Sandy Hook shooting

We are tired of waiting

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WebTime has run out for the latest victims of gun violence. It ran out for my sister 23 years ago. We are waiting for common sense. We are waiting for our family members to be honored with action by our elected leaders. When? How many more must die?

Isn’t it way past time for action? Millions of gun violence victims later, has the time come for action at long last?

I wasn’t planning to write a blog post today but I got so sick of reading about all of those “law abiding” gun owners making mistakes- deadly and otherwise- that I just couldn’t help myself. When all of the conceal (open) carry laws passed the proponents said there would not be blood running in the streets. They were wrong. There is- it’s all over. Here are a few examples of “mistakes” by gun owners:

This Indiana guy really had an itch to carry his gun around with him while shopping. Too bad he scratched it. From the article:

A 24-year-old man had a loaded Glock 27 pistol in his pocket when he accidentally fired it inside CVS Pharmacy on Tuesday afternoon. A representative from CVS Pharmacy declined to comment.

The man had a license to carry a gun, said Kerry Atwood, a spokesman for the Franklin Police Department.

When the man was walking up to the cash registers at the front of the store, he went to scratch his leg and accidentally pulled the trigger of his gun, Atwood said. The man told police he thought part of the pocket caught on the trigger, which caused it to fire, according to the police report.

The bullet shot through the man’s pants and into the carpet at the store, Atwood said. The bullet did not hit anyone and shattered on impact with the floor, he said.

“When this happened, he then made the weapon safe,” Atwood said.

The man immediately ejected the magazine from the gun and cocked the gun’s slide open so no more bullets could be fired, Atwood said. The gun was unloaded and on the front counter of the pharmacy when officers arrived, he said.

“He was so rattled by this that he had a hard time getting his license and concealed carry (permit), which he did have, out of his wallet,” Atwood said.

The man told officers he typically keeps his gun in a holster but didn’t use it Tuesday. He told officers he plans to take gun safety and shooting lessons soon, according to the police report.

And then he said he was going to take a training class? Duh. Good thing for him that the bullet did not hit another person or himself. Do remember, however, that the gun lobby is so confident in the skills of gun carriers that every year they either succeed or try to succeed in getting all training requirements banned in states all over the union. Good idea? You decide. I, for one, don’t want to be standing near untrained gun carriers- or really trained carriers either. Why? Because this could happen:

A Minnesota legal gun permit holder shot and killed another man last night at a popular North Shore resort:

A man was shot to death after a confrontation early Wednesday at a small North Shore town’s popular resort, where a holiday party for employees was being held, authorities said.

A 61-year-old man from nearby Finland, Minn., who works at the resort, was quickly arrested in a guest room of the Bluefin Bay resort in Tofte, Minn., and jailed on suspicion of second-degree murder, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. He has been a Bluefin employee for seven years, said resort owner Dennis Rysdahl.

The victim was a 35-year-old man who worked for a casino gambling rental service, which was hired for the Christmas party, according to Sheriff Pat Eliasen. (…)

Eliasen said the gunman had a government-issued permit to carry a firearm.

Authorities have not revealed any more about what motivated the shooting. The suspect, who delivered firewood to guest rooms, was well-liked among the staff, Rysdahl said, and “has never been known to say an angry word or get into conflict with anyone.”

In a statement Wednesday evening, Rysdahl said that the annual holiday party is a long-standing tradition at the resort, where precautions are taken to make sure no one drinks and drives. Party guests must relinquish their car keys before being admitted to the event in exchange for a key to a complimentary room. Car keys are returned only after breakfast the following morning — a policy that has prevented incidents in the past, he said.

Too bad they didn’t ask people to relinquish their guns. But God forbid, no one can ever tell people their guns are not welcome. And now a young man is dead.

It’s possible that alcohol was involved given the party. It’s probable that anger was involved. Neither of these go together well with guns.

Where is common sense?

Do you think this Minnesota gun owner had any common sense when he “loaned” his gun to a friend? First of all, do people loan out their guns? Seems like a terrible idea to me but then, some gun owners just don’t seem to get that guns are dangerous in the wrong hands. Check it out:

A search of the car revealed three painkillers in pill form, hypodermic needles and three rounds of ammunition for a .38 caliber gun. Two additional needles were found on Jarmer.

In an interview Tuesday with Virginia Police Chief Nicole Mattson, Jarmer said he’d borrowed the gun and intended to scare one of the witnesses, who he said owed him money. He said the gun went off during the witness’ attempt to disarm him.

Jarmer did not have a permit to carry the gun, and the complaint said he admitted to police he’d been drinking.

