It’s kind of late in the game for me. My son is in college. He drives. He Facebooks.
He’s beyond my control.
So I am really upset that I didn’t get this vital piece of parenting advice from Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY-did-you-elect-me) years ago:
“There is no doubt that we need to do more to curb the senseless acts of violence that continue to occur in this country,” Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), an opponent of the underlining gun bill, said. “One of the things we need are parents, parents to be more careful and more repetitive at telling their kids that it is not right to kill people. It’s not even right to bully them. And it’s definitely not right for them to kill themselves. Until we can get that message across to our kids, I hope that we don’t rely on a few votes by this body to make everybody feel comfortable that all the problem is taken care of.” (Clip courtesy of Daily Kos. They got it from Think Progress.)
How important is your job to you? What would you do to keep it?
What would you be willing to sacrifice to keep it? Who would you be willing to sacrifice to keep your job?
Would you be willing to let innocent people die to protect your job?
Because that’s what happened today. Forty-six (46) Senators voted to protect their jobs instead of speaking for the people they represent. You see, the people those senators represent believe in stronger background checks for gun purchasers by roughly 90 percent.
These Senators think they protected their jobs when they voted for themselves and their jobs instead of protecting your children and mine, instead of protecting granny and students, teenagers in malls, folks who like movies, and anybody who might just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and who might die because some asshole didn’t have to go through a background check for that gun they fired.
These Senators, well they just today said “Fuck You” to the next bunch of victims.
Forty-six United States Senators will have blood on their hands the next time one of these random acts of gun violence happens. And of course there will be a next time.
Forty-six.
Cowards.
Elections matter. Get these folks out of office. (Thanks for the list, Jueseppi)
At last. At last something is being done. It’s about time that the threat from the Danish Connection has been bitten back.
For too long, you folks have had to read my posts about the need for curbing gun violence. For civil, community and government action to protect ourselves from random violence. From the bad guy with a gun. I know that you folks count on me to keep you informed. Up to date. Filled with sweet facts that you can share over coffee.
I am pleased to give you this bit of delicious news. You see, today it finally happened: Somebody took action on guns. It happened not all that far away from where I live. It happened in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Just a hop, skip and a jump from here in gun lovin’ Virginia.
It’s true. Authorities may have finally nipped the whole Danish Connection in the, ummmm, butt. Or in the butt of a gun. Or nipped somebody somewhere.
No. That’s the French Connection. I’m talking Danish. Far more dangerous. Fewer good guys. No Oscars.
Let me explain.
Today a 7 year old was suspended from school for biting his Danish pastry into the shape of a gun, pointing it and saying “bang, bang.” Witnesses are divided over whether the weapon was pointed at another student or at the ceiling.
The boy’s father was unabashed:
Welch said an assistant principal at Park Elementary School told him that his son pointed the pastry at a classmate — though the child maintains he pointed it at the ceiling.
“In my eyes, it’s irrelevant; I don’t care who he pointed it at,” Welch said. “It was harmless. It was a danish.”
(Google Image)
Meanwhile, folks with real, lethal — not tasty — guns are discussing just how many rounds it takes to bring down the drones that will, naturally, be coming after them because they exercise their Second Amendment rights to maintain an arsenal. That’s according to Congressman and official contender for “Stupidest Human On Planet Earth” Louie Gohmert (R-Where-else-but-TX) chatting on talk radio:
“I had somebody last week in Washington from either Georgia or Alabama that was saying, ‘Look, this goes back to we have got to have at least 50 rounds in our magazines because on average that’s about how many it takes to bring down a drone.’ I hope he was kidding, I don’t know for sure.”
Do you think anybody from Congressman Gomer Pile’s office might have checked to see if the guy who said this was kidding? Do you think that they suspended the guy who said that? Do you think that maybe they took away his gun permit?
Do you think that a duly elected representative of the United States Congress might have suggested that this man be investigated?
Do you think the Congressman was even a wee bit concerned? Nope. He apparently thinks it’s no big deal, or so I’m guessing because Congressman Gohmert continued:
“It is serious when the government decides, let’s just watch every little thing Americans are doing,” he added. “It’s big brother taken to a whole new scale.”
