Tag: gun violence

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The Power of Power

Funny you should ask, but yes, I am sitting in my local public library charging all of my devices because yet again, north central New Jersey is without power. I really thought we had escaped this because the snowstorm hit on Wednesday and we kept our power throughout the driving snow and falling branches. But on Saturday morning we heard a bang, and then the lights went out. And the heat. And the (well) water. At least we can still cook on the gas stove. A large pork shoulder butt for pulling. What else would you expect a nice Jewish boy to be cooking on a Sunday afternoon?

But that’s not what I came to talk about. Came to talk about power. So while we wait for more snow on Monday night and Tuesday, let’s muse about the power shift that is on its way.

Young people are ticked off and they want the power over their lives that previous hordes of young people have fought for. The power to be safe. The power to shake the status quo, as in the power of the NRA to dictate their view of the Second Amendment, which is that it’s inviolable and any slight change in gun laws is an egregious violation of American rights. Enter Florida. Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun is a good step. Worked with alcohol; why not guns? The NRA’s argument is that denying a 19 year old a gun is akin to taking away guns, which, as we know, is the argument that all far-right gunsters use to beat back any regulation. If Florida can pass gun control laws, then most any state can. The question is whether they will.

Related to that is the proposed student walkout on Wednesday in response to the Parkland shooting. Under normal circumstances, schools in the leafy NJ suburbs would balk at letting students lead a disruption in the school day. This time, though, administrators are bending to the will of the vocal majority and are making accommodations so that both students and teachers can express their concerns and rights and fears and hopes that the country will finally make some common-sense changes. Students are leading this, and that’s the beauty of it because they need to be heard. So much for this being an uninvolved, frightened, self-centered group of young men and women. That the right-wing media wants to paint them as dupes and fakes tells you all you already knew about the credibility of the right wing media.

And what about the teachers? In West Virginia they didn’t make the mistake that Senator Susan Collins made when she voted to keep the government funded in return for a scheduled vote on Dreamers, only to be sold out by Mitch McConnell. No, the teachers didn’t go back to school after the promise of a wage gain; they waited until the legislature actually gave them one before ending their protest, defying their state and local union leadership.

In short, enough is enough. Destroying public worker unions has resulted in the most heinous abrogations of the commitment that a progressive, democratic republic make to the workers that ensure education, and that government services are delivered effectively and equally. We are truly at the point where Ronald Reagan’s warning that the government is the problem is having its most noxious effect.

I have to laugh, and cry, at the gazillion gigabytes of words and pictures devoted to the idea that our present government is somehow run by populists. It is not. It’s run by know-nothings who are shifting even more money to themselves and hoping that the poor rubes who voted for them won’t notice, or will be bought off by $40 or $50 dollars more per week in their paychecks. Meanwhile, government workers are vilified for not getting things done with reduced resources, resources that those in power would like to reduce and defund even more.

The backlash is already here and it is being lead by people who are supposed to do as they are told. Clearly, that’s not happening anymore.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Gun Control shooting

Report: Orlando Shooter and Wife Texted Each Other During Massacre

In the beginning, Noor Salman, wife of the Orlando shooter, insisted that she had no idea what her husband was up to when he gunned down 49 people at a Pulse night club. Now, reports say the two were communicating via text during the terrorist attack.
The Orlando shooter and his wife exchanged text messages during the Pulse nightclub rampage, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. Around 4 a.m., about two hours after he started the attack and while holed up in a bathroom, Omar Mateen texted his wife, Noor Salman, asking if she’d seen the news, the official said.
At one point, she responded with a text saying that she loved him. Salman also tried calling her husband several times during the standoff, a second law enforcement official said. The timing of her calls came after reports of the attack had emerged, and apparently after she realized her husband might be responsible. He didn’t answer, the official said.
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child Featured Politics shooting

3 Year Old Toddler Shoots and Kills Self with Gun

On Sunday, another responsible gun owner in Rock Hill South Carolina, just lost a toddler in their life to the gun they love.

Savion Barrow, 3, was taken by EMS ambulance from his home on Amelia Avenue to Piedmont Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by hospital staff shortly after his arrival, York County Coroner Sabrina Gast said.

Capt. Mark Bollinger, spokesman for the Rock Hill Police Department, said Savion somehow got his hands on the gun and shot himself.

Sunday’s shooting was the second by a toddler in Rock Hill in just a month.

Last month, Rock Hill police charged the great-aunt of a 2-year-old boy with unlawful carrying of a gun after the child was able to get the gun while in the woman’s car,accidentally shooting the child’s grandmother. The grandmother survived.

