By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
It’s National Gun Violence Awareness Day and #WearOrange weekend to remember the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to gun violence – perhaps you noticed New York landmarks in orange – but it is hard to pay attention or even keep track – gun violence has become ubiquitous, a public health epidemic. In 2020, the daily death toll from COVID-19 pushed gun deaths out of headlines, but it was still the deadliest gun violence year in more than two decades – essentially going back to the end of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004.
Gun purchases are skyrocketing. As the New York Times noted, “In March last year,federal background checks, a rough proxy for purchases, topped one million in a week for the first time since the government began tracking them in 1998. And the buying continued, through the protests in the summer and the election in the fall,until a week this spring broke the record with 1.2 million background checks.” There are some 400 million guns in circulation in the US — a figure that becomes scarier with the rise of White Supremacy and Neo-Nazism.
I’m sick of awareness. Demand action.
According to Everytown For Gun Safety, the gun homicide rate in the United States is 25 times higher than that of other high-income countries, with more than 14,000 people dying annually. Suicides involving firearms claim the lives of more than 23,000 people in the country annually, as well.
Since the Sandy Hook massacre of six-year olds and their teachers, New York State has managed to enact some of the nation's strongest gun safety laws and expanded the support it provides to communities to assist them in their fight to reduce gun violence.
Nonetheless, communities across the country, including New York State, have seen an increase in gun violence since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as statewide total reported crime remained near historically low levels in 2020. Experts have cited a confluence of factors contributing to this increase: unemployment, closure of schools and other essential programs, and isolation from family, friends and support systems, as well as social unrest in communities.
“Gun violence is a uniquely American tragedy: Americans are killed by guns at a rate 25 times higher than that of other high-income countries. It's also a racial justice issue, too: Black Americans and other Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by the gun violence epidemic,” writes Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware).
“Thoughts and prayers are not enough -- we need to respond to these tragedies with action,” he said. Common-sense gun safety legislation such as the NICS Denial Notification Act and Background Check Expansion Act is supported by 93% of Americans.
Let’s be clear; voting is enshrined in the Constitution, but Republicans have no problem blocking access to the vote. A woman’s right to choose what’s best for her own health, her body, her life, is also a Constitutional right (up until the Trump trifecta were embedded on the Supreme Court), but the right-wingnuts have come up with hundreds of laws that take away reproductive rights and voting rights. Moreover, the Second Amendment is used to nullify the First Amendment – how free is speech, press, religion, assembly or protest if gun-nuts can intimidate and threaten violence?
I’m not understanding why the actual literal words in the Constitution: “well-regulated” “militia” are not applied to end the epidemic of gun violence.
And yet, outrageously, on Gun Violence Awareness Day, no less, US federal judge Roger Benitez overturned California's 32-year-old ban on assault weapons, declaring, "This case is about what should be a muscular constitutional right and whether a state can force a gun policy choice that impinges on that right with a 30-year-old failed experiment." He noted, "Like the Swiss army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment." Interesting, because the TSA thinks the Swiss Army knife is dangerous enough to take down a 747, and bans it. And nobody uses the AR-15 for home defense.
None of the gun safety measures that are being proposed violate anyone’s Constitutional rights. But let’s be reminded: the first civil right is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – not to be gunned down going to work, the mall, the movies, school, or church. What about the civil rights of the hundreds of thousands who have been killed by guns, just in the past 20 years?
We can’t keep track of all the mass shootings – not even the ones that come to national attention, let alone the ones that are so routine, they take no notice. And each and every day, more than 100 people die by a gun.
In fewer than the first 200 days of 2021, there have already been more than 200 mass shootings – and that doesn’t include the shootings that don’t meet the threshold of “mass” (four or more).
I go insane when after every one of these shootings, there is the quest to uncover a “motive” or get into the mind of the killer. The only common denominator is the ease and availability of guns and ammunition – fire power that typically exceeds what law enforcement has. “Good guy with a gun?” How often has anyone heard of such a White Knight.