Amen, Brother Gohmert. Amen.
[Oh, the emphasis is all mine in those quotes.]
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take my chances against a 7 year old member of the Danish Connection than against some paranoid right wing nutcase who thinks he must arm himself with multiple large magazines for his multiple assault weapons because he is pretty damn sure that he will have to take on the Federal Guv’ment that he is dang sure is about to send drones to break up his barbeque.
I’m really glad they’ve started taking action on guns. But perhaps some folks need to figure out which ones are real threats and which ones are merely tasty morsels.
* * *
The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently working on 4 bills to establish more sane gun laws in America:
S.150, Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (Feinstein)
S.54, Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013 (Leahy)
S.374, Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013 (Schumer)
S.146, School Safety Enhancements Act of 2013 (Boxer)
Let’s put this in perspective, now. Gun violence is a public health issue. Period. We reduced other public health threats by taking appropriate action. We can fix this one too.
From the Journal of the American Medical Association — information on how we reduced deaths from other causes and what we need to do to reduce deaths from this one:
(Mozaffarian D, Hemenway D, Ludwig DS. Curbing Gun Violence: Lessons From Public Health Successes. JAMA. 2013;():1-2. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.38.)
But of course, this shows the heart of the problem:
More guns aren’t the answer. Guns in schools and shopping malls and office buildings aren’t the answer. Fewer guns — and guns with smaller magazines that’s the ticket.
To contact your Congressional representative and Senators and ask them to help enact reasonable gun laws, follow these links:
For a while, I’ve kind of wondered why the issue of gun sanity makes me so, well, crazy mad. More than any of the other issue I feel strongly about, this one runs the deepest in my heart.
But thanks to Lisa of Life with the Top Down who commented on my last gun control piece and told the story of her father-in-law leaving a loaded gun in a drawer where her young son found it, I figured it out. (Lisa’s story ended happily, thankfully.)
Yes Lisa reminded me of one of my own stories. One of my earliest memories, in fact. A clear as a bell memory where I am inside my own head as I acted out the events. Remembering it made me wonder if this might explain why I feel so strongly that guns should be handled, well, differently in the U.S. than they are today.
So here is my story.
It was summer, probably 1960, but maybe 1959. I was playing in my backyard with Debbie A who lived next door. I didn’t really like Debbie. Nobody did. She was argumentative and we always fought. Everyone always fought with Debbie. But that day, Debbie said something that made me mad. Really, really mad. And so I went into the house to get my Dad’s gun so I could shoot her. I don’t remember wanting to kill her; I just wanted to shoot her.
I went into the house, past my mother who was doing dishes, watching us out the back window. And I opened the drawer where I knew my dad kept his gun. He had been in the Navy in WWII, and he had kept his gun. I knew that. I was sure of it. And I knew exactly where it was, too. It was in the bottom drawer in the den. And I was gonna get it.
But I couldn’t find it anywhere. I emptied the drawer but couldn’t find it. I asked my brother, Fred, who tried to help me find it. Finally I asked my mother, who told me with a laugh, “there’s no gun in this house!”
I was crushed. Disappointed. I really wanted to shoot Debbie.
Years later I told my Dad the story. His eyes widened when he thought of what might have been. Would I have accidentally shot myself? Would I have mistakenly blown my wonderful brother away? Would my mother have been blasted as I headed out the door to shoot Debbie?
Would I have shot Debbie?
Dad told me that he had kept his navy revolver, but only for a short while. When my mother first got pregnant he got rid of it. “Kids and guns don’t mix,” he said. “That’s a recipe for disaster.” He was right.
I was 3-1/2. What would my life have been like had I found the gun? How many other lives would have been ended or ruined by my action? My really delightful childhood would have been much, much different if I had murdered someone before even starting kindergarten.
So today, on “Gun Appreciation Day” I celebrate my Dad, who was a smart guy. Thanks Dad, for protecting me (and who knows who else) from myself. Because you were right — kids and guns don’t mix. Trouble is, a lot of the adults who have them don’t mix well with guns, either.
This song is about fathers. Not guns. It is beautiful, though. And it makes me think of my Dad and the wise choices he made that helped me navigate life.
FiftyFourandAHalf 