Not law abiding. Was the gun owner law abiding? I’m sure we will find that out.

The Milwaukee Police Chief spoke recently about the problems with “law abiding” gun permit holders contributing to crime on the streets:

Flynn does not oppose concealed carry for law abiding citizens. “I’m in favor of it. There are neighborhoods in this town where people should be able to carry a gun lawfully,” he says. But he adamantly opposes a law without some restrictions and pleaded with Walker to be the “adult” and use his power to make sure the law’s language gets amended. Walker declined.

The result is a huge increase in guns and violent crime in Milwaukee, Flynn contends, and a situation where police safety is in jeopardy. Under the current law, he says, “we are doing everything we can to make sure our criminals have unfettered access to high-quality firearms and get to carry them in record numbers. There are more guns out there every year.”

Flynn notes several problems with the law that could have been avoided if it had been more judiciously crafted.

First, the statute only prohibits convicted felons from carrying guns. “There are a lot of bad people out there who don’t get a felony conviction,” he notes. Indeed, state law has a “habitual offender” statute — in essence defining a “career criminal,” Flynn says — whose definition includes someone with three or more misdemeanor convictions. Yet they are allowed a CCW (carrying a concealed weapon) permit.

Thank you gun lobby for getting those amendments into laws to make sure the laws don’t work. And then you can say that we should just enforce the laws on the books and complain that the laws don’t work because felons and others get guns anyway.  Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see….

And more:

Second, when criminals are nabbed for carrying a gun Illegally, he notes, it’s a misdemeanor, “no matter how many times you are arrested for this.” So why should any gang member stop carrying a gun illegally?

Third, the law bars the police from learning anything about concealed carry’s impact. “The law prohibits the police from sorting, accessing, analyzing or publishing any data regarding their experience with concealed carry,” Flynn notes. At a time when all these best police departments in America are data-driven, why tie their hands this way?

Fourth, the new law has put police at a disadvantage in dealing with criminals. “For years we’ve taught police officers the visual clues and behaviors that make it likely this person is armed.” That could lead to police nabbing a criminal before a crime is committed.

But under the CCW law, “the new language says when the police see someone carrying a gun we are to assume they are carrying legally, even in a high-crime neighborhood where there are hundreds of crimes that happen,” Flynn notes.

Sigh.

Then add other, long-standing loopholes regarding guns. Those who purchase guns legally can sell them on the street to criminals, because no background checks are required for secondary sales. And friends or relatives of criminals can simply make straw purchases of guns for them, and if the police trace the gun to the straw purchasers they can simply claim they lost the gun or it was stolen. “And there’s no legal requirement to report a lost or stolen gun,” Flynn notes.

The police were able to prevent a likely shootout on the near North Side where one criminal was armed with several guns and tons of ammunition supplied by his brother, who had a CCW permit. Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Police Department.

In a recent example, the police were able to prevent a likely shootout on the near North Side where one criminal was armed with several guns and tons of ammunition supplied by his brother, who had a CCW permit. (See photo taken by police.)

The result in Milwaukee, says Flynn: “there’s a robust industry of buying guns legally and selling them on the street.” The number of guns recovered by Milwaukee police has risen every year since CCW was passed, rising from 1,972 in 2011 to 2,329 in 2012. “And so far this year we’ve already seized more than 2,400 guns,” Flynn notes. That’s an increase of at least 22 percent.

Flynn says the result is more fatal and non-fatal shootings. “81 percent of our homicides are committed with firearms. And 40 percent of all homicides are the result of fights and disputes and retaliation between criminals.”

But we can’t stop criminals from getting guns, right?

We have been told by folks in the community of color in Minneapolis that some “law abiding” folks get their permits to carry and then use them to buy guns for friends. Illegal of course. But legal in the first place. Guns transfer hands in many ways and can end up being used in shootings.

The gun lobby nonsense is beyond reproach and belief. They have succeeded in getting as many guns in the hands of as many people as possible. It is inevitable that when you are awash in guns, you will also be awash in gun crimes, gun deaths and gun injuries on the increase.  It’s a public health and safety epidemic of grand proportion.

So back to public health and safety, President Obama is considering executive action at long last to require Brady background checks on all gun sales. Wait for it… fear, paranoia, hysteria, false claims, hair torn out, anger…. We are all tired of waiting. I’m sure this news will be greeted with delight by the gun lobby. We will wait for Mr. Wayne LaPierre to weigh in. It should be interesting and predictable. The gun grabbers are out to get law abiding gun owners’ rights and guns. This will surely lead to registration and confiscation. The government will be coming for your guns.  Blah, blah, blah.