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gun control Politics State of the union

This Gabby Giffords Ad Will Air Before and After The State of The Union Address

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords is challenging Washington leaders not to ignore gun violence.

The former Democratic congresswoman is featured in a new television ad set to air immediately before and after the president’s speech. In the ad, Giffords faces the camera and says, “Congress is afraid of the gun lobby.”

“Tell Washington it’s too dangerous to wait,” she says in a slightly slurred voice.

Giffords, 43, is still recovering from a brain injury suffered in 2011 when a mentally ill man shot her in the head as she met with constituents outside an Arizona shopping center. Six people were killed in the attack.

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Domestic Policies

Gabby Giffords Visit To Raleigh, NC

On the last leg of their Gun Control Tour and getting the message out for stricter gun regulations, Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, former Astronaut, Mark Kelly were in Raleigh, NC Sunday.

After the couple had visited a shooting range, they sat down for lunch at The Pit Authentic Barbecue in downtown Raleigh with 14 hand-picked members of the organization she and her husband founded that promotes gun violence prevention called, “Americans for Responsible Solutions”. All are gun owners and are lobbying for expanded background checks. The group is attempting to drum up support at the ‘combat boot’ level by visiting key states that had voted Against background check legislation.

“Gabby and I are both gun owners. I’ve served in the military for 25 years,” Kelly said. “We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment.”

But Second Amendment protections shouldn’t stand in the way of common-sense gun controls, he said.

Kelly stated that they’re not fighting for stricter regulations because His wife was shot, but because of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Ct. which took the lives of 20 children and 6 staff members.

“In six months since Newtown, our national response has been to do nothing,” Kelly said. “It’s unacceptable.”

“We need to do a better job keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, the way we do that is we expand background checks to gun shows, private sales and internet sales,” he said.

Of course, pro-gun rights critics were quick to oppose the visit. A group known as, “Grass Roots North Carolina”, criticized the couple for sitting down only with members of their organization rather than reaching out to All gun owners as a whole.

“They own guns, but I don’t believe they represent the majority of gun owners,” said Rick Foster. “I sympathize with (Giffords), but I believe her efforts are misdirected. She’s the victim of someone mentally deranged. Her efforts ought to be focused on helping to improve the mental health system.”

“Why are they hiding from the gun owners they claim to represent?” the group said in a statement Friday.

It should be added as a footnote that the group offered 100 rounds of free ammo to the first person to track down where Giffords would be. Yes, you read it correctly. “Track Down” is how it was reported. (And they wonder why Gabby and Mark didn’t divulge their meeting location).

I Pray for Success to the Gifford-Kelly campaign of Awareness and Change for this Serious and Important regulation to bring about stricter Gun Laws with a No-Brainer approach to background checks.

Too Much Gun Violence. Too Many Deaths. Too Much Talk. “Fight, fight, fight, be bold, be courageous, the nation is counting on you,” Giffords told the crowd. The Time Is NOW Washington!

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News sandy hook shooting

Two Year Old Girl Shot And Killed By Her Five Year Old Brother

After what happened in Sandy Hook, and especially after Congressional Republicans stood their grounds against any form of gun control, you can’t help but think that there will be many more stories like this. And with that knowledge, you’d think Republicans would want to cut down on these kind of news. But you’d be wrong to think that.

A Kentucky toddler was accidentally shot dead by her own brother as he played with a gun he’d been given as a gift, police said.

Caroline Starks, 2, was killed after her 5-year-old sibling fired the .22-caliber rifle at their Burkesville home at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

She was rushed to Cumberland County Hospital but pronounced dead.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the weapon — a Crickett branded by makers Keystone Sporting Arms as “My First Rifle” — was given to the boy last year.

Crickett Guns
Categories
Politics

Congress Has Decided – Gun Violence Victims Don’t Deserve A Vote

In his State of the Union address, President Obama issued a very moving appeal to get Congress to vote on certain measures of Gun Control. Calling out the names of different victims of gun violence, and raising his voice over the thunderous applause from the very same members of congress he was appealing to, the President said,

“Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence.  They deserve a vote. Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote.

