Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
It has happened again. A mass killing at the hands of a person armed with knives and three semi-automatic handguns and 400 rounds of ammunition. This time the alleged shooter stabbed three to death and then went on a shooting spree that ended with at least three more dead and a total of 8 injured/wounded people from gunshot wounds and 5 more injured by his knives or by being hit by his car.
The family of the alleged shooter requested a police intervention prior to the killings and the police did speak with the young man, but they did not have cause to search his apartment. The police had other interactions with Elliot Rodger, age 22 and he later expressed concern that they did not find his weapons.
“Deputies also encountered Rodger earlier this year when he accused a roommate of stealing three candles, and in another case in which he claimed to be beaten but deputies suspected he was the aggressor.
Rodger detailed his plans in an extensive 141-page manifesto released Saturday and said he narrowly missed being found out when the officers knocked on his door.
Rodger expressed relief that his apartment wasn’t searched because they would have found his weapons and his writings. When recounting his thinking about whether he should kill his father, Rodger expressed a sliver of acknowledgment that his plot, which included killing other family members, was wrong.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Rodger said. “I desperately wanted a way out.” He then immediately talks about his mother giving him a new car — a BMW coupe.” USA Today
This latest shooting spree is not the reason for this article. It is merely one more example of why common sense gun control measures that could save innocent lives are needed. When recent polls seem to indicate that a majority of Americans agree that common sense gun control regulations are needed, the NRA continually stands in the way of possibly life saving legislation. However, the NRA is not just working to prevent any gun control legislation from proceeding, it is also standing in the way of attempts to have the Center for Disease Control (CDC) do research on gun prevention measures.
“But this past week we’ve seen the other side of the coin. How the NRA works to suppress information that would lead to treating a public health catastrophe that claims over 30,000 lives per year and injures over 100,000 as that very thing, while fighting to ensure we have as little access to information as possible that might help save lives.
The simple fact is, much like with their friends on the right from the tobacco industry to the oil industry to the megachurch, science and information are the enemies of the NRA. They have proven they will do whatever it takes to make sure we have less of it, and more Santa Barbaras.
The clearest example, of course, is the NRA’s labeling a bill sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) to allow the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to once again use its considerable expertise to research gun violence prevention, “unethical.” Yes, they actually said that.
Because anyone who does statistically significant research on a public health problem from the angle of helping people and not profiting from misery, and again and again finds obvious truths such as owning guns makes you more likely to get shot, is not someone the NRA and its allies will countenance without smearing. I debated one of these types from the Second Amendment Foundation on NPR recently regarding the CDC. It is amazing how tongue-tied they get when you present them with irrefutable information.” Reader Supported News
In what world is it “unethical” to research ways to prevent deaths? Would the NRA consider it unethical to study ways to prevent automotive deaths? Or deaths caused by contaminated food? In the NRA’s world, massacres like the ones that happened in Santa Barbara, Sandy Hook Elementary, Northern Illinois University, Virginia Tech, Columbine and countless others, can only be prevented by good guys carrying guns everywhere and anywhere.
When an organization like the NRA labels an attempt to investigate ways to reduce deaths as unethical, I have to wonder if this lobbyist organization has lost touch with reality. How can we as a country not look into ways that we could possibly prevent some of the 30,000 deaths and 100,000 injured from gun actions? How much longer can the United States of America go on allowing a company/lobbying organization to spend millions to block any and all reasonable actions that may save lives?
Shame on the NRA for blocking reasonable gun control legislation and for even trying to stop research into ways to reduce deaths from guns. Shame on us for allowing it to continue. How much longer will we, as a nation, stand by and watch innocents die? How much longer until we listen to our hearts and our heads and stand up and insist that something be done? Our lives and the lives of our children are at stake. Our moral standing as a nation is also at stake.
Richard Martinez, the father of one of the Santa Barbara victims may have said it best as he reacted to the death of his child. “Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, of Los Osos, California, was the last of six people killed by suspect Elliot Rodger before the gunman apparently shot and killed himself, authorities said.
Martinez choked back tears as he spoke, then grew angrier as he talked about gun laws and lobbyists.
“The talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live?” Martinez said. “When will enough people say: ‘Stop this madness! We don’t have to live like this! Too many people have died!” MSN News
How much longer until we heed Mr. Martinez’ plea?
“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”
What is wrong with a polite society? We live in a violent society, where people want to kill other people because their mad? Does that work better for you? The 2nd Amendment is old, outdated, and has no place in today’s society. It MUST be amended. Our founding fathers, who used muskets, certainly couldn’t see into the future, and certainly couldn’t see Wayne LaPierre, the master manipulator of the 2nd Amendment, coming. The NRA has done a fabulous job of appealing to the lowest common denominator in the US. The people who have nothing better to do with their time than cling to this 2nd amendment horse shit and their guns. For those of you waiting for Obama to come take your guns, well, you’ll be waiting forever. It’s such a bunch of crap.
