Oregon.
We have to do something.
Here inVirginia, there is an election for an assortment of state offices. In these off-year elections, people with strong convictions come out to vote, while others stay home.
Let’s have more people who want to restore sanity come on out to vote out the folks who think that any gun law is a bad gun law.
I will be voting my conscience. For common sense gun laws.
Let’s see if we can make common sense a little more common when it comes to guns and to gun access. Wouldn’t that be a great place to start?
Elections matter.
From my friend Karen at Empty Nest, Full Life, I stole this information:
If you’d like to do something slightly more proactive, please click on one of the links below.
FiftyFourandAHalf 
Common sense, compassion and civility would be great right now. If the slaughter of 5 & 6 year olds in Sandy Hook didn’t change minds, I’m not sure what will, and frankly I’m afraid to ask.
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Yes. But things do seem to be starting to move. One interesting idea I read about is a campaign to make guns, like smoking, uncool. Of course we will have to nix everything on TV.
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Please keep saying this, Elyse. It’s so important.
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It’s kinda hard to shut me up about some things!
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Hey there Elyse! I found you through a friend (or a friend of a friend) and your blog looked interesting so I thought I’d tell you. It’s October, and in honor of my birthday month I’m hoping to find 10 fun and exciting bloggers a day and strike up a conversation with them; who knows, maybe you’ll come visit me and join in the fun, maybe even follow? Have a good one!
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Hello Jacob. What a fun way to spend your birthday! I will hop over later on today.
Thanks for stopping by. (My son’s name is Jacob, so there is added incentive!
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Eventually you have to hope enough people will realize that stricter gun laws are the only way forward.
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There is a lot of noise out there now about shifting the dialog. From “bans” to regulating them to “maximize safety”. While that seems like a misnomer, it might just work. It would be an improvement.
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I hope it works, even if the improvement is only slight, I guess it’s better than nothing.
The sad fact is that a lot of people get very rich from selling guns to other people. Since the sellers live in safe places, they don’t much care what happens to everybody else.
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Pingback: As the World Changes | Mark Bialczak
They turned it around in Australia, they can do it in US you have to vote people in who support it and aren’t in the pocket of the NRA
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I’m an optimist. So I hope.
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I’m with you. It’s time for a change. It might take time, but it can be done.
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Fingers crossed — and disbelief suspended. I still have hope, but far more frustration!
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Reblogged this on Kate McClelland.
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I said thanks over at your place, Kate. But let me say it again. Thanks for the reblog!
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You’re very welcome Elyse :0)
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Prayers. Prayers AGAIN — for the families in grief, for the community in shock, for the government to please PLEASE do SOMETHING.
Prayers are not enough. Not nearly enough. But today my heart breaks again, and prayers are what I have — even though they are not enough to heal that either.
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I’m not really one for praying — I believe in a supreme being who opened the door and said “come back when it gets dark.” Maybe it is dark enough now. Because it sure is getting darker and darker…
Those poor families — a group that includes the families of all of the folks who shouldn’t have died in this totally senseless and unnecessary violence.
*shakes head* again.
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Actually, I don’t believe in a supreme being either — so I’m not entirely sure why “prayers” is the word that comes to mind, or what I mean by it. A power word for me, I guess? An expression for heartache laced through with compassion…
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Yes, there is something that makes us think about praying whenever we feel hurt.
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What’s it gonna take for something to change? I just don’t get it.
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It seems that only the no compromise crazies get it.
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Sadly, most people don’t see a problem until it becomes their problem.
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Lat night, Julian and I were talking about these events. We live in Aurora, CO. Julian moved here after Columbine, but I’ve been here all my life. I was telling him about the day of the shootings at Columbine. I can tell you the entire story of that day, what I was doing when I heard the news, what the rest of the day was like. It was one of those “Always Remember What You Were Doing Moments” … perhaps because it was local, just 15 miles away, it made a stronger impression on us here than on people in other places.
But maybe not … maybe the fact that it was kids shooting kids in a school. That alone was incomprehensible.
Every shooting that has happened since seems just as senseless to me. And just as horrifying. In 2012, we had another shooting here in CO, at a movie theatre – a theatre I have been to, one that many people I know go to. It’s 2 miles from my house. The shooter lived about one mile from us. We were among the lucky – we weren’t at the theatre, and no one we knew had been there, though in the days that followed we learned that several people we knew had known someone who’d been injured or killed in that horrible massacre.