 “The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.”
Well Congress has now answered the President, and its decision is that the President was wrong. Hadiya’s parents, Gabby Giffords, the families of Newtown, the families of Aurora, the families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg – Congress is saying that these families don’t deserve a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid on Tuesday declared politically dead the effort to ban military-style assault weapons, a setback for President Obama and gun-control advocates who are pushing the Senate to move quickly on bills to limit gun violence.
Reid (D-Nev.) is preparing to move ahead with debate on a series of gun-control proposals when the Senate returns from a two-week Easter recess in early April. Although he has vowed to hold votes on measures introduced after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December, Reid told reporters Tuesday that the proposed assault-weapons ban isn’t holding up against Senate rules that require at least 60 votes to end debate and move to final passage.
The proposed ban, “using the most optimistic numbers, has less than 40 votes. That’s not 60,” Reid said.Still up for consideration are three other bills approved last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee: bipartisan legislation to make gun trafficking a federal crime, a bipartisan measure to expand a Justice Department grant program that provides funding for school security, and a Democratic proposal to expand the nation’s gun background check program.
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criminals Politics

What To Do With The Gun Violence Offenders – Ever Heard of The Dirty Dozen?

Have you ever wondered how to curb, or even merge violent crime prisoners here in the U.S. prison system back into a form of societal life? Have you ever heard of the movie, The Dirty Dozen? In 1967, an awesome war movie enlisted or drafted violent, life-sentence type prisoners into the Army during World War II to fight against the German war machine. It featured some of the greatest actors of that time such as Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine and living legend Hall of Fame Football running back, Jim Brown.

The premise of the movie was to take these violent criminals from prison, train them to become soldiers and send them into battle, supervised of course by a US Army Major. The goal was to get the best out of these hardened criminals.

At any rate, that’s what the U.S. could do with these prisoners here in our jails. They seem not to mind violence so why not establish a real-life “Dirty Dozen” squadron of soldiers. Put them right in the middle of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and all of the hot spots around the world. Send the violent offenders that are condemned, those on a life sentence, the rapist and extreme violent gang members that have been reeking havoc here in the States. With that, prisons would be freed up of violent offenders and would be filled with more of your “white collar” criminals instead.

Just last week, a member of Congress was thinking about re-introducing the notion of a Draft again. Really? With the dangers all over the world right now, terrorists are ready and violence are on our borders due to the drug war. Why would we even want to consider a Draft? There is another alternative, a deterrent that may work in our favor instead of the dreaded Draft.

Think about it. With violent criminals who are currently imprisoned fighting these wars on behalf of the United States, our sons and daughters would not be on the front lines. Those that seem to enjoy “killing” and violence without remorse would be risking their lives instead.

And they’re already on ‘death row’ or serving ‘life sentences’ anyway. It’s a win-win situation. Problem solved. Prison over crowding, solved. Those that commit violent crimes now would know their punishment – terminal life sentence in the Army or in the Marines. Believe me, I think these guys would have a totally different perspective when someone else is shooting back at them.

Categories
gun control Politics

Is There A Solution To Gun Violence?

By: Tracy Solomon

Simply asking that question will not resolve anything but facing and making adequate and lasting changes can lead to actually saving lives.

Most recently, the focus from the media, political leaders, gun rights activists and many others have not been focused on long-term needs or solutions but rather on short-term story lines, misleading voters and pushing policies as well as allowing misunderstandings which have led to surges in firearm sales.

The story of the century would be a day without a death from gun violence or even more so, violent crime.
Sound impossible? We are driven to think that way.

The sales increase of armed weapons proves this. There are many statistics on the amount of weapons in the U.S and the surge in sales but the fact is many guns aren’t registered. However, the increase in background checks shows the surge in sales and a lot is due to the speculation of what may change with new laws or regulations.

Although a majority of gun owners agree with the idea of stronger background checks, many loopholes in laws already in affect allow around 40% of sales to go through without background checks.
If these issues were dealt with, would that resolve the problems at hand? No.

The majority of gun owners were well intentioned weapon purchasers. It was never their plan to allow the weapon to get into the wrong hands, use the weapon in any way other than the way it was first intended and certainly to abide by all laws when purchasing their weapon, ammunition or laws pertaining to either.

This part is simple. At least it should be.

The 2nd Amendment is brought up in a great deal of discussions, arguments and as much as it is a part of this topic, it is also a big part of misguided discussions and a detour from what should be brought to the table in this matter.

There is very little brought up about our responsibilities for our rights and freedoms and the effects of change over time.
You see, it is clear today the person next door, at the office, in the church or at school may be planning something nobody could have imagined or possibly be the victim of the next violent crime. How are we to know? How can society better prepare or better prevent more deaths from these types of crimes?

Does it help when our congress continuously makes every effort to show their unwillingness to work together, compromise or communicate to efficiently get things done for those who elect them?

Does it help when people are looking for an end to gun violence in some way and a leading organization like the NRA comes out and takes no responsibility but instead points their finger at others? Why not accept some responsibility and work together? It is clear many NRA members do not agree with the NRA’s standing.