Republicans love to deflect to mental illness rather than the ease of obtaining semi-automatic assault weapons. While this country certainly needs to do more to provide mental health services – and not stigmatize those who do seek help – there is no way to tell who among the millions and millions of people who have bouts of mental illness will flip out and become dangerous, when, why or how. In the film, “Minority Report” you get a view of where pre-crime prosecution leads. But even if it were possible to predict which gun-owner would become an assassin, Republicans should then advocate for Red Flag laws so that those who fear someone would be a danger to themselves or others would have their guns taken away. Fat chance.
Pretty soon, there will be more people dying from gun violence than are dying of COVID-19, which was declared a public health emergency (though absurdly, mandates to wear a mask and keep socially distant have been decried as tyranny, while allowing government to reach into your vagina and derail your future is not).
It’s kind of amazing that one guy puts explosive in his underwear and the government spends millions on machines to probe your body in order to get on an airplane (no violation of civil rights there, right!) but not to bar terrorists on the No Fly List from purchasing guns.
And even as Texas Governor Greg Abbott gleefully signed the most restrictive abortion ban in the country and is salivating to sign the most restrictive voter suppression laws in the country, he has just signed a bill allowing anybody to carry a concealed handgun, without registration, license, training or anything.
Now the Guns Everywhere crowd wants to make those rules the law of the land, forcing places like New York City to allow people have concealed weapons, even if they are not licensed, not registered, not trained.
Legislation in at least a dozen states would pre-emptively nullify any new federal restrictions, such as banning assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition. Arizona would make it a crime for local police officers to enforce federal gun laws and Gov. Greg (“No Masks”) Abbott is calling for Texas to become a “Second Amendment sanctuary” (a dig at places that designate themselves as sanctuary states for undocumented immigrants).
Since George W. Bush allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, after being in effect for a decade, the technology for mass murder has increased, and so have gun deaths. Before anyone can dial 911, let alone have the “good guy with a gun” arrive, dozens of people are massacred.
Even New York State (and California) with some of the most restrictive gun regulations in the country, are not immune. Gun violence has accelerated in New York City, as it has across the country. In California, most of the gun crimes have been committed with untraceable ghost guns.
And consider the connection between police shootings and ubiquitous guns, because police assume a suspect has a gun and shoots first.
Tally the cost of “Guns Everywhere” policy: millions of dollars to for schools, workplaces, religious places, shopping malls to make themselves fortresses against a maniac with a gun, millions of dollars to investigate, prosecute murder and mayhem, BILLIONS on funerals and injury, lost productivity and lifelong misery and suffering. And for what?
If pro-lifers want to incarcerate women who miscarry and imprison anyone who provides abortion care, they should support holding parents accountable for failing to properly keep loaded guns away from kids who kill or die. Getting a gun should be at least as hard as obtaining an abortion or voting.
How ironic that on the day the Senate committee was holding a confirmation hearing for David Chipman to be the first Director to head Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agency in years, there was the mass shooting in San Jose, California that killed nine (mere days after the mass shooting in Colorado, mere weeks after Atlanta. Hard to keep track).
“It is not lost on me that there is another mass shooting,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota.
Sensible gun safety regulation, passed year after year by Democrats when they are the majority in the House are stymied year and year, Congress after Congress by Republicans because of the Senate filibuster, despite more than 80 percent of Americans, including large majorities of gun owners and Republicans favoring such things as universal background checks and closing the Charleston Loophole.
Even the Manchin-Toomey “compromise” that Senator Joe Manchin was so proud of, failed. This is yet another law – voting rights, climate action – that demands an end to the filibuster. But Manchin has refused to budge on his insistence of “bipartisanship” to keep the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. No matter that Republicans have no problem keeping Democrats out of law-making entirely.