And Connecticut Governor Malloy is also tired of waiting for elected leaders to do the right thing. He is going to issue an executive order to ake sure known terrorists can’t buy guns legally.

Gun violence prevention groups and faith communities are holding at least 350 vigils or events this week all over our country to raise their voices to our leaders. Monday, December 14th will be the 3rd anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting and the 3rd anniversary of our country turning its’ back on the victims. For even the massacre of 20 small children was not enough. Their families have had enough. They are all tired of waiting.

No more waiting.

No more shootings.

No more gun deaths.

No more names on lists.

No more weak kneed politicians pledging allegiance to the United States., er, ah, gun lobby.

We are tired of waiting. We are acting.

We are better than this.

 

 

Lions and gun violence

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lion killingWell, I didn’t expect that posting this meme would cause such a heated discussion on my Facebook page- amongst my friends. The killing of Cecil, the lion, by a Minnesota dentist has provoked some amazing emotions. The media is on it. It’s a controversy for sure. And people are demanding action. Great. I think it deserves the attention it is getting and  potential solutions. And it looks like the Minnesota hunter has not exactly been a responsible hunter.

Meanwhile, back to the people who live in our communities, the killings and injury of human Americans continues. A writer in Colorado wonders why parents who leave their loaded guns out for small children to access are treated differently than those who leave their cars running in the cold. From the article:

This is so wrong. The punishment for leaving your car running in Aurora is far more severe than the penalty for leaving a gun lying around — even if a child finds it and shoots another kid with it. (…)

But in Aurora, you can leave a gun and ammunition in a house with kids, tucked out of sight, and rest assured the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s office won’t prosecute you, even if your own kid finds the gun and accidentally shoots himself or someone else with it.

Last week, Arapahoe County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said that office would not file charges against an Aurora man whose 12-year-old son found his father’s gun inside a coat pocket, discovered the bullets elsewhere in the house, got the gun out when he had some pals over and his parents weren’t home, and ended up inadvertently shooting a 7-year-old boy in the head two weeks ago.

The younger boy was critically injured, but his condition nor prognosis aren’t particularly clear, other than he is expected to survive.

Hurlbert said there isn’t enough evidence to charge either the boy who fired the gun while playing with it, nor his father, who said he had no idea that his son even knew there was a gun in the house. (…)

About half of the more than 1 million homes with children and guns in the United States don’t have locked and unloaded weapons. And a report by Everytown for Gun Safety cites an unnerving but hardly surprising Harvard University survey of children in homes with guns. The study reveals that “more than 70 percent of children under age 10 knew where their parents stored their guns — even when they were hidden — and 36 percent of the children reported handling the weapons.”

Even though the Arapahoe County DA considers keeping a gun in a coat pocket good enough security to avoid criminal charges, clearly that strategy isn’t good enough to keep kids from getting injured or killed.

Kids know where guns are “hidden”. My own kids have told me recently that they knew where my husband’s hunting guns were hidden. This was before I got involved in gun violence prevention advocacy. We purchased a gun safe when more awareness about gun violence and the tragic shooting death of my sister caused us to be hyper aware of the dangers of guns in the home. I have provided videos and other information on this blog showing how kids find guns no matter what anyone tells them. They hold them. They play with them. They aim them. And then sometimes they shoot them and kill or injure someone.

Where is common sense? In America is it so lacking that it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad and tragic.

Back to the article above- the writer poses a very good question. Why are gun owners treated differently than others when it comes to negligence? What is wrong with our country? We are outraged and enraged over a man who allegedly shot a lion illegally in Zimbabwe. But when a father irresponsibly leaves his gun out for a child to access leading to a shooting? Not so much. This is the definition of insanity. We have our priorities backwards to say the least.

Last night, my friends Sandy and Lonnie Phillips were on The Rachel Maddow Show talking about the gun industry immunity law or Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms. After their daughter was murdered in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, they filed a law suit against the on-line ammunition dealers who sold the shooter his thousands of rounds of ammunition, protective body armor, explosives, etc. When the suit came before a judge, it was dismissed and not only that, because of the Colorado law, modeled after the federal law ( brought to us by the corporate gun lobby) they were ordered to pay the costs of the companies to the tune of over $200,000:

“[Holmes] bought steel-jacketed ammo that went through the chairs of the theater, went through the walls of the theater into the theater next door. [He] hit my daughter, who was hiding behind a seat…one bullet hit her in the head and created a five-inch hole…and blew her brains out,” Sandy Phillips said.

