Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I was struck by a news story earlier this week, not only because of its importance, but because of how little air time it received in the mass media. Earlier this week, the victims of the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona had a chance to speak to the man responsible for those hideous acts. One statement was especially powerful and it was from the husband of Gabby Giffords, now a former Congresswoman from Arizona. I apologize for the length of the following quotations, but I think it is important to read most of what Gabby’s husband said to Mr. Jared Loughner, who perpetrated the crime.
“Mr. Loughner, for the first and last time, you are going to hear directly from Gabby and me about what you took away on January 8th, 2011 and, just as important, what you did not. So pay attention. That bright and chilly Saturday morning, you killed six innocent people. Daughters and sons. Mothers and fathers. Grandparents and friends. They were devoted to their families, their communities, their places of worship.
Gabby would trade her own life to bring back any one of those you savagely murdered on that day. Especially young Christina-Taylor Green, whose high-minded ideas about service and democracy deserved a full life committed to advancing them. Especially 30-year old Gabe Zimmerman, whom Gabby knew well and cherished, and whose love for his family and his fiancee and service to his country were as deep as his loss is tragic. Especially Judge John Roll whom Gabby was honored to call a colleague and friend and from whose interminable dedication to our community and country she gained enormous inspiration. Gabby would give anything to take away the grief you visited upon the Morrises, the Schnecks, and the Stoddards – anything to heal the bodies and psyches of your other victims.
And then there is what you took from Gabby. Her life has been forever changed. Plans she had for our family and her career have been immeasurably altered. Every day is a continuous struggle to do those things she was once so very good at. Gabby is a people person: she exudes kindness, creativity, and compassion. If she were not born with the name – “Gabby” – someone would have given it to her. Now she struggles to deliver each and every sentence. Her gift for language can now only be seen in Internet videos from a more innocent time.
Gabby was an outdoor enthusiast. She was often seen rollerblading with her friend Raoul in Reed Park, hiking in Sabino Canyon, or careening down Rillito Wash Trail on her bike, as she was the night before you tried and failed to murder her. She hasn’t been to any of those places since, and I don’t know when she’ll return. There’s more. Gabby struggles to walk. Her right arm is paralyzed. She is partially blind. Gabby works harder in one minute of an hour – fighting to make each individual moment count for something – than most of us work in an entire day.
Mr. Loughner, by making death and producing tragedy, you sought to extinguish the beauty of life. To diminish potential. To strain love. And to cancel ideas. You tried to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as your own. But know this, and remember it always: You failed. Your decision to commit cold-blooded mass murder also begs of us to look in the mirror. This horrific act warns us to hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for coming up short when we do, for not having the courage to act when it’s hard, even for possessing the wrong values.” CNN
It was hard for me to read the full statement without shedding a tear. Not just for Giffords and her husband, but for all of the families who suffered at the hands of a man who should not have been able to obtain the weapons and the ammunition that he had that fateful day. I am not advocating the rescinding of our Second Amendment rights, but I am pleading for common sense in how we turn a blind eye to the damage guns do, without ever caring about what we need to do to prevent these kinds of weapons and the size of the magazines that allow a mentally disturbed individual like a Jared Loughner, to kill and maim so many innocents.
Mr. Mark Kelly, the former Astronaut who is Gabrielle Gifford’s husband, did not stop with the perpetrator of the violence, he also took all of us to task for allowing our society and our politicians to ignore the violence and death that are brought every day to this country by people carrying guns. “Your decision to commit cold-blooded mass murder also begs of us to look in the mirror. This horrific act warns us to hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for coming up short when we do, for not having the courage to act when it’s hard, even for possessing the wrong values. We are a people who can watch a young man like you spiral into murderous rampage without choosing to intervene before it is too late.
We have a political class that is afraid to do something as simple as have a meaningful debate about our gun laws and how they are being enforced. We have representatives who look at gun violence, not as a problem to solve, but as the white elephant in the room to ignore. As a nation we have repeatedly passed up the opportunity to address this issue. After Columbine; after Virginia Tech; after Tucson and after Aurora we have done nothing.
