I Don’t Want "Thoughts and Prayers. I Want Gun Control

Telemachus Orfanos (right), a 27-year-old Navy veteran, was among
the victims of the shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif. (Facebook).

Stunned and distraught families deal with the needless loss of loved ones in the wake of the mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California - often rated among the safest places in America - one is hearing the usual disingenuous refrain from legislators (especially Republicans) of sending "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families.  I'm sorry, but when one has failed and refused to enact strict gun control that could have prevented such often repeating tragedy's the statement is nothing short of a complete insult to the dead and their families since actions demonstrate that the speakers don't even mean the words. Thoughts and prayers are bullshit uttered by those complicit in the slaughter.  As is the case over and over, the shooter had "legally purchased" the gun used to commit 12 murders.  Thankfully, the parents of one of the victims are rejecting the meaningless, dishonest statements of "thoughts and prayers" and speaking out for gun control now.  Only a mass movement demanding gun legislation and a repudiation of "thoughts and prayers" for the enablers of mass murder will bring America the legislative change it so desperately needs.  A piece in the Washington  Post looks at this rejection of the bullshit response so favored by legislators in the pockets of the gun lobby.  Here are excerpts:

Marc and Susan Orfanos awoke at 2 a.m. on Thursday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to a call from a relative in New York. The groggy-eyed couple stumbled into a ritual that is familiar to parents in Columbine, Blacksburg, Aurora, Newtown, Orlando, Parkland — and, as of this week, also in the quiet outpost of Los Angeles.

They waited to find out if their child, who had survived the deadliest gun massacre in modern American history last year in Las Vegas, had perished in another mass-casualty shooting.

It wasn’t until noon on Thursday that a police officer told them the news: Their 27-year-old son, Telemachus Orfanos, was dead.

That marked the end of one grim ritual, and the beginning of another, as the Orfanos parents channeled their private anguish into a public cry for gun control — a cry that has echoed from Aurora to Newtown and beyond.

But what distinguished their plea was an utter disavowal of the stock response to the violence that claimed their son’s life.

“I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control," Susan Orfanos said on local TV.

“And I hope to God nobody else sends me any more prayers," she said, vigorously shaking her head. She emphasized each word, demanding: "No more guns.”

Whether anyone will listen, her husband said, the victim’s parents know that’s hardly certain.

“If mowing down 5-year-olds at Sandy Hook didn’t make an impression, nothing will,” said Orfanos, a semiretired substitute teacher. “The bottom line is the NRA owns most of the Republican Party, and probably some of the Democratic Party as well. Until that vise is broken, this is not going to end.”

Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and financed by former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, urged “common-sense, strategic actions” to reduce gun violence. Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in 2011, said she was “heartbroken, angry, and never going to accept this as normal.”

The NRA, meanwhile, pointed to California’s already-tight controls — the state was the first to ban assault rifles, nearly 30 years ago. The organization’s spokesman, Dana Loesch, [dishonestly] aimed to make the debate about mental illness, which is a problem that is not particular to the United States, where the rate of gun homicides is nevertheless much [much] higher than it is in other high-income countries.

Authorities said Ian David Long, 28, had legally purchased the .45-caliber handgun he had wielded inside the bar. He also used an extended magazine, which officials said required additional analysis to determine how many rounds it could hold, and whether it may have violated state law.

Democratic lawmakers expressed hope that the new balance of power in Washington, ratified by the midterm election on Tuesday, would shift the debate. There were notable victories for gun control advocates, including Lucy McBath, whose son was killed in a 2012 shooting. The Democrat seized a closely watched House seat in the Atlanta suburbs.

“It is unfortunately not surprising that on the same day I officially became a congresswoman-elect, other families in this country are receiving the same exact call that I did six years ago when I learned my son had been murdered,” McBath said in a Thursday statement posted on Twitter. She said she would work to “make our communities safer.”

In the Colorado district that includes Aurora, the Denver suburb where 12 people were killed in a movie theater in 2012, Democrat Jason Crow unseated Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. Guns were also a fault line in Northern Virginia, where Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock fell to Democrat Jennifer Wexton.

But the NRA also had gains to celebrate. . . . The NRA helped oust Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana, and it helped elevate Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn, a Republican congresswoman in Tennessee.

He [Marc Orfanos] said the country’s “gun culture" is the cause of his son’s death — a culture maintained by what he condemned as the fearmongering of the NRA.

“I blame flat out the Wayne LaPierres of the world, the Dana Loesches, because they put the fear of God in some of these people who think they need to have guns up the wazoo,” Orfanos said, referring to the executive vice president of the NRA and the group’s prominent spokeswoman.

The only way to change the culture, he said, is to pass “rational gun legislation” that protects people’s ability to arm themselves in the interest of self-defense but prohibits weapons such as AR-15s and high-power handguns.

To pass such legislation, it will be necessary to defeat more Republicans, the handmaidens of the NRA.  In Virginia, 2019 will offer the opportunity to have the Democrats take control of the Virginia legislature and pass legislation that has been repeatedly blocked by Republicans.  Thus, in Virginia, if you support gun control, it's not too early to get involved in targeting Republicans for defeat.