Actually I am appalled at the state of mental health care in the United States. Several of the last people who were involved in mass shootings were mentally ill but failed by the incompetents in the mental health field.
I believe that all the Constitution needs to be there. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment was for people to be able to defend themselves against the government, which they had just done. We still need that. If you do not want to own a gun, I could care. But don’t try to screw with my RIGHT to own a gun.
I know that for some reason you hate the NRA, but have you considered hating the Founders of this Country who added the 2nd Amendment?
BTW, what does the Agriculture Department need with sub-machine guns?
I think there should be a massive civil suit against the NRA. There must be a lawyer out there who can paint the right picture of the money hungry NRA. They are a terrorist group, and should be treated as such. Instead, they have padded the pockets of our politicians with money, and now are running Washington. Its so sick and twisted, it must stop.
Paul – you have clearly been drinking the NRA kook-aid. What is this, the wild west? What is with you gun lovers? You can’t see the painful truth of what has happened to this country.
Well, I grew up around guns and own guns. My next door neighbor is a registered gun dealer. I am not a member of the NRA and never have been. And I think the terrorist are the progressives and liberals who want to gut the Constitution to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. An unarmed society is a compliant society. An armed society is a polite society.
Here’s why The NRA has blood on their hands. The American people are tired of this. We are sick and tired of seeing people getting slaughtered by madmen with guns. So what does the NRA do? They fight background checks. BACKGROUND Checks!! They don’t want to be part of the solution!! Why aren’t they working with their paid off politicians for some solutions?? They just want to count their money. And don’t tell me there aren’t solution, smart lawyer guy.
The NRA is responsible for the massive proliferation of guns in the USA. They want everyone armed, regardless of who it is. They have fought tooth and nail for background checks. That says one thing. They don’t give a crap. The more guns sold, the richer they are. Wake up people. They don’t care about the 2nd Amendment. It’s a cover. They care about money. Period, the end. And they do have a lot of blood on their hands. All of it. And our politicians are spineless tools. The money they get from the NRA is better than their citizens feeling safe. The gun nuts only care about their guns. They don’t care about their fellow citizens. Other countries don’t have this problem because there is so NRA there. Think about Bob, esq.
Actually, the more guns in the hands of regular citizens the better off we will be. The solution is not having guns only in the hands of criminals.
The growth demographic in gun sales are w/ women. Single women and single moms are arming themselves, saying unequivocally, they will not be victims of criminals who defy any and all gun laws. Women are more likely to take gun safety classes since they don’t have that testosterone/macho problem.
The NRA Meets Its Potent New Foe: Moms
Watch as parents and survivors brandish a new weapon: the gun lobby’s own words.
—By Mark Follman
| Fri Apr. 25, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/nra-everytown-indianapolis-shannon-watts
Excerpt:
“We are in Indianapolis to send the NRA leadership a message,” said Shannon Watts, the 43-year-old mother of five who founded Moms Demand Action. Americans can no longer abide by “a Washington lobby run by extremists,” she said.
“Not Your Grandparents’ NRA,” a heavily annotated 21-page report, makes the case that there’s a schism within the nation’s biggest firearms group. “Today’s NRA has remained true to its roots in some important ways,” it begins. “The organization’s gun safety and marksmanship programs remain useful contributions to the shooting sports and to public safety. And it is largely because of these nationwide programs that the organization is well known, and relatively well liked, in much of the country. This is the NRA most American gun owners know and trust.”
Then the report presents a stockpile of evidence showing how the NRA’s leadership “puts Americans at risk” by fighting for the interests of gun manufacturing companies under the guise of defending citizens’ constitutional freedoms. The Everytown report documents how the NRA has made it easier for felons to get guns, has fought local gun laws, and even backed an Indiana measure that would have expanded Stand Your Ground to include using lethal force against uniformed police officers. Everytown also calls out the NRA for blocking doctors from discussing safe gun ownership with their patients, as well as trying to keep military commanders from asking soldiers at risk of suicide about their personal firearms.
The new political ad, which airs in Indianapolis and Washington, DC, through the weekend, uses the pro-gun advocates’ own words to make the case against them. “The presence of a firearm makes us all safer,” intones 30-year-old Antonius Wiriadjaja, reciting the words of NRA figurehead Wayne LaPierre as he pulls up his T-shirt to reveal multiple scars. Wiriadjaja, whom I interviewed in Indianapolis, was shot in the chest in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on July 5, 2013. The intended target was a young pregnant woman who was being hunted by her domestic partner; Wiriadjaja was a bystander caught in crossfire. The woman was shot in the leg and miscarried.* Others easily could have been hit, Wiriadjaja said: The shooting occurred in the middle of the afternoon, with children nearby. “There were two little girls and their mother and an elderly man very close to me when it happened.” (The suspected shooter is in custody.)