Phillips questioned why a bullet with such velocity wasn’t more regulated, and why a person ordering 4,000 rounds wasn’t questioned about needing so much ammo. She also said Holmes was not required to show his license to verify that he was of age to legally make those purchases.

This was not a lawsuit about propaganda  ( as the judge proclaimed) or political gain. This was a law suit about our terribly flawed system of gun laws that allow just about anyone to purchase weapons and deadly ammunition on-line ( and in other venues) with no background checks or no questions asked. When profits come before protecting human lives, this is the result. Victims and families of shootings are treated differently because of the ever influential hold on our political system by one powerful industry and the lobbyists who represent them. It’s a uniquely American tragedy.

Once this many Americans are massacred over and over and over, it’s too late really to have the discussion. It’s too late for the Phillips’. It’s too late for the parents of the children who were murdered in cold blood at Sandy Hook elementary school. Now is certainly the time to discuss this controversial issue even if the NRA folks and others in the corporate gun lobby would love to have it go away. It won’t. Here’s why we need to talk about this issue now and after every mass shooting and every other shooting- in other words- every day:

Warren is right. The only deaths in America we must not discuss or address with any urgency are those caused by guns.

We saw this insane sentiment on display last week after the latest mass shooting – this one in Lafayette, La., where a demented 59-year-old drifter shot and killed two young women and injured nine others in a movie theater.

In the immediate aftermath, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal made one thing perfectly clear. “The best thing we can do across Lafayette, across Louisiana, across our country, is come together in thoughts, in love, in prayer,” Jindal said the night of the shooting.

Asked about what this meant for changing his state’s gun laws (among the weakest in the nation), Jindal pushed back hard. “Let’s focus on the victims right now,” he said. “Let’s focus on their recoveries. There’ll be a time, I’m sure folks will want to jump into the politics of this. Now is not the time.”

Jindal is not alone in his desire to stall and procrastinate after a mass shooting. He’s only repeating the standard Republican/NRA mantra after similar tragedies: Now’s not the time. This is a period for mourning and prayer. There will be time to talk about how to address the problem later, but not while people are burying their dead. For now, let’s pray for them and hug our kids.

Again, why are gun deaths treated differently than other national tragedies or incidents that harm others and/or the environment? Our insane gun culture has become a national tragedy in itself. More from the article:

Funny, I don’t recall Jindal suggesting anyone wait a week to start discussing how to address the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April 2010, which killed 11 people (most of them his constituents).

Immediately after that disaster, Jindal demanded immediate action on “three challenges: stopping the leak, protecting the coast and cleaning the coast.” No one suggested that Jindal’s quick call to clean up the Louisiana coast was a “shameful” effort to “score cheap political points.”

Instead of prayers, Jindal demanded prompt action. “Officials at the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority are also working with the state’s oil spill coordinator’s office to monitor any potential environmental impact,” Jindal saidwithin 24 hours of the explosion.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, did anyone suggest we should wait a few weeks to pray and mourn before responding to the terrorists who murdered thousands?

On the night of the attacks, then-President George W. Bush appeared on national television to vow swift action. “I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice,” Bush said that night. “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

Did Jindal or anyone else suggest that Bush was politicizing these murders by vowing to avenge them?

The answer is NO. The answer about delaying the gun violence discussion is also NO.

What we need to discuss for sure and at the least is one of the serious flaws in our background check system. That would be the “default proceed” with a sale of a gun after 3 days even after the background check has not been completed. This is the flaw that led to the Charleston shooter getting his gun. 9 people are dead as a result. Is that enough to get us talking about solutions to the national gun violence epidemic?

So yes, let’s talk about poaching animals and killing wild animals illegally. The people of Zimbabwe are even puzzled over the outrage given all of the pressing problems that exist where they live:

“It’s so cruel, but I don’t understand the whole fuss, there are so many pressing issues in Zimbabwe — we have water shortages, no electricity and no jobs — yet people are making noise about a lion?” said Eunice Vhunise, a Harare resident. “I saw Cecil once when I visited the game park. I will probably miss him. But honestly the attention is just too much.”

An economic meltdown over the last few years has closed many companies and left two thirds of the population working in the informal economy while battling acute water and electricity shortages.

Most people questioned in downtown Harare hadn’t actually heard about the lion and said they were too busy trying to make a living to care about it.

Water shortages, no jobs, an economic meltdown and the killing of a lion. Up to the Lafayette theater shooting, according to the “mass shooting tracker”, there had been 204 mass shootings in 204 days of 2015. Stunning. Even if you use a different definition of mass shootings, there is no question where the outrage should be directed in America. Since the Lafayette shooting occurred one week ago, 626 Americans have died of gunshot injuries and many more than that have been injured by bullets. Where is the outrage?

