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A2
DECEMBER 21 - DECEMBER 27, 2012
WEAPONS from A1 Leveraging public outrage
ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT
Illinois resident Michael Moore practices his skills in a shooting range. Florida has now issued more than one million concealed weapons permits.
GUNS from A1 Background checks are required for all gun purchases. Persons seeking concealed weapons licenses must undergo further screening and submit fingerprints. A concealed weapons permit now takes a little over a month to obtain, down from more than 15 weeks only a few years ago. About 10 percent of licenses issued in Florida are for out-of-state residents.
No changes The tragic mass killing last week has produced a stream of ideas on gun control and school safety at the national level – but reaction in Florida has been muted, at least in the form of concrete legislation. Gov. Rick Scott has called for school districts to review their safety procedures after the shooting. But no gun legislation has been introduced in either the Florida House or the Senate since the tragedy.
Legislative Republicans, who have traditionally worked to expand gun rights, have largely steered clear of the issue. A spokeswoman for Senate President Don Gaetz, RNiceville, responded vaguely to questions about whether the Senate was planning a legislative response. Democrats have also seemed hesitant, mindful that the GOP-dominated Legislature is unlikely to pass sweeping new laws to control firearms. “You have to look at the recent history of the Legislature,” said Rep. Mark Pafford, a West Palm Beach Democrat who heads up his caucus’ policy efforts. “The Legislature is very, very pro-gun lobby.” Senate Minority Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, said his office was researching potential changes, including whether to transfer responsibility for background checks for concealed weapons permits from the Department of Agriculture to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Ideas for making it easier to check an applicant’s mental health history are also under con-
CONTROL from A1 handgun, there are multiple nutcases like Sodini whose paranoid delusions send them on violent rampages. For every hunter, there are multiple instances of temporary insanity involving family members, spouses or significant others where a gun is handy and somebody’s dead in a flash. For every target shooter, there’s an inner-city kid who’s ‘strapped’ either to take what (s)he thinks (s) he needs or to defend him/herself against the streets. “The people who were shot and the families of those who were killed at the fitness center will file lawsuits alleging that the club’s security is inadequate. They will also sue the dead killer’s estate. But nobody confronts the truth – the easy (and legal) availability of guns in America. “The carnage that kills 85 Americans daily, a disproportionate number of whom are Black, will continue. Why? Because the National Rifle Association owns and operates the legislative branch of America’s federal and state governments, and can block any serious gun control laws. Why no outrage in the Black community?” • On July 27, 2012, after the Aurora, Col. shootings, I wrote, “Not much for me to add... What’s changed since I wrote columns (in 2007 and 2009)? The NRA also now owns the judicial branch (the U.S. Supreme Court) and the executive branch, i.e., the presidency (Bro. Prez and Mitt Romney are spineless on this issue). Gun ownership is now America’s No. 1 protected constitutional right. What hasn’t changed? Still no Black outrage...” • That brings us to December 2012. Twenty first-graders and their teachers and administrators are shot dead in minutes by a disturbed, suicidal 20-year-old who first shot his mother in the face with a gun she taught him how to use. Where do we go from here? Here are some facts that should make my suggestions a little easier to swallow. 1.Violence is innate to the human condition. It has taken 5,000 years of wars, conquest, disease, death, culture, technological advances, and religion to civilize humanity to the point where we are not killing each other in a constant fight for daily survival. Anyone on the planet will fight or kill if necessary to gain or maintain the necessities of life – food, water, energy, shelter – if they are deprived of
sideration, Smith said.
Federal issue? Some Democrats say the larger issues, such as whether to limit access to high-capacity ammunition clips that can hold dozens of rounds, could be better handled on the federal level, instead of taking a state-to-state approach that could make rules harder to enforce. “You don’t want a mishmash of gun laws ... by which all you have to do is (buy) a tank of gas and you have a different law apply,” said Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith. Pafford said the state should at least take a look at the resources it devotes to mental health, where Florida ranks as one of the lowest-spending states in the nation. “If it’s easier to actually fund mental health in this state, let’s do that,” he said.