In this state we have elected officials so feckless in their leadership that they would say, as in the case of Governor Jan Brewer, “I don’t think it has anything to do with the size of the magazine or the caliber of the gun.” She went on and said, “Even if the shooter’s weapon had held fewer bullets, he’d have another gun, maybe. He could have three guns in his pocket” – she said this just one week after a high capacity magazine allowed you to kill six and wound 19 others, before being wrestled to the ground while attempting to reload. Or a state legislature that thought it appropriate to busy itself naming an official Arizona state gun just weeks after this tragedy occurred, instead of doing the work it was elected to do: encourage economic growth, help our returning veterans and fix our education system.” CNN
The idea that any politician of any stripe could downplay the destructive magnitude of these high-capacity magazines and the weapons they feed is disgusting and sad. Without all of us taking a stand against allowing people with mental disorders from owning guns and without all of us saying it is not necessary in our society to allow these high-capacity magazines, how will the violence ever end?
Is it necessary to our Freedom as a society to allow unfettered access to guns and ammunition that is only meant to be used against innocents? Can’t common sense restrictions be put into place without the NRA and politicians crying foul? Recently in Cook County, Illinois which has seen more than its share of gun violence, the President of the County Board recently attempted to stem the gun violence by advocating a tax on bullets. It may not be the best idea, but it was an attempt to find a way to stop our youth from killing each other and her efforts were met with derision and she had to drop her ammo tax idea. Chicago Tribune
It is far past time for our society to wake up and agree that not everyone should have access to guns and high-capacity magazines, isn’t it? How many more killings will our country have to endure before We decide to put an end to it. The NRA and gun manufacturers have made a great living demonizing anyone who might suggest that common sense restrictions on gun ownership are necessary and they have made sure that guns sales are going through the roof. Will it take gun violence impacting our own families before we do anything? What can be done to stem the tide of violence with guns? It is a debate that we must have! Isn’t it? Don’t we owe it to the victims and the victim’s families to finally do something to stop the killings?
Tomorrow may be too late!
Gene,
One of our local TV weathermen was shot in the chest by a spurned lover who used a crossbow. Crossbow bolt hit him in the middle of his chest and by some miracle, missed both his heart and his spine.
I do not recall a mass arrow shooting that killed 12 people in recent years….. nor Cross bow….
Elaine, it happens once in a while, but not often. Point is, they are deadly weapons and anyone who might use one should not pick a bow up off the shelf and start shooting without training. An arrow can kill a deer, bear or a human just as dead as a bullet. I am a fierce advocate of safety and proper use training with anything that is potentially dangerous.
A crossbow bolt (that is what crossbow arrows are called) can shoot through many types of body armor at close range.
Elaine,
Arrow deaths are not as uncommon as you’d think.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=deaths+by+bow+and+arrows&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
and again… John and OS bring up PROHIBITION….. and yet, NOT one of us, pro regulation people have brought up PROHIBITION…. NOT ONE!!!!
Stop using an argument against something NONE of has suggested…..
It is ridiculous to keep saying that prohibition does not work, when NOBODY here has suggested this…..
Mike,
“It seems you differentiate between ‘White good-old-boys’ and ‘Black thugs’. It seems to me a ‘thug is a thug’ regardless of skin color, but then perhaps you have a preference there.”
Wow! that’s some Prime USDA bovine excrement there, Mikey. Your hypocrisy and poor propaganda efforts are showing. What’s with the quotes around “white” and “black”? I never wrote that. You’re projecting something that didn’t start with me. That’s disgusting and dishonest. A quote is what someone actually WROTE, for fracks sake! It’s a lie. Are you a liar, Mike? Fair play, dude. You’re calling me a racist.
Like I wrote earlier, my daughter would call you an asshat.
A good-old-boy around here is a local. We have Natives, Hispanics, African-Americans (yes, we really do!), and Whites. Lots of whom are country music listening, pickup driving, Bud Light drinking, bible thumping, gun-toting, and generally of limited education. If they get all liquored up and pile into a pickup truck with the intention of stealing from me or hurting me . . . I’d call them thugs, too. Who cares? I’m just not going to play your race-baiting game. It’s just a propaganda technique that, like the boy (sorry, I should say . . . juvenile male) who cried “wolf” too often, becomes worthless currency.
Eddie,
Denial isn’t a river in Egypt. 🙂
Gene….