Does it help when our society is flooded with violence in its gaming and entertainment industry?

Do attacks on Facebook, Twitter and many of the Social Media websites help at all?

It has been made very clear bullying leads to aggressive behavior, violent crime and yes, massive shootings and often ends in suicide. So why add to that? Why attack those speaking out against violent crime and gun violence?

Does any of this help? Obviously not!

A crime very rarely starts at the moment of the attack, shooting, kidnapping, “random” event, or murder/suicide.
Our society has become self-centered and comfortable with shrugging of responsibility, passing the buck and expecting someone else to fix the issue. That is the issue. Our rights and freedoms should never cause others to live in fear. That is not freedom.

The reason gun violence is more an issue of violent crime is because that is what most often leads to it.

Life is very fast paced, more so now as many people must multi-task, never taking time to slow down.
As our economic tensions are high in the U.S., many people are financially over burdened.

Personal lives, finances, work conditions, health conditions and the constant feed of information can leave many people at a constant breaking point.

Emotionally, there are many struggling from childhood through adulthood, just to fit in or keep their private life out of the public eye in fear of rejection.

There is a major ongoing need to unwind in a society that is less willing and sometimes unable to allow that to happen.

As much as someone may be a responsible gun PURCHASER, there are many changing and unknown factors which come into lives leaving many gun owners unaware of how dangerous having a readily available weapon may have become. So many think nothing will ever happen to them to take them to the breaking point but the news tells the other side of that story. Nobody can be foolish enough to say something could never happen to them. That is someone that shouldn’t own a gun.

The only way to actually make our society safer is for everyone to take responsibility for our part. We ALL have a part. The idea of more guns and less regulation is not the answer. That breeds fear and fear breeds crime. This is not one side or the other, a political rival or even a statement for or against gun control.

It will take more than gun control, gun laws or regulations to see this through but isn’t this worth it? Violent crime death does not see race, economic status, neighborhood, political party, age or anything. That has been very evident as we have watched recent deaths in just this year alone.

Understand, this is more than gun violence. It starts before someone picks up a gun so everyone is part of this solution.
NRA, that includes gun control and regulations. Just because it starts before someone picks up a gun doesn’t mean a weapon should be laying there for the wrong person nor should any weapon be there that can commit mass murder because it was available.
We all need to step up.

Categories
Politics

Gabrielle Giffords Releases Her First Ad Against Gun Violence

A message from former Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords;

One year ago, I was proud to walk onto the House floor for the State of the Union Address.

The next day, after casting my last vote, I resigned my seat in Congress.

Mark and I will be there again tomorrow night, because this is a critical moment in time for legislation to reduce gun violence in the United States.

That’s also why we’re releasing our first television ad on the issue. As one of the first donors to Americans for Responsible Solutions, I wanted you to see it first.

Nine out of ten Americans support universal background checks for gun purchases.

Congress must act. Let’s get this done.

Gabby Giffords

This is a critical moment in time for legislation to reduce gun violence in the United States, and that’s why Americans for Responsible Solutions is releasing our first ad on the issue.

Categories
News

Chicago Mom Loses Fourth Child To Gun Violence

Five people were gunned down in Chicago yesterday, which included a man who was the son to a local woman who already lost 3 of her kids to gun violence.

The 34-year-old son, the youngest of Shirley Chamber’s children, was shot in the head while sitting in his car on the West Side of Chicago.

WLS-TV reported Shirley’s two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago.

Shirley told ABC News:

“Right now, I’m totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son.

What did I do wrong? I was there for them. We didn’t have everything we wanted but we had what we needed.

They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That’s my only baby.

After the gunman shot Ronnie Chambers, he then continued to shoot down 3 other men on the South Side, with two of them left dead and one critically injured.

Categories
Politics weekly address

President Obama To Congress – Now Is The Time To Act on Gun Violence

The President used his weekly address to double down on some of the measures he spoke about on Tuesday. Proposals that “grew out of meetings Vice President Biden and his task force held over the last month with more than 200 different groups – from parents and teachers; to law enforcement and sportsmen; to religious leaders and mental health professionals.”

He spoke about the limited steps he can do on his own and called on Congress to do their part to help cut down on gun violence.

My administration is taking a series of actions right away – from strengthening our background check system, to helping schools hire more resource officers if they want them, to directing the Centers for Disease Control to study the best ways to reduce gun violence.

But the truth is, making a real and lasting difference also requires Congress to act – and act soon

And he again called on the American people to get involved, making sure that their member of Congress is in favor of sensible laws to curb gun violence.

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