Brandon Larrabee and Michael Peltier of the News Service Of Florida contributed to this report.
it. Deprive us of our necessities for too long, or peel back the internal controls in our brains that make us function at higher levels, and we’ll revert to savagery. 2.Violence has been deeply embedded in American culture, including official governmental policies supporting Native American genocide and AfricanAmerican slavery. America’s historical leadership has never faced up to the legacy of violence on which this country is built. Denial is an American art form when it comes to confronting violence. America unconditionally reserves the right to use violence even disproportionately when it serves the national interest as determined by leadership. 3.America’s founders amended the U.S. Constitution to allow the unconditional right “to keep and bear Arms,” a right which has become biblical. Here’s what it actually says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Of course, the right didn’t apply to Blacks, women or Native Americans, but that’s another column.) The original goal was for a “people’s army” to defend themselves and the new nation from invaders. 4.Hundreds of years of U.S. Supreme Court decisions have ratified gun ownership as a personal and constitutional right, despite the fact that America now has professional “well regulated Militias” – police departments, state National Guards, and the U.S. military – to defend the nation and its citizens. Single-shot pistols and muskets with a shooting range of 100 yards that took, at minimum, a minute to reload (hence the term “minutemen”) were the only guns in existence when America was founded. The Supreme Court has refused to interpret the Constitution in conjunction with the advancements in gun technology. Consequently, ownership of highly lethal, military-style weaponry of the type never imagined by the nation’s founders is now a legal entitlement. For some, gun ownership is as much a necessity of American life as are food, water, energy, and shelter. 5.America has perfected the technology of murder on both the individual and collective basis and will continue to spend billions of dollars in research and development to maintain its technological edge. Nuclear weapons, neutron bombs designed to kill organic life but leave buildings standing, unmanned drones, precision-guided muni-
It was the fourth time the president has spoken about the mass slaying of 20 first-graders and six of their guardians in an elementary school last Friday in Newtown. The president made clear he is seeking to harness the public outrage at the shootings, and will consider gun control proposals that fellow Democrats have shelved over the years because of potential political consequences. Obama’s remarks Wednesday showed he was mindful that public emotions may fade, and he signaled that he is willing to expend political capital to make the fight against gun violence a priority in his second term. Obama defended the task force as a serious effort, “not some Washington commission.” “This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside,” he said. Obama acknowledged the challenging politics of gun control. He emphasized that the task force would look beyond stiffer gun laws for solutions, including measures that address cultural influences and mental health services. He also repeated his position that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to bear arms and made an overture to gun owners. “This country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s been handed down from generation to generation,” Obama said. “And the fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible.”
Pushing for change Still, it’s clear the White House’s focus is on pushing for new gun laws. Obama stated his support for congressional efforts to revive a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, as well as a push to close a loophole that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows without background checks. Obama urged Congress to hold votes on such measures “in a timely
Twenty kids weren’t “lost,” as if they couldn’t find their way back home; they were murdered. The teachers who defended them aren’t “the fallen,” as if they tripped down a flight of stairs; they were shot to death. These victims of gun violence weren’t “laid to rest” as if they will wake up in the morning. They were buried in the freezing cold earth. tions, laser gun sights, high-capacity gun clips and magazines, semiautomatic guns, armor-piercing incendiary bullets that burst into intense flame on contact. There’s enough killing technology for everybody and for any budget. U.S. arms manufacturers linked to the National Rifle Association, Wall Street and the military-industrial complex make billions of dollars while 85 Americans die every day from gun violence. 6.Politicians must be pressured to address the issue of American gun violence. During his first term, Barack Obama didn’t make a peep about the epidemic of gun violence in his Chicago hometown. And as usual, Black America gave him a pass while 4,000 young people in predominately Black Chicago were injured by gunfire during the four years of the first Obama administration. In fact, after U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot, Obama bragged about how his administration expanded gun rights. He’s lifted bans preventing people from carrying guns in federal parks and on trains. Given our disproportionate pain as a consequence of gun violence, where’s the Black outrage? 7.Random mass murders and gun violence in America can never be completely eliminated. CNN estimates there were more than 310 million nonmilitary guns in America in 2009, including millions of high-capacity semiautomatic weapons. These guns won’t just disappear. It’s only a matter of when and where the next mass shooting will be and who will pull the trigger. We already know how it will be done. 8.The mental health link to gun violence has been ignored.
manner” in the new year. He also noted that Congress has not confirmed a nominee for director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives the last six years, and he urged lawmakers to act. Asked by a reporter why he had not taken action on gun violence in his first term, Obama responded that he has focused on other priorities. “I’ve been president of the United States, dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, an auto industry on the verge of collapse, two wars. I don’t think I’ve been on vacation,” he said. “And so, you know, I think all of us have to do some reflection on how we prioritize what we do here in Washington.”