The ONLY way to change this PRO GUN culture that resides in the USA, is to fight the BLATANT disinformation that the gun lobby and the NRA are putting out there…..
EDUCATION is EVERYTHING…..
Before the NRA became the crazy overzealous lobbying machine it is… more people favored banning of handguns….
When Gallup first polled people on handgun control in 1959, 60 percent favored banning handguns, today only 26 percent favor the banning of handguns.
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/winkler-the-nra-used-to-support-gun-control-1.3865217
Appearing before Congress, Karl Frederick, the NRA’s president, was asked whether the Second Amendment imposed any limits on gun control. Remarkably, he answered that he had “not given it any study from that point of view.” Indeed, the NRA at that time supported restrictive gun control laws, even drafting and promoting in state after state laws curtailing the concealed carry of firearms.
Today’s NRA files lawsuits and pushes legislatures to overturn these very same laws.
Otteray,
How many people are killed by bows and arrows these days?
Im not arguing that there isn’t a problem. I just don’t think prohibition of guns is how to solve the problem.
If the people really want to do something about firearm deaths and accidents in this country, the answer is not going to be found in prohibition. The NRA is a lot of things I do not approve of, but one thing they do well is their training seminars. Seems that whenever anyone posts anything about the Second Amendment on a progressive or liberal blog, people seem to come out of the woodwork wanting to ban guns, and proudly pronounce that they have never even seen a real gun up close or held one.
I think firearms training ought to be more widely available. When my daughter was in high school, archery was part of her physical education curriculum. She liked it so much she wanted her own compound bow. I see no reason why responsible firearms training should not also be taught. After all, to use the argument of some folks upthread, bows and arrows were invented for one purpose: to kill things. How come archery is acceptable when firearms training is not?
Education solves a lot of problems, and is a whole lot cheaper than some of the alternatives borne out of ignorance.
“This Freedom is coming at a VERY HIGH PRICE….”
All freedoms do, JAG. It’s just a matter of who pays and how much.
Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use
1-3 Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense
We use epidemiological theory to explain why the “false positive” problem for rare events can lead to large overestimates of the incidence of rare diseases or rare phenomena such as self-defense gun use. We then try to validate the claims of many millions of annual self-defense uses against available evidence. We find that the claim of many millions of annual self-defense gun uses by American citizens is invalid.
Hemenway, David. Survey research and self-defense gun use: An explanation of extreme overestimates. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 1997; 87:1430-1445.
Hemenway, David. The myth of millions of annual self-defense gun uses: A case study of survey overestimates of rare events. Chance (American Statistical Association). 1997; 10:6-10.
Cook, Philip J; Ludwig, Jens; Hemenway, David. The gun debate’s new mythical number: How many defensive uses per year? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 1997; 16:463-469.
4. Most purported self-defense gun uses are gun uses in escalating arguments and are both socially undesirable and illegal
We analyzed data from two national random-digit-dial surveys conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Criminal court judges who read the self-reported accounts of the purported self-defense gun use rated a majority as being illegal, even assuming that the respondent had a permit to own and to carry a gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly from his own perspective.
Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah. Gun use in the United States: Results from two national surveys. Injury Prevention. 2000; 6:263-267.
5. Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense.
Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Center, we examined the extent and nature of offensive gun use. We found that firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense. All reported cases of criminal gun use, as well as many of the so-called self-defense gun uses, appear to be socially undesirable.
Hemenway, David; Azrael, Deborah. The relative frequency of offensive and defensive gun use: Results of a national survey. Violence and Victims. 2000; 15:257-272.
6. Guns in the home are used more often to intimidate intimates than to thwart crime.
Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, we investigated how and when guns are used in the home. We found that guns in the home are used more often to frighten intimates than to thwart crime; other weapons are far more commonly used against intruders than are guns.
Publication: Azrael, Deborah R; Hemenway, David. In the safety of your own home: Results from a national survey of gun use at home. Social Science and Medicine. 2000; 50:285-91.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/index.html
Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Overall
1. The United States has a very high rate of firearm death
Using recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), this paper provides striking evidence on the size of the U.S. problems of gun homicide, overall homicide, gun suicide, and unintentional gun death compared to other advanced countries—for both genders and every age group.