Wiriadjaja maintains a blog where he details his recovery process with photos. “It was painful for me, but it’s been even more difficult for my family and friends to watch me go through it,” he told me. “They’re hurting too. I wanted them to understand how I’m healing.”
Getting survivors to tell their stories may be one of Everytown’s most formidable weapons. “I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment, I’m a gun owner, and I’m paralyzed as the result of random gun violence,” Jennifer Longdon said. Her then-fiancé, who was armed at the time, was also gravely injured when someone in another car riddled their car with bullets in 2004. “He was a good guy with a gun,” she said, but it was no help.
Indiana state Rep. Ed Delaney spoke of the legions of responsible gun owners in his state. And he denounced the NRA leadership for using the premise that gun rights are under attack to get legislators to ease restrictions on guns. Just last month, lawmakers here passed a controversial bill allowing guns in school parking lots. “There is no threat to gun ownership in Indiana,” Delaney said, anger rising in his voice.
A few blocks from the Everytown press conference, the NRA was raising the curtain on “spectacular displays” of weaponry from “every major firearm company in the country,” banquets for its million-dollar corporate donors, and red-meat speeches from the likes of Sarah Palin, Oliver North, and Franklin Graham (who blamed Sandy Hook on godlessness).
There are plenty of responsible gun owners among the estimated 70,000 people enjoying the entertainment and firearms on display in Indianapolis. Polls show that the majority of gun owners also believe in universal background checks for buyers—a policy the NRA leadership continues to vigorously oppose.
bigfatmike
I’m pretty sure that guy has no need to get laid. That guy has a gun that provides all the love and affection he will ever need.
Will this guy serve as a good argument for control? And nobody even died. This drunk just held a gun to a five years old head.
http://localtvkfsm.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/adock.jpeg?w=560
Here’s the story:
http://5newsonline.com/2014/05/27/authorities-investigate-shots-fired-in-sequoyah-county/
If you are asking me, let me take a public stand and say, unequivocally that crazy police officers should never have guns, especially crazy police officers that point the guns at children. I will even go out on a limb and say it doesn’t matter if they are LE or not. If they are stark raving mad lets keep the guns out of their hands.
Maybe we should put money into mental health.
But I do like that 50 cal. If I ever start feeling a little inadequate I think I’ll just skip the Viagra and jump right to the big one. What is $5k more or less if it makes you feel like a real man. Who needs a red convertible when you can have .50 cal Barrett hanging over the mantle.
Freud has long been discredited, one of the many problems with psychology. Something becomes a fad, then it isn’t. In the meantime, people are injured by bad advice. Electro-shock therapy was in, then it was out, now it is back in.
“RTC – Martinez is emotionalizing the death of his child but not the ones killed in the knife attacks. There are exactly the same number as the ones from the gunshots from this mentally ill kid.”
I think I have to agree that of the recent mass murders this is the weakest one to argue for gun control.
This perpetrator was clearly suffering mental problems, see his manifesto or videos, and half his victims were stabbed. I think this guy was clearly misogynist. But even that cannot be deduced from the victims – 4 men, 2 women.
This case if filled with contradictions. If the gun control people push this case they will provide plenty of evidence to refute their claims.
I never said that Grant allowed Confederate soldiers to take their rifles home after Appommatox. I said Grant allowed Confederate Officers to go home with their pistols.
I have Grant’s memoirs and they are exceptional.
I consider Grant’s memoirs the best every written.
I withdraw my questions, Elaine. This is too stupid to waste time. Great link. You get 2 stars.
Elaine, You are incredible. I KNOW, as does anyone w/ a brain, that anger is part of the grieving process. But a web md link??? These incessant inane links must be from having show and tell in a grammar school class for 30 years. What is your point?
Schulte declares: “Elaine – in two weeks, Martinez will be old news. He is already reached the bottom of the barrel if he is being interviewed by MSNBC”
Not if I can help it.
——————————————————————-
Then he asks: “Elaine – and what about the lifelong grief of the parents who lost their children to knife violence?”
They will be in agony for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, there are many fewer of them than there are parents of gunshot victims.
——————————————————————-
Then he wonders some more: “RTC – I do not think dementia is a impediment to voting.”
Perhaps you’re right. That explains the support for the Tea Party.
——————————————————————-
Hats off to rafflaw for helping to politicize this issue!