I’m sick of the namby-pamby pandering – pleading for universal background checks and closing the Charleston loophole. This is what needs to happen:
- The federal government should use its power of the purse to require gun manufacturers make Smart Guns – guns that can only be fired by the owner. All guns purchased for the military and law enforcement should have this technology. Require manufacturers to incorporate microstamp technology that stamps an alpha-numeric code onto a gun’s cartridge case--a key tool for law enforcement’s ability to trace guns used in crime.
- Universal background checks; end the three-day maximum after which the purchase can be made (something that Bush’s Attorney General Ashcroft imposed)
- Ban assault weapons, high-capacity ammo, bump stocks.
- Tax the purchase of guns and ammunition to establish a Victim’s Fund, and to repay municipalities for using tax revenues to provide security to schools, houses of worship, shopping malls, concert venues; public meetings
- Require gun owners to purchase special liability insurance.
- Require proper security of guns in the home; make parents or guardians liable for criminal prosecution (negligent homicide, reckless indifference) if a minor gets access and uses the gun to commit a crime or injures themselves or others..
- Require gun owners to be licensed, certified to have gone through training, and registered. I don’t understand how the anti-democrats put up all sorts of barriers to voter registration – even accepting a gun permit over a college I.D. as acceptable voter I.D. – but condemn any kind of registration for gun owners; women seeking abortions are being forced to watch videos. And in Stand Your Ground states, you are more likely to get away with murder than a traffic ticket.
- End online purchase of guns and ammunition (Republicans have banned online purchase of abortion medication); require all purchases to go through licensed and regulated dealers that are regularly audited, and only allowed to operate in permitted areas – restrictions no more arduous than are being placed on abortion clinics.
- Make creating or possessing ghost guns a felony.
- End immunity for gun manufacturers that market guns for “sport” and “hunting” when they are designed solely to kill human beings.
On National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend, New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo directed state landmarks and structures to be illuminated orange to remember victims and survivors of gun violence in New York State and across the nation. The Governor also issued a proclamation declaring June 2021 as Gun Violence Awareness Month to shine a light on this issue.
Orange has been the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement since 2013, when friends of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton wore the color in her honor. The Chicago teen was shot and killed that year, just one week after performing at President Obama's second inaugural parade. The first National Gun Violence Awareness Day occurred on June 2, 2015, which would have been Hadiya's 18th birthday.
Governor Cuomo has managed to enact some of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation and the state currently invests $28 million in state and federal grants to help local communities in their efforts to reduce shootings and firearm-related homicides, and solve, reduce and prevent crime. The state Division of Criminal Justice Services administers this funding and provides additional training and technical support to help communities implement best practices and evidence-based strategies that have proven effective.
In addition to providing funding and training to agencies in 17 counties that participate in the state's Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative, the state has significantly expanded its Crime Analysis Center network, which provides crime analysis, intelligence development and real-time investigative support that allow police and prosecutors to more effectively solve, prevent and reduce crime. The 10 centers, operated in partnership with local law enforcement, serve 33 counties and assist any law enforcement agency upon request.
Through a partnership with the state Office of Victim Services, DCJS also funds and supports the SNUG Street Outreach program, which treats gun violence as a public health issue, in 12 communities. The program employs credible messengers who detect, interrupt and intervene in high-risk disputes and social workers and case managers who address the trauma individuals face due to long-term exposure to violence. Credible messengers work to diffuse violence through mediation, mentoring and community engagement, while social workers and case managers provide counseling, support groups, advocacy and other assistance to improve lives and strengthen neighborhoods impacted by crime.
"Gun violence has a devastating effect on the health, economy and emotional well-being of individuals and entire communities,” DCJS Executive Deputy Commissioner Michael C. Green said. “We must do all that we can to stop it, while supporting victims and providing resources for prevention and healing.”
But quite obviously, there is only so much a state can do on its own. Demand the federal government pass sensible gun safety legislation.
After two notorious massacres in less than a week – in Atlanta and Colorado - President Joe Biden on the third anniversary of the Parkland school massacre, said, “Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets. We owe it to all those we’ve lost and to all those left behind to grieve to make a change. The time to act is now.”
#EndtheFilibuster
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