Let’s also remember that we are the country that let the massacre of 20 first graders happen with no solution to the problem. We moved on. And then more innocent people were killed. What will we tolerate? We don’t like the killing of a beoved lion in a foreign country because the hunter lured the lion out of a reserve that was protecting it and then killed it. How do we feel about shooters opening fire on innocent people in movie theaters  or schools or military bases or college campuses on purpose for no apparent reason other than they could? I know how I feel.

We are better than this. Let’s get to work and have the discussion and pass laws that will make a difference.

I would like to end with this editorial by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post that I read just after posting:

Since 9/11, the United States has responded aggressively to the danger of terrorism, taking extraordinary measures, invading two countries, launching military operations in many others, and spending more than $800 billion onhomeland security. Americans have accepted an unprecedented expansion of government powers and invasions of their privacy to prevent such attacks. Since 9/11, 74 people have been killed in the United States by terrorists,according to the think tank New America. In that same period, more than 150,000 Americans have been killed in gun homicides, and we have done . . .nothing.

Our attitude seems to be one of fatalism. Another day, another mass shooting. Which is almost literally true. The Web site shootingtracker.com documents that in the first 207 days of 2015, the nation had 207 mass shootings. After one of these takes place now, everyone goes through a ritual of shock and horror, and then moves on, aware that nothing will change, accepting that this is just one of those quirks of American life. But it is 150,000 deaths. Almost three Vietnams.

And more from the editorial piece:

It is not an act of fate that has caused 150,000 Americans to die over the past 14 years. It is a product of laws, court decisions, lobbying and pandering politicians. We can change it.

And Timothy Egan writing for the New York Times agrees:

The waves of mass shootings continue to roll over the United States like surf on the ship of state’s prow. Every few weeks now we get hit with a jolt of cold water. We shake and shudder, and then brace ourselves for the next one.

So we beat on — a nation whose people are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of most other developed countries. The only thing extraordinary about mass shootings in America is how ordinary the killing grounds are — elementary schools, high schools, colleges, military recruitment centers, theaters, parks, churches.Is no place safe? Actually, several places are. You want protection in a country that allows a deranged man to get an assault weapon to hunt down innocent people in a public space? Go to the airport — that bubble of gun-free security. Or go to a major-league baseball game, or a stadium in the National Football League. (…)

What we’re moving toward, then, are regions that are safer than others, and public spaces that are safer than others, led by private enterprise, shunning the gun crazies who want everyone armed. The new reality comes with the inconvenience and hassle of screening and pat-downs similar to the routines at airports — enforced gun-free zones, not mere suggestions.

As a way to make everyday life seem less frightening, the new reality is absurd. But that’s the cost, apparently, of an extreme interpretation of a constitutional amendment designed to fend off British tyranny, a freedom that has become a tyranny in itself.

Why background checks on all gun sales are essential

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Let's leave our guns in the lobbyUnless you have been living under a rock, on a vacation with no news available or just plain in denial, you know that our nation has been experiencing an epidemic of gun violence that is really not new. This time, however, there seems to be more talk about it and even politicians are being pressed by the media and constituents to talk turkey about gun violence and what to do about it. It’s a topic that most want to avoid. Why? Because if they say what they really know to be true in their heart of hearts, it will p#$$ off the corporate gun lobby and the gun extremists and no one wants to go there. If it p&^%es off the rest of us? Apparently we don’t count and we are the majority. We are the 92% of even gun owners who want our politicians to pass a law to require background checks on all gun sales. I guess we don’t count.

So let’s look at the past month or so.  The shooter of the 9 Black Charleston residents at Mother Emanuel church should not have had a gun. How did he get it? He bought his gun from a licensed dealer after an incomplete background check. This was admitted to the public by the FBI Director:

Comey said the FBI made the error due to a breakdown in the background check system and confusion with paperwork between the FBI, local police departments and county jurisdictions.

Due to Roof’s admission during an arrest in late February that he was in possession of drugs, he should not have been permitted to buy the gun he used in the massacre. However, an agent working for the FBI’s background check system who was performing the review on Roof failed to contact the Columbia, South Carolina, police department which arrested Roof, in part because of a clerical error in records listing the wrong agency.

Because Roof’s background check took longer than three days to complete, the gun shop owner was allowed to sell the gun to Roof. The law permits gun sellers to sell guns if a background check takes longer than three days to complete.