RTC – Martinez is emotionalizing the death of his child but not the ones killed in the knife attacks. There are exactly the same number as the ones from the gunshots from this mentally ill kid.
Anger is often a stage in the grieving process:
“Anger: This stage of grief is common. It usually occurs when an individual feels helpless and powerless. Anger can stem from a feeling of abandonment because of a death or loss. Sometimes the individual is angry at a higher power, at the doctors who cared for the loved one, or toward life in general.”
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-grief
Elaine – I was watching the local news yesterday and saw mother crying about her child who had been killed a year before. A group had had t-shirts made up with his picture on it. I was not surprised to see it was a group picture where the victim was flashing gang signs. He probably was killed by a rival gang. However, the mother and friends were acting as though he was a total innocent.
In this case the father is wrong at the wrong people. The mental health community let this kid down and is responsible for foisting him on the public.
I heard the parent of a victim say he had empathy for the parents of the murderer. He acknowledged the parents had their son in therapy for decades, called the police, etc. This tragedy is about mental health. A grieving parent sees that. I have empathy for Mr. Martinez. Give the man opportunities to vent his grief and anger. The parent who gave the killer’s parents a pass was grieving, but not angry. Anger muddles our thoughts. Grief gives perspective.
Paul C. Schulte
Elaine – in two weeks, Martinez will be old news.
*****
That may well be so–and, therein, lies the problem that we so quickly forget the lifelong grief of parents who have lost their children to gun violence.
Elaine – and what about the lifelong grief of the parents who lost their children to knife violence?
NRA finally meets its match: Why Richard Martinez should have them shaking
NRA’s trick is to silence critics by claiming politics disrespects victims. But Richard Martinez can’t be silenced
Katie McDonough
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/29/nra_finally_meets_its_match_why_richard_martinez_should_have_them_shaking/
Excerpt:
Richard Martinez’s son Christopher was among the six college students murdered this weekend in Isla Vista, California. It’s impossible to fathom the grief that Martinez must be experiencing right now, and the simple fact that he is upright and mobile is an act of tremendous courage. Which is precisely what makes everything else that he has done in the days since he lost his son all the more astounding.
From his first public statement — a blistering and emotional indictment of “craven” politicians who refuse to act on even moderate gun reform — to the tribute to Christopher he delivered Tuesday before a crowd of thousands, Martinez has been willing to show his raw and devastating grief to the world. He has made himself the gnarled and anguished face of our broken system — the lives that it takes and the lives that it ruins. His vulnerability and righteous, focused anger is unlike anything we’ve seen in response to a mass shooting.
And it should scare the shit out of the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby and the cowardly politicians who use these deadly weapons as literal and figurative political props.
It isn’t just the force of Martinez’s emotions or political conviction that make him powerful. He is currently shouldering the unimaginable grief of being yet another parent who has lost yet another child in yet another mass shooting. He has seen this happen before, he knows the political script that’s already playing out. He has listened as gun apologists — time and again — urge the nation not to “politicize” a national tragedy out of respect for the families, and then watched them turn on these same families in order to protect our deadly — and immensely profitable — culture of guns. And he’s using it. All of it.
Days after 26 people were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, Wayne LaPierre denounced gun reform advocates for “exploit[ing] the tragedy for political gain.” Months later, Sarah Palin echoed the sentiment. ”Leaders are in it for themselves, not for the American people,” she told a crowd that summer, before effectively declaring how proud she was that her son Trig would grow up in a country where men like Elliot Rodger and Adam Lanza can buy guns and hoard ammunition without authorities batting an eyelash.
Martinez may be the single most powerful force we have against this kind of slithering political cowardice. He’s already familiar with the political dirty tricks and knows where the conversation will eventually turn — that the pro-gun crowd is going to come out hard against him, just as they have turned on other parents and survivors. “Right now, there hasn’t been much blowback from the other side,” Martinez noted during a Tuesday interview with MSNBC. “But I anticipate that once my grieving period is over, the gloves will come off. I don’t think it’s going to be easy. They are going to try to do to me the same thing that they’ve done to all of these people. But I have a message for them: My son is dead. There is nothing you could do to me that is worse than that.”
Elaine – in two weeks, Martinez will be old news. He is already reached the bottom of the barrel if he is being interviewed by MSNBC
Al:
You really need a history book. The rebels who were defeated at Appomattox Court House were not pardoned by Lincoln and Grant. They did not get to keep their rifles; officers got only their sidearms and swords. Any rebel who claimed a horse or mule as his own was allowed to keep it. Pardoning would come much later and would not originally apply to high ranking confederates. All war making equipment was stacked by the rebels and confinscated by the Union soldiers. You can read US Grant’ s autobiography to confirm these facts. Lee never wrote one.