Richardson, Erin G; Hemenway, David. Homicide, suicide and unintentional firearm fatality: comparing the United States with other high-income countries, 2003. Journal of Trauma, 2011; 70:238-43.
2. The risks of a gun in the home typically far outweigh the benefits
This article summarizes the scientific literature on the health risks and benefits of having a gun in the home for the gun owner and his/her family and concludes that for most contemporary Americans, the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit
Hemenway, David. Risks and benefits of a gun in the home. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 2011; 5:502-511.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/overall/index.html
Gene… I absolutely agree with you…..
What I find so troubling is that the Pro Gun people REFUSE to even entertain the idea that commonsense regulation would help….
They just want to think that if EVERYBODY is armed and anybody should be able to walk in the store and buy a gun and that it will make the country better… that it will be a safer nation…. and that could not be further from the truth….
This Freedom is coming at a VERY HIGH PRICE….
I find it rather ironic that It has been the Pro Gun people here who have brought up PROHIBITION…..
The Gun control group has NOT ONCE suggested Prohibiting Firearms….
we have only suggested common sense ideas that might help decrease this national embarrassment…..
and face it…. it is an embarrassment…
secondly….
While gun deaths may be down, as some of you have suggested…. that does not mean that gun violence has dropped…. it just means that people are living through the gunshot wounds more now days, due to medical advancements…
JAG,
The inherent problem in what you say is rooted in history and the nature of technology. The history of this country is such that the 2nd Amendment was inevitable. A cursory read of the Declaration of Independence will yield why: we were founded in a populist uprising against a tyrannical government. Rebellion and the possibility of rebellion are in our political DNA – “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” And the nature of technology figures in with the “genie/bottle” phenomenon. Once a technology is introduced into the wild so to speak it is practically impossible to put back in the bottle. You see this with nuclear weapons. With such inherently dangerous technologies the ability to “unmake” them is a nullity absent some global version of the dark ages were knowledge is lost and humanity experiences retrograde technological progress as a whole. If you outlawed guns, as OS said, they are not that hard to make from scratch.
We are a people born in armed insurrection against tyranny. If you try to take the guns out of the equation, you’ll create an even more dangerous situation with black markets and encourage the very kind of insurrection most would rather avoid if possible.
Sensible regulation is the only answer and even that will not cure the crazy problem. All things being equal? Guns are something like atomic weapons – it would probably be better for all societies if we could “un-invent” them. That’s simply not going to happen though. That’s not pessimistic. That’s realistic.
shano,
“I was once hospitalized for a brown recluse bite, and I still do not fear spiders. Weird!”
I’m going to say while I agree on what you said about racists and homophobes, I had a totally different experience with my brown recluse bite. I got bitten by one in my sleep while I was in college. I used to capture spiders and turn them loose out back. Now? A spider in the house is just a dead freakin’ spider. But I’m pretty sure it’s a disjunct analogy anyway.
Mass Murders Are On The Rise
Single death homicides are down while mass murders are up. Why?
Published on July 28, 2012 by Dale Archer, M.D.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201207/mass-murders-are-the-rise
Excerpt:
The mass murder motive on the other hand is very different. While they have their own perceived reasons for killing these rarely make logical sense. As for demographics, the mass murderer is typically a white male, a loner, has a college degree or some college, from a relatively stable background and from an upper-middle to middle class family. They often aspire to more than they can handle, then form a hatred and blame others if they fail. Also, they are much more likely to suffer from a mental illness, specifically some type of psychosis.
“Put on your big boy pants and face the unpleasant reality that we (that’s all of us) need to address the people who shoot others, even if their skin contains more melanin than ours does. And that’s the real reason that cowards such as you two bleat about guns: you don’t have the stones to take on the vested interests in the minority communities.”
*****
Why Most Mass Murderers Are Privileged White Men
http://jezebel.com/mass-murderers/
Oh watch out Mike, now you are a racist yourself!
It is interesting, this fear of people who have a different skin color getting all out of proportion in the individual mind.
Racists have this fear, as do homophobes.
People who are afraid of spiders have this kind of fear, too.
I was once hospitalized for a brown recluse bite, and I still do not fear spiders. Weird!