Houston, we have a problem. Lives depend on our fixing this flaw in the background check system brought to us by the corporate gun lobby. This great article in The Trace explains how this happened in the first place:

It was called House Amendment 390, and it radically altered the implementation of the Brady background check bill. It was backed by the NRA. Twenty days later, it was the law. And 22 years later, one of its elements allowed Dylann Roof to get a gun.

Last week, Jim Clyburn, a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, filed legislation that would close the so-called “default proceed loophole,” which allows federally licensed firearms dealers to proceed with a sale if a background check — as in Roof’s case — takes more than three business days to complete. Connecticut Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal echoed the call, urging President Obama to take executive action to extend the window that federal examiners have for making a determination on a purchaser.

Here is more from this article about how this provision to proceed with a sale after 3 days even without a record of a background check made it into law:

His amendment was initially rejected, but when he tweaked it slightly and requested a floor vote on November 10, 1993, it passed the House 238 to 192, with 122 Republicans and 84 Democrats voting “aye.” The full Brady bill passed the House later that day. When the Senate took up the legislation, lawmakers were faced with Gekas’s one-business-day time limit, which would go into effect five years after Brady’s enactment, along with the instant check system. But after further maneuvering in the Senate, the investigation period was raised to three days.

On the night of November 20, 1993, the Brady Act passed the Senate 63 to 36, with 47 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting yes. President Bill Clintonsigned it into law on November 30.

Charles Schumer, who shepherded the legislation in the House, would later testify about the “tortuous negotiations” necessary to get the Brady bill to Clinton’s desk. Though he called  the instant check provision (which would come to be known as the National Instant Criminal Background System, or NICS) “unworkable,” he conceded that “it was a necessary compromise to pass the most  important gun control legislation since 1968.”

Five days before the bill signing, Wayne LaPierre gave his own assessment of the outcome, reiterating his group’s stance: “The waiting period is unfair to honest, law-abiding people. The criminals won’t wait.” But in actuality, the group had triumphed. It managed to maintain political cover with supporters by fighting an unflinching war against the bill in the public arena while simultaneously watering it down from within. And more than ever before, it proved that it could mobilize its three-million-strong membership in the process.

Ten months before NICS was scheduled to go online, Clinton floated the idea of indefinitely extending the five-day investigation period used by the interim manual background check system. But the Republicans who had taken over control of Congress proved inhospitable to any further alterations.

And so 9 people are dead because of the corporate gun lobby’s totally irrational fear about “law abiding” citizens having to wait to get their guns. What’s the rush I ask?

Regarding the shooting in Chattanooga, there’s so much it’s hard to know where to start. The shooter obtained some guns “legally” whatever that means given his alleged problems with drugs and mental illness. One of the guns was purchased at the on-line site called Armslist.com that connects shooters  buyers with sellers. And yes, this is legal because we have not made it illegal. Until states and the federal government pass laws requiring background checks on all gun sales we will have more of these shootings. Do we care?

( To deflect the real problem of easy access to guns, some state Governors have issued orders for our at home military to be armed. Of course, we now know that at least one of the victims of the Chattanooga shooting was likely armed. Never mind. Armed citizens are showing up at military centers to “guard” our military. I wrote about this one in my last post. It’s not going well so far.)

Every time another of these shootings occur, a whole population of Americans have flash backs and PTSD. It happens. A friend wrote this article about her own experience with gun violence and why the shootings cause her to experience PTSD:

I started working as an activist to prevent gun violence in December 2012 after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in which a 20-year-old man shot and killed 20 children and six adult staff. I felt I could no longer sit idly by as this epidemic ravaged my country — especially after my own experience more than a decade earlier. My PTSD-fueled visions were turning into nightmares of guns pointing at my own children’s heads. And that’s when I knew I had to do something.

What makes my job so damn hard — aside from the powerful and greedy gun lobby — is that I’m caught in what seems a never-ending cycle of gun-related violence, and it seems I can’t do it. I am caught in a perpetual state of drop-everything-and-rapidly-respond to another shooting.

My typical response, like many I know, is to feel a rush of anger at yet another shooting. Our legislators need to recognize that our system is bleeding — quite literally shot to hell. (…)

But this time, I am not angry. And that scares me. This time I feel helpless and I want to run away. Maybe it’s because I’m hosting a friend from New Zealand where they don’t have the epidemic of gun-related violence like we have here.

It has made me think about moving, about leaving the country.

Imagine what life would be like not having to worry whenever I take my kids to see a movie or send them off to school.

Imagine life without gun violence.

“Imagine a life without gun violence.”

