new weapon of mass destruction used now by terrorists. There have been an increasing number of these kinds of attacks. And we need to do whatever it takes to stop them from happening.

But trucks are not designed to kill people. They do occasionally get used to intentionally kill people and we have a different perspective after they have been used in terror attacks all over the world. Guns are designed to kill people. And kill they do. Much more often than trucks.

Guns have been the weapon of choice for many of the acts of terror committed daily and mass shootings on a regular basis. From the article:

But a new study suggests that these violent methods, while all horrific, are not equally deadly.

In a research letter published Friday in JAMA Internal Medicine, investigators report that although guns were used in fewer than 10% of terrorist attacks worldwide between 2002 and 2016, they were responsible for more than half the resulting deaths.

There should be no equivocation when it comes to that. If we leave the solutions in the hands of those who have a vested interest in selling weapons of mass destruction, we will not get this right.

We have now learned that the Las Vegas “terrorist” was depressed over losing a lot of his wealth gambling over the past few years. Why that is a reason to shoot innocent people is the big question. But when you have access to as many guns and dangerous accessories you want or need, it’s easy to act out your anger and depression.

One state just got it right. Massachusetts passed a ban on bump fire stocks. This is what happens when legislators and the Governor are not loyal to the corporate gun lobby. Common sense actually dictates public health and safety.

The Gun Violence Archive is keeping track of shootings in America. Since the Las Vegas shooting, if we use the average of about 100 Americans a day who die from gunshot injuries, close to 2800 Americans have died since the Las Vegas shooting.

In what country or world is this OK? It is not too soon to talk about how we can prevent the daily carnage of gun deaths. It is too late. On behalf of the 104 Americans who lose their lives every day to gun violence, I will work to reduce that number and prevent shootings.

Since I posted this, there has been a mass shooting at a church in a small Texas town. Early reports are that there are multiple deaths and injuries. They keep coming and coming and coming. How many more? How many times have I asked that?

Congress? Anyone?

UPDATE:

We now know that 26 are dead after the deadliest church shooting in America. The youngest victim- 5 years old. The oldest- 72 years old. It has been reported that the 14 year old daughter of the pastor of the church was one of the victims. So now this shooting has a name: “The deadliest church shooting in America.”  Just as the Las Vegas shooting has been titled the “deadliest mass shooting in America.” And all of this in just one month’s time.

We have all become victims of the corporate gun lobby and an impotent Congress that cares more for ideology and campaign contributions than human lives. We are held hostage by this group of Americans and continue to watch as victim after victim piles up.  As a friend wrote in an email: ” We Are being denied legislative and policy relief through preventable solutions, that we know work, and could save lives!”

We live in troubled and dangerous times. If you don’t think this can happen anywhere in the U.S. you are mistaken. It has, and it will. That’s when you have to realize that none of us are immune to the whims of a shooters who can amass weapons of mass destruction and multiple rounds of high capacity magazines. The shooter used an AR-15 type semi-automatic assault rifle. By all accounts, he was using magazines with multiple rounds.

Texas has loose gun laws and is an “open carry” state. How would anyone know if the shooter was up to a crime by just looking at him walking around with a rifle?

This is a sad day for our country.