Then 5 months later was the unspeakable horror that was Sandy Hook. These shootings make no sense, but the shooting of elementary school kids is beyond anything I can comprehend.
Umpqua, Roseberg – two more names to add to the list of names we won’t be able to forget.
I watched President Obama’s remarks yesterday, and his anger and sadness – and his frustration – was palpable, even through the TV. And he was right to call people out; he was right to imply that there is blood on our hands – all of our hands, really. I’ve always supported candidates who support sensible gun regulations. (Actually, I’m anti-gun, but I’m willing to compromise and accept sensible regulations. Too bad there are so many who are pro-gun who aren’t willing to meet at the compromise table.) I’ve given money to gun-sense political candidates/voted for them. Yet nothing has changed since Columbine. A few states have made some changes – many have made access to guns even easier.
We watched the news last night, for awhile. We had to turn it off. It’s too painful to watch. What’s been worse has been watching the reactions on social media and on Fox News (my 92-year old mom watches it all day long). President Obama nailed it yesterday – they’re already crafting the ‘we need more guns’ arguments.
I am usually a hopeful, optimistic person when it comes to believing that good change eventually happens – the bending of the proverbial arch of justice. After watching, again, another story of another shooting in another place, another state, another town – after watching the photos of grief stricken people, after learning all the names of the dead, I feel less optimistic than ever – a feeling that has been growing since Sandy Hook.
If the death of all those children made no difference, if we have let all those children’s deaths be meaningless – what have we become?
What makes me the most angry, the most pessimistic is when I think about what it will take for change. If the unspeakable tragedy of Sandy Hook wasn’t enough, what sort of horror will we have to watch before enough people stand up and say “Enough!”
(Sorry to be such a downer, Elyse. Living in CO, where we’ve been through this twice, makes it all seem so much worse to me. When I heard Jeb! say today that “stuff happens” in regards to the tragedy in Oregon, I realized that the battle is going to be even tougher now. If people are becoming so immune to it that their response is “stuff happens”, the battle is harder to fight. I hope that things change. And, I keep hoping that deep down we, as a society, are better than this – I just keep finding it tougher and tougher to believe that we are … )
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I read this comment first thing this morning, when I had barely woken up. Trying to think of a response. Funny how much harder that is sometimes than others.
I can feel your pain in every word — for your community, your acquaintances, your family. For your country. My country.
On bad days, on days surrounding the next and the next and the next “unavoidable” tragedy, I feel hopeless and angry. On other days I simply feel numb.
I, too, thought something would be done after Sandy Hook. But not a thing was. And not long ago, I drove through there, as I do regularly. (I’m from not far from there, my sister lived there and raised her three kids — who went to Sandy Hook Elementary — and I still have family there). Signs are posted on most doors that say:
“We are Sandy Hook; We Choose Love.”
But last year I saw a pickup truck with a bumpersticker that said
“We are Newtown; We choose Freedom.”
Somehow I managed to not run him off the road, but I was sorely tempted.
I’m rambling. I hope that we can change as a country. Because I don’t want to live in one where folks can just shoot others. Where our government, through the activities of some, but more through the greed and inactivity of all, let these things happen. And happen again. And again.
So we gotta fix it.
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Here in Oregon, we are in such pain this week. I had really hoped, expected, was sure…that after Sandy Hook, something would be done…but nothing happened. And so it keeps happening.
I’m not sure mental health programs would’ve caught this travesty. I’m not sure tougher gun laws would’ve kept the 4 weapons out of this guy’s hands…but it’s a start.
And here’s the thing…in the 2 mass shootings we’ve had in Oregon in the last 3 years (one at the mall), there have been people who said they were there and had conceal and carry. They had firearms on them at the time of the shootings, but none stopped this evil.
Maybe there’s an instance of “more people carrying guns” has stopped a mass shooting, but I don’t know of one. This doesn’t sound like any kind of logical, proven solution to me.
I can see ABSOLUTELY no purpose to handguns or automatic weapons. If the NRA feels that it’s really the fault of the mental health system, then why aren’t they doing something supportive as part of the solution? Lord!!! I want to scream!
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I’m so sorry for you and the folks in your state. It doesn’t matter where the state is, east, west, north, south. It is unacceptable. I agree wholeheartedly that I can see no earthly good for these weapons. A shotgun, a rifle for protection, I get those (I wouldn’t want one, but I get them)
Good point about the NRA — if they’re so concerned about the cray-cray, why don’t they do something about them. Perhaps it’s because they are card-carrying (and dues paying) members????
