Although I wrote the following article several years ago, I simply could not get it published. Somehow (and not surprisingly) the topic of guns is a sore one in America because sadly, it boils down to money and power, and those despicable beings with no regard for life who have both. And today, just one day after the horrific shooting in Nevada, I will try once again to get the word out. Let’s see what obstacle I face this time:
“I think I may have had it with the endless madness surrounding guns. I do understand that the ability to bear arms is a Second Amendment right, but I believe that the right to life is also a fundamental one.
There is an all-too-familiar pattern in America today — an unsuspecting shooter, a senseless mass shooting, sensationalized coverage, prayer vigils, funerals one by one, heated discussions, yet more debates, appointment of an “investigation commission,” and subsequently a “report out” that reiterates “we’ll never know.” The most heart-wrenching to watch in this much too common drama is the impassioned plea by the victims’ loved ones to take action before it is too late, but soon thereafter all memory fades, only to be resurrected by the next bloody mayhem, at which point this ridiculous cycle begins all over again.
I get it — mental illness is a grave and complex issue. I understand that those who cause harm are often mentally unstable and in need of serious help, but how many more lives will it take before it finally sinks in that it is impossible to identify, seek out and help every deranged individual? When a young child picks up a stick and hits another, we, as well wishers and enforcers, first take away the stick and then explain to him why it is not okay to hit. We do not place children in an unsafe environment with access to hazardous materials and wait to find out who amongst them are impulsive and impetuous, and who will have the restraint to keep themselves and others safe. Those who seek and hurt others need to be treated the same way.
The question, then, is how do we really know who will cause harm to another? The simple answer is we don’t, which is why all of us laymen need to be treated the same when it comes to weapons of destruction. We need to be taught restraint, but more importantly, forced abstinence — for abstinence alone, in this case, is for the greater good.
It would not be out of place to address here those of you who oppose gun control because of your passion for hunting. So you say you like to hunt. Well, I politely ask, who gives you the damn right to take the life of another, albeit the life of what to you is a measly creature? And as for hunting for fun, well, I really don’t see any fun in taking the life of another.
Tell me one thing that is remotely good about guns. (Know that I am not posing this question to the members and supporters of the gun lobby. I consider the gun lobbyists the most inhumane, inane, and self-serving group there is; for how can any human being, after watching innocent children being massacred by a cold-blooded killer in the safety of their own classrooms, ever oppose gun control?)
The National Rifle Association’s website proudly states that the primary goal of the association is to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” a tradition that its nearly 4 million members keep “alive” today at the cost of millions more deaths. NRA President Wayne LaPierre’s “proven solution” to preventing another Newtown-type massacre was to spread the evil tentacles of the NRA by proposing that “NRA-trained vigilantes should patrol each of the nation’s 100,000 public schools” because “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” More guns — a brilliant solution indeed, especially at a time when a grieving community was reeling from the effects of a crazed gunman’s frenzied rampage and devastated loved ones were begging for sensible gun control measures. I see nothing sensible about LaPierre’s rants and stance.
The NRA still claims to be the “largest and oldest civil rights organization in the United States.” But as Tim Dickinson points out in his January 2013 article in the online Rolling Stone magazine, “Over the past decade and a half, the NRA has morphed into a front group for the firearms industry, whose profits are increasingly dependent on the sale of military-bred weapons like the assault rifles used in the massacres at Newtown and Aurora.”
The NRA, according to Dickinson, has “hogtied federal regulators, censored government data about gun crime, and blocked renewal of the ban on assault weaponry and high-capacity magazines, which expired in 2004.” He adds that the NRA has “opened new markets for firearms dealers by pushing for state laws granting citizens the right to carry hidden weapons in public and to allow those who kill in the name of self-defense to get off scot-free.”
For those of you who think guns are not so bad after all, I urge you to view pictures of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords before and after she was shot in the head in broad daylight by a madman. A Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, Giffords suffered a brain injury, partial blindness, and paralysis and was ultimately forced to retire from politics at age 42. Yet in spite of her insurmountable health issues, she was one of the lucky ones, for she survived. Six people, including the beautiful 9-year-old Christine Taylor Green, born on September 11, 2001, and featured in the book “Faces of Hope” about 9/11 babies, were not so lucky. The other innocent victims of this cold-blooded shooting were Dorothy Morris, 76, a retired secretary; John Roll, 63, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Arizona; Phyllis Schneck, 79, homemaker from Tucson; Dorwan Stoddard, 76, retired construction worker; and Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman, 30, community outreach director for Giffords.
Thirteen other people were wounded in the attack, and a 14th person was injured while trying to subdue Jared Lee Loughner. In January 2012, Loughner was found by a federal judge to be incompetent to stand trial based on two medical evaluations; he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Yet the same young man had been allowed to purchase a shotgun, a Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun and magazines legally. Need I say more? Perhaps just that Loughner had even loftier ambitions — the FBI unearthed evidence from his home with the words “Die, Cops” scrawled on it.
Turn on the news and we hear about scores of people being killed by guns daily. Why do we not hear about scores of individuals being able to successfully protect themselves or their families with a gun? That is because this excuse of self-defense cannot stand up as it simply does not have legs.
If guns were not a problem, why is the very mention of the word banned from our schools? Why does the discussion or the depiction of a gun result in an immediate suspension? It is (and rightly so) because of unnecessary incidents at Columbine, Aurora, and Newtown, which would not have happened had it not been for guns.
On the same day that 20 innocent children and 6 staff members were senselessly gunned down at Sandy Hook, 22 children at the Chen Peng Complete Primary School in China, a country with severe gun control laws, were stabbed by a deranged man. There were no fatalities and the attack barely received any coverage here in the United States. I wonder why….
Another obvious outcome after gun control in Australia was severely tightened and automatic & semi-automatic weapons banned after the country's worst massacre in1996 in which 35 people were shot dead- Australia is a much safer place today. A study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University found that the “firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicide”’. “That provides strong circumstantial evidence for the law's effectiveness” according to Dylan Matthews- Washington Post, August 2, 2012. Common sense measures which we obviously seem to lack here in this greatest and the most developed country on earth.
Recently, my eyes were drawn to a coworker’s lanyard that was so full with ribbons that the chord was barely visible. Turns out that all the ribbons, with the exception of the pink one, were for fundraisers for yet another unfair incident brought about by gun violence. How noble of us to come together as a community after the fact, but how ignoble of us not to prevent such unnecessary tragedy before it is too late. What are we thinking, and how is it that even after all this carnage, the gun lobby is much more powerful than all of us and our good intentions combined?
Why can’t we rise above petty politics and band together to ban guns that are no good to start with and will be used to hurt someone someday? Guns belong in the hands of law enforcement, not with us laymen to enforce lawlessness.
I urge you to visit www.bradycampaign.org to make a mark in the right direction. Let’s promise to do our small part to prevent heartaches and preserve innocence. Let’s target those who target us.
Footnote: Minutes before I was wrapping up this article, I went into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. As I turned on the radio, I gasped (yet again) in disbelief — the news that came on at that very moment was the all-too-familiar grim one: another mass shooting, this time at the JCC in Kansas. Stay tuned for more to come.. declared the stiff voice, as I puttered nervously. Indeed, much more to come tomorrow if we do nothing today.”
Come on now folks.