Sigh.

But I digress. I got to thinking about the victims, PTSD, violence, epidemics, hapless politicians, the poisonous corporate gun lobby, my sister, families of victims of domestic violence who I know, families of victims of mass shootings who I know, families of victims of gun suicides who I know……

Where was I?

Oh yes,- the Lafayette theater shooting. The shooter was a prohibited purchaser but supposedly bought his gun legally. What does that mean? Let’s look at this article:

In between, Houser assembled a file that will tell one of two important policy stories when the still ongoing investigations are incomplete. Either Houser will stand as a case study in how far a person can go without being barred from gun ownership — or become the latest reminder of the missing records that hobble the federal background check system. (…)

But on its own, the emergency petition that led to H0user’s stay at West Central would not necessarily prohibit him from gun ownership under the federal law that regards involuntary psychiatric commitments as grounds for banning someone from possessing firearms. For that to happen, a judge must take the next step and order extended hospital time. And for Houser, the records trail (at last for now) goes cold at that critical juncture. The relevant probate records are sealed and cannot be made public by the court.

While Houser’s family was asking that he be committed for psychiatric care, they were also seeking a temporary protective order barring him from any contact with them. That court filing cites “various acts of family violence” and states that Houser’s wife had “become so worried about the defendant’s volatile mental state that she has removed all guns and/or weapons from their marital residence.”  A subsequent, handwritten court record indicates that the temporary protective order was lifted on May 8, 2008. 

Some states have laws that command persons subjected to a protective order to relinquish their guns while the order is in place. Georgia, the state where Houser’s family lives and the order was filed, is not one of them, according to a 2014 report from the Center for American Progress. Houser’s home state of Alabama has a similar lack of restrictions. In 2014, the Louisiana State Legislature passed a law prohibiting the possession of firearms “by persons who are the subject of protective orders or permanent injunctions involving domestic violence.” However, the law only applies to cohabitating spouses and permanent restraining orders. Houser, who was estranged from (but allegedly sometimes stalked) his family and had only a temporary order against him, would not have been affected.

The shooter was denied an Alabama permit to carry a gun in 2006. But:

With the 2013 passage of legislation backed by the National Rifle Association, Alabama went from a “may issue” to a “shall issue” system for concealed carry permits, taking away some of sheriffs’ discretion. And none of the behaviors that led the sheriff’s office to reject his bid for a pistol permit would have caused him to fail a federal background check before buying a gun.

What might — might — have was a judge’s order of involuntary psychiatric commitment, which brings the events of April 2008 back to the fore.

If the judge in the case didn’t order more hospital time, that could explain Houser’s legal gun purchase in 2014. The other possibility: The involuntary commitment was ordered, but the record never made it into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Georgia is among the worst performing states when it comes to forwarding mental health records to the federal database, according to an analysis by Everytown for Gun Safety. (Everytown is a seed donor to The Trace.)

2 are dead and at least 7 injured as a result of a fatal flaw in our background check system.

Where is common sense?

Governor Jindal?

Congress?

That’s what I thought. Silence. Denial. Pandering.

Disgusting and shameful.

We are better than this.

Here is what LouisianaGovernor Bobby Jindal, Republican candidate for President, said about gun laws and the loopholes that allowed for the shooter to get his gun:

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana called for tougher gun laws in other states on Sunday, breaking his silence on the issue three days after a gunman with a history of mental illness and violence opened fire in a movie theater in the state’s fourth-largest city.

Gun control has become a prominent subject on the presidential campaign trail after the shooting on Thursday in Lafayette became the third mass shooting in six weeks in the United States. Mr. Jindal, who received an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association, is one of 16 candidates seeking the Republican nomination for 2016. (…)

Until Sunday, Mr. Jindal and most of his Republican rivals had deflected questions in recent days over whether the killings reflected a need for tighter gun control laws. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Jindal called for states to adopt laws similar to Louisiana’s that feed information about mental illness into a federal background check system for potential gun buyers.

“I think every state should strengthen their laws,” he said. “Every state should make sure this information is being reported in the background system. We need to make sure that background system is working. Absolutely, in this instance, this man never should have been able to buy a gun.”