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I am tired of playing nice. Their rights end at mine. My right to a safe world trumps their right to dick extensions. Guns have only one purpose, to kill. I don’t want common sense gun laws, I want a civilized society which can only be achieved when we take guns out of the equation. Every other civilized / advanced nation in the world has done so, why not ours?
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Oh Lord, Val. Yes, you’re exactly right. I try to compromise. To find a middle ground. But shit. Why. Just like War — What is it Good For — Absolutely NOTHIN’.
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yeah they do
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I know you’re on board, Art. What I don’t get is why others aren’t!
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peeps be cray cray
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Seriously cray cray.
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yup
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And here we go again focusing on mass shootings when most gun deaths happen elsewhere.
First of all, I am not heartless and trying to minimize the devastation of what happened in Oregon, Sandy Hook, Littleton, and other communities. My sympathies go out to the families and friends of the victims, and I most certainly agree that we need tighter and more uniform gun regulations.
However, most gun deaths are the result of suicide. The last figure I saw from the CDC was 63% back in 2013. Why aren’t we addressing the sorry state of mental health treatment in this country? http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf
From 1983 to 2012, we have had 78 mass shootings with 1023 casualties and 523 deaths.
Click to access MassShootings_CongResServ.pdf
I agree that one is too many, but why are we focusing on just the mass shootings when we have other gun violence problems that are more pervasive? Why is President Obama on TV talking to the nation about after a mass shooting when at least 53 people were shot and 9 people died in his home city over the weekend because of gang violence?
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/09/chicago-shooting-record-year/408070/
We have to tackle the violence at the core with a multi-pronged approach because just concentrating on the guns and mass shootings is going to get us nowhere.
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Speak up, here. Don’t be shy!
Personally, I would like to collect every gun in the country and melt them down to make swing sets, wrought iron fencing and decorative sculptures. That’s not going to happen either. It is way beyond a fantasy.
As to why we focus on them, well, perhaps because everybody can agree they are bad things? Because nobody wants to admit that mental health problems exist in ‘Merica (or at least not to me or mine).
I’m with you on guns and suicide. I don’t have any stats at my fingertips. But I do know that the odds of someone you know dying in your house with a gun increases immensely. The odds not only of a suicide attempt — but a successful suicide rise too — that number I believe is 95%. If you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger you will die. Why do we allow folks to have guns in their houses?
I’m with you on guns and crime, too. Our statistics (especially in your city) are staggering.
Personally, I just want reform to start. Somewhere. Anywhere. I think it is easiest to look and see that a civilian does not need an assault weapon. They do not need 4,000 rounds of ammunition like the Aurora shooter got by internet. Cop killer bullets should not be available to anyone. The list is long.
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There’s a good op-ed piece in the NYTimes today (Kristof). Here is the link. If you can’t get the full article and want it, email me above — I have a subscription and can email it to you. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-a-new-way-to-tackle-gun-deaths.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
Because he’s right and you’re right. The guns aren’t going away, so make them safer.
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This is one of the most balanced op-ed pieces I have read in a long time. I was nodding my head to a lot of things Kristof was saying.
I firmly believe we are hearing more from the extremists on the issue and not enough from the moderates. Being moderates, they are not the type who are going to be screaming from the rooftops, “FOR FUCK’S SAKE, COMPROMISE!” I know I should be one of them. Just have to muster the energy.
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Yeah. For fuck’s sake! 😉
I liked the article too. And it makes sense.
I read a while ago that the man who introduced legislation that ended up halting research into the public health effects of guns regrets what he did. Thanks a lot, buddy.
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I see the weakness on common-sense gun laws (no background checks for private sales) as an effect of single-issue politics. As you say, it is the fanatics who reject any form of compromise who are the problem, and they are the GOP Tea Partiers. Nationwide, I think most people have lost faith that the political establishment can govern at all, thus the ascendence of non-professional politicians in the GOP primary campaigns. This is dangerous in the extreme. Washington and Adams both decried the dangers of political parties for just this reason. I see no short-term way out of this.
