How America Can Free Itself from Guns

The recent horrific murders in Charleston have revived debate and posturing on America's insane gun ownership policies that help make gun violence off the charts compared to the rest of the developed world.  Advocates for unrestricted gun ownership cite the 2nd Amendment and believe their rights - much like the Christofascists do on religious belief - trump the rights of everyone else.  It is no surprise that both groups are core constituencies for the Republican Party that places the rights of the extremist few above the rights of the majority.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at strategies to end the gun insanity that plagues the nation.  Here are highlights:

Advocates of a saner approach to guns need a new strategy. We cannot go on like this, wringing our hands in frustration after every tragedy involving firearms. We said “enough” after Sandy Hook. We thought the moment for action had come. Yet nothing happened. We are saying “enough” after Charleston. But this time, we don’t even expect anything to happen.

What’s needed is a long-term national effort to change popular attitudes toward handgun ownership. And we need to insist on protecting the rights of Americans who do not want to be anywhere near guns.

None of this should mean letting Congress off the hook or giving up on what might be done now. So kudos to Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) for saying on Tuesday that they are looking for ways to bring back their proposal that would require background checks for gun sales. 

Lest anyone doubt that gun control measures can work, a study released this month by the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University found that a 1995 Connecticut law requiring a permit or license contingent on passing a background check was associated with a 40 percent drop in gun homicides.

But as long as gun control is linked to ideology and party — and as long as the National Rifle Association and its allies claim a monopoly on arguments about individual rights — reasonable steps of this sort will be ground to death by the Washington Obstruction Machine.

That’s why the nation needs a public service offensive on behalf of the health and safety of us all. It could build on Sandy Hook Promise and other civic endeavors. If you doubt it could succeed, consider how quickly opinion changed on the Confederate battle flag.

My friend Guy Molyneux, a progressive pollster, laid out how it could happen. “We need to build a social movement devoted to the simple proposition that owning handguns makes us less safe, not more,” he told me. “The evidence is overwhelming that having a gun in your home increases the risks of suicide, domestic violence and fatal accidents, and yet the number one reason given for gun purchases is ‘personal safety.’ We need a public health campaign on the dangers of gun ownership, similar to the successful efforts against smoking and drunk driving.”

When we talk about guns, we don’t focus enough on the reality, reported in the 2015 Annual Review of Public Health, that nearly two-thirds of the deaths from firearm violence are suicides. Yes, people can try to kill themselves with pills, but there’s no coming back from a gunshot to the head. Those in the throes of depression who have a gun nearby are more likely to act on their darkest impulses.

Nor do we talk enough about accidental deaths when children get their hands on guns, or what happens when a domestic argument escalates and a firearm is readily available. The message is plain and simple: Households that voluntarily say no to guns are safer.

“This is not about the government saying you cannot own a handgun. This is about society saying you should not have a gun, especially in a home with children.”

“Those of us who want to live, shop, go to school and worship in gun-free spaces also have rights,” Molyneux said. “In what way is ‘freedom’ advanced by telling the owner of a bar or restaurant they cannot ban handguns in their own place of business, as many states now do? Today, it is the NRA that is the enemy of freedom, by seeking to impose its values on everyone else.”

The nation could ring out with the new slogans of liberty: “Not in my house.” “Not in our school.” “Not in my bar.” “Not in our church.” We’d be defending one of our most sacred rights: The right not to bear arms.

5-Year-Old Kills 2-Year-Old Sister With Rifle He Got as a Gift

Many of the Christofascists and their allies in the political far right love guns and they love to claim that same sex couples are unfit parents.  A horrible sad story out of Kentucky not only makes the case for gun control but also shows that many gay couples would make far better parents than many moronic heterosexual couples.  In Cumberland County, Kentucky, 5-year old Kristian Sparks shot and killed his 2-year old sister with the .22 caliber rifle that he had been given as a gift.  I'm sorry, but who in the right mind would give a rifle to a 5-year old and then allow him to play with it while it was loaded.  Equally shocking is that the gun involved is one of a group made and marketed for children.  It's insanity of the highest level, but typical, in my view, of the mindset of the gun crowd.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

BURKESVILLE, Ky. — In southern Kentucky, where children get their first guns even before they start first grade, Stephanie Sparks paid little attention as her 5-year-old son, Kristian, played with the rifle he was given last year. Then, as she stepped onto the front porch while cleaning the kitchen, “she heard the gun go off,” a coroner said.