Hmmm, OK. We could give Governor Jindal credit for at least attempting to say the right thing under pressure. What he didn’t say might be more important to the discussion. Clearly the Lafayette shooting exposes the flaws in our system brought to us by gun lobby bought and paid for politicians like Jindal. Does he really think we will turn the other cheek and pretend he didn’t just sign into law some of the weakest gun laws in the country? Does he think we don’t know that Louisiana has one of the highest gun homicide and gun death rates in the country? From the linked article above:

The state doesn’t require background checks on private sales, even for assault weapons; doesn’t require gun owners to register their firearms; and doesn’t have a limit on the number of firearms that can be purchased at one time, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. As for gun violence, the state has the second-highest gun death rate in the nation, according to an analysis of the latest National Vital Statistics report. Louisiana’s lax oversight also enables firearms trafficking to other states, in which it ranks fifteenth in the nation, and 28 percent of guns wind up in criminals’ hands within two years of sale—almost six points above the national average.

Jindal has worked to weaken the state’s already lax gun control by signing a wave of bills in 2013 and 2014. He broadened the “Stand Your Ground” law to protect shooters who hurt, but don’t kill, someone they feel is threatening. He allowed concealed weapons in places that serve alcohol. He banned public access to the personal information of concealed handgun permit owners. He approved guns in churches. And he allowed Louisianans to apply for lifetime concealed-carry permits.

The hypocrisy oozes out of his mouth. Will he get away with it or will the public and the media keep asking questions and keep making politicians responsible for their own actions.

The time is NOW to talk about our gun violence epidemic. We don’t need lying and pandering. We need action. But of course the gun lobby and its’ bought and paid for politicians think we will believe them when they say the time to talk about gun violence is not after a wave of gun violence. A Washington Post article talks about why now is the time:

There are good reasons for legislative restraint in the aftermath of emotional tragedies. You probably don’t want lawmakers drafting bad legislation in a panic to do something, anything, in response to a public outcry.

On the other hand, as the shootings continue and the body count rises, the inevitable counter-argument becomes: if not now, when? Jindal didn’t want to talk gun laws last month, after Charleston. He doesn’t want to talk about them this month, after Lafayette. It’s only a matter of time before the next national tragedy strikes and sets the national gun clock back to zero again. And it will likely happen sooner than you think.

The Mass Shootings Tracker, a crowd-sourced tally of mass shootings maintained by the GunsAreCool subreddit, shows that we haven’t gone more than eight days without a mass shooting in the U.S. since the start of 2015 — that doesn’t leave a lot of time to grieve and regroup between shootings. We’ve averaged exactly one mass shooting per day since the start of the year. Forty eight days saw more than one mass shooting take place. On 18 days there were at least 3 shootings. On three days this year — April 18, June 13 and July 15 — there have been five shootings. (…) In the end, it often seems that the goal is to put off the conversation about the role of guns in America or quibble about methodology while the number of people killed or injured by guns rises. On the other hand, some people, like the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges, argue that we’ve already had the conversation, and that it’s already over. They may be right.

Here is what Dan Hodges tweeted that got the attention of the writer of the article above:

Screen Shot 2015-07-27 at 12.12.30 PM

Indeed. Have we decided that the massacre of 20 small school children is bearable. What have we become in order to satisfy a well funded corporate gun lobby’s appetite for power, influence and sales of weapons? Have we become the country reflected in the cartoon at the top of this post? The question has to be asked and answered. For what we do about this epidemic of gun violence reflects our values and who we are as a country.

We just have to decide what the price is for our insane gun culture as this writer is wondering: 

How much is one innocent life worth? Ten gun buyers waiting a few minutes longer to purchase a firearm? 25 buyers? 100?

I’m not going to tell you about how other countries have faced similar crises and collectively made the decision to enact reform. We aren’t other countries. As Americans we deal with issues at our own rate based on our own values.

Instead, I’ll point to an issue that the South just tackled: the Confederate flag. Since revisionist historians started to recast the role of the South in the Civil War in the late 1800s, it was pretty much an accepted fact that people were too divided over the flag for anything to ever change.

…and then it did. In a matter of weeks, the Confederate flag was relegated to the dustbin of history in South Carolina and companies that understood its harmful symbolism to so many Americans began pulling products from their shelves.

The change came at the cost of nine more innocent lives, but it happened. (…)

Our lack of action as a country suggests that we don’t value the lives of innocent Americans over the minutes of inconvenience that potential gun buyers might face. So unless we are willing to start telling our elected leaders to pass background check reform, we might as well continue to just haggle over the price of innocent lives.

Lives matter. Laws matter. Background checks or lack thereof matter. The proof is screaming at us. Are we listening?

We could listen to the voices of the victims. How about the video of one of the Lafayette shooting victims, Jillian Johnson, singing with her group in this lovely and moving tribute to her and her life. The victims have names. They have families. They had jobs, husbands, aspirations, opinions….. until suddenly they don’t.

We just have to be better than this.