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Those non-politicians, non-government folks terrify me. Running a company and running a government with nuclear capability is the difference between driving a car and a rocket ship. Just cause you can do one (and I certainly don’t believe Carly can say that) doesn’t mean you can do the other. (And I think Ben Carson was dropped on his head sometime in the last several years)
The fanatics refuse to compromise on anything. Why should guns be any different. Until, of course, they are directly impacted. Did you hear about the Oregon Sherrif? http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/oregon-college-shooting/oregon-shooting-sheriff-john-hanlin-opponent-gun-control-n437336 Reprehensible.
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No, I hadn’t seen the article on the Oregon sheriff. That is interesting and it’s instructive to the debate over gun laws. Common sense would say that background checks are fundamentally important to reducing the carnage – all the other industrialized countries have done it and it works. But such law would not have stopped this incident because the shooter wasn’t officially categorized as mentally ill.
Where the sheriff is right is the need for dealing with mental illness. Mental illness is a huge problem in this country, one that is exacerbated by oversensitivity to privacy concerns. The only way to fix that is to have a single-payer healthcare system that gives mental health due attention. That’ll happen when Bernie Sanders is president and Congress is majority Democrat, otherwise known as when pigs fly.
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More has come out about this sheriff. It sounds like he needs mental health counseling too. He’s posted Sandy Hook conspiracy theory videos on his website, and pledged in a letter to VP Biden that he would not enforce any gun laws.
I think we need to start rounding up folks who refuse to do their jobs.
That’ll be my platform when I run.
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You can count on my vote, Elyse! “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” 😆
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Now all I need to do is figure out what to run for!
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Being a student is becoming the most dangerous occupation in the country. In our area, taxpayers are ponying up to put metal detectors on the doors to the local schools. There are more problems than hit the big press. Locally we had a high school kid bring a gun to school, not to kill people but the wave around to get street cred (and we all know how that ends). I don’t live in a bad area either.
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It is crazy. We really need to stop this nonsense.
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*sigh* Here I go again. Being a gloomy downer in your comment section again. Do you know that someone walked into an elementary school with an automatic weapon and shot up a bunch of children sitting at their desks? Do you know what happened in Washington after that? NOTHING. If a horrific incident like that can’t change things, nothing can. This is the dark side of our country and a side that will never change. The only thing this latest slaughter will result in is a substantial uptick in the sale of ammunition out of the irrational fear that it’s about to be taken away. It’s not going anywhere.
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I am going to keep hitting my head against that brick wall. 😔
I know Sandy Hook well. My sister raised her three (grown) kids there; they went to that elementary school.
I do skip doing a post every 3rd mass murder, though. I do it for you.
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I’m so glad you said bullet proof vest and not buy a gun
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I will never guy a gun. No matter if everyone else has one.
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I worked the phones and went out of state to campaign for Obama ( I’m from California , so we didn’t need to campaign here anymore… we had to go somewhere where our help was needed )…. At the end of the day, we realized we should have concentrated on Congressional elections.
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Here they do have you do that. But so many members are dug in and gerrymandered to stay there. Same at the local level. It is a tough battle.
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I don’t know about common sense. For some reason, my Facebook feed is flaring with “we need more guns”, “it’s the fault of gun-free zones”, and similar posts. I don’t know why, but it started not after the shooting, but about a day before…
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It was probably prescient. I mean, who could have ever guessed there’d besmirched one, ammitite?
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Sigh. You know Elyse there are only a few things that make me wish I were American – and the ability to work for Barrack Obama is one of those few. He is the voice of sanity in a land of chaos. There are about 300 million of your citizens who are insane when it comes to guns – as if a spell had been cast upon them that makes them self-destructive. A few, represented by Obama, see the truth, as the rest of the world sees it, and they will forever cast their good-will into the darkness. I see that you are one of those who are seen as mentally defective in your society – and yet the other 6.5 billion residents of this world see it the way you see it Elyse. I have no misconceptions that you and those like you, will ever change the destructive nature of your society. I wish you the best of luck , as a gesture that supports your perspective and acknowledges that it will never become predominant.
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I never expected to thank someone for calling me “mentally defective”. But blogging is amazing, no?!?!
I worked on Obama’s campaigns and those are among my proudest accomplishments.
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If only I could.
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I can’t even come up with words anymore. Just a sickness in my gut. And you’re right–at least one thing we can do is be smart with our vote and hope eventually that might make a difference.
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That seems to be all we can do. How about a national referendum?
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I think if I was going to college this day and age, I’d consider wearing a bullet-proof vest. Thank you, NRA.
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They have so much to answer for. But we can put this one on top.
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