No easy path The task force will be navigating tricky legal terrain reshaped by Supreme Court conservatives. Some state and local gun-control measures already have died over the past 41/2 years, done in by the high court’s 2008 ruling that recognized expansive constitutional protections for firearm ownership. Similar Second Amendment restraints will limit the ambitions of the Obama gun task force and its Capitol Hill counterparts. “The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside,” Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted in a ruling last week.
Some restrictions possible The Supreme Court has said that “laws imposing conditions and qualifications” on firearms sales may be permitted. This might allow, for instance, more background-check requirements. The court further indicated in 2008 that “an important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms” extends to “dangerous and unusual weapons.” That might include military firearms such as the M16 assault rifle, which the Supreme Court specifically cited. Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR15-style rifle, a civilian version of the M16, when he killed 20 children and six women in Newtown, Conn. last week.
See point No. 1 above. If mental illness reduces or eliminates a person’s internal controls, erratic and possibly violent or selfdestructive behavior follows. That person only needs access to a single gun of the 310 millionplus now in cars, under pillows and beds, in closets, etc., to wreak complete havoc. Here are my categorized suggestions as to how gun violence could be reduced. (Some categories overlap and my list is incomplete.) Legal – Supreme Court justices should be selected who would greatly narrow the interpretation of the Second Amendment. Legislative – Repeal the Second Amendment. Take advantage of the current Supreme Court’s ruling allowing “reasonable” gun rights restrictions. Pass a serious ban that broadly defines what an “assault weapon” is. Close the “gun show loophole” allowing a gun purchase without a background check. Outlaw making homemade ammunition and buying guns and ammunition online. Require gun training and liability insurance coverage for every gun owner. Establish a federal law that criminally prosecutes everyone in the gun’s “chain of custody’’ when that gun kills someone. Ban “concealed carry’’ in federal buildings, on any federal property, and in interstate transportation. Require and fund one armed resource officer, a certified cop, for every one of the 100,000 public schools in America. Require the same for all 35,000 private schools. (DON’T arm teachers, faculty or staff.) Establish “health care” courts to provide due process for people with mental health issues who may be dangerous. Fund serious mental health care research, including recommendations for systemic reform that would include government-operated secured facilities. Mental and health care – “Obamacare’’ needs to evolve into a single-payer universal system in which mental health issues are treated as just another illness with no lifetime limit regarding treatment. Change privacy law so family members and mental health professionals can legally “drop dime’’ to the courts when they believe someone is a clear danger to themselves and others. Entertainment – Content producers have become creatively lazy. They now use computer graphics or mindlessly brutal lyrics to make pornographic violence a cheap substitute for a compelling, well-written story or song. View-
ers should take nonviolent direct action (boycotts) against companies and artists who make or distribute such TV shows, movies or music. The industry should stop stigmatizing mental health, and develop TV and movie characters with mental health challenges who take their meds and are good and productive. Faith-based community – Get involved, spread some love around and change the hearts and minds of people who are suffering, depressed, angry, or lonely and thus at risk for homicide and suicide. Link up with the health care and mental health communites; not every solution is spiritual. Black community – Destigmatize mental health through consistent education and outreach. Increase the number of Black mental health professionals. Establish stronger mentorship programs for Black children and support systems for families facing mental health challenges. Schools – “Harden” them by restricting access from the outside. Add “drop, crawl and hide” to regular emergency and fire drills in schools. Keep focusing on eliminating bullying, especially kids ridiculing other kids who don’t fit in. Miscellaneous – Join the National Rifle Association, get active in it, take it over from the inside, get rid of its current leadership and move it away from its “the gun is God” philosophy. A pet peeve. Can we get away from the mealy-mouthed language regarding these tragedies? Twenty kids weren’t “lost,” as if they couldn’t find their way back home; they were murdered. The teachers who defended them aren’t “the fallen