In a horrific accident Tuesday that shocked a rural area far removed from the national debate over gun control, the boy had killed his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, with a single shot to the chest.

“Down in Kentucky where we’re from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation,” Cumberland County Coroner Gary White said. “You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything.”

In this case, the rifle was made by a company that sells guns specifically for children — “My first rifle” is the slogan — in colors ranging from plain brown to hot pink to orange to royal blue to multi-color swirls.  Kristian’s rifle was kept in a corner of the mobile home, and the family didn’t realize a bullet had been left in it.

White said the shooting had been ruled accidental, though a police spokesman said it was unclear whether any charges will be filed.  “I think it’s too early to say whether there will or won’t be,” Trooper Billy Gregory said.

White said the boy received the .22-caliber rifle as a gift, but it wasn’t clear who gave him the gun, which is known as a Crickett.  “It’s a little rifle for a kid. ... The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun,” White said.  The company that makes the rifle, Milton, Pa.-based Keystone Sporting Arms, has a “Kids Corner” on its website with pictures of young boys and girls at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts. It says the company produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles for kids in 2008. The smaller rifles are sold with a mount to use at a shooting range.

Sharon Rengers, a longtime child advocate at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, said making and marketing weapons specifically for children was “mind-boggling.”  “It’s like, oh, my God,” she said, “we’re having a big national debate whether we want to check somebody’s background, but we’re going to offer a 4-year-old a gun and expect something good from that?”

It sounds like the parents, and certainly the mother need to be charged and prosecuted.  The insanity of the far right and rural America is down right frightening.  If Caroline Sparks had had two moms or two dads, she likely be alive today.

Gun Deaths - The Price of "Freedom"?

I am an unapologetic advocate for strict gun control laws.  Some of my Republican neighbors would hotly debate the issue, but the truth is that America has an insanely high number of gun deaths - there have been 1,280 since the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in December according to Huffington Post and 1,475 according to Slate which included suicides and police shootings.  Some are suicides - gun availability increases suicide rates and successful completions - some are murders, others are accidental.  But the results are all the same.  Individuals needlessly dead thanks to 2nd Amendment fanatics and gun manufacturers.  The composite image of victims is via Huffington Post.  Here are a few article highlights:

It was Christmas night when Sincere Smith, 2, found his father’s loaded gun on the living room table of their Conway, S.C., mobile home. It took just a second for Smith’s tiny hands to find the trigger and pull. A single bullet ripped into his upper right chest and out his back.  .  .  .  .  Sincere died on an ambulance gurney as he was transferred to a second hospital in Charleston.

There were 29 other shooting deaths across the U.S. on Christmas. A soldier was shot and killed in his barracks in Alaska. A man was murdered in the parking lot of Eddie's Bar and Grill in Orrville, Ala. A 23-year-old was shot at a party in Phoenix. A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department employee was killed in a drive-by.

A 20-year-old Louisville, Ky., man was shot and killed after walking his sister home. On Christmas Eve, he had posted an R.I.P. on his Facebook page for a friend and former classmate, who had been gunned down that day.

A 10-year-old in Memphis, Tenn., Alfreddie Gipson, was accidentally shot to death by gun purchased by an older brother, who had gotten the weapon after being bullied at school. Gipson was jumping on a bed when the gun slipped out of a mattress. It discharged when his 12-year-old brother tried to put it back, their mother said at a vigil.

There were at least 41 homicides or accidental gun deaths on New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, at least 54 people died from bullet wounds.

Through Google and Nexis searches, The Huffington Post has tracked gun-related homicides and accidents throughout the U.S. since the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn., on the morning of Dec. 14. There were more than 100 such deaths the first week after the school shooting. In the first seven weeks after Newtown, there have been more than 1,280 gunshot homicides and accidental deaths. Slate has counted 1,475 fatal shooting incidents since Newtown, including suicides and police-involved shooting deaths, which The Huffington Post did not include in its tally.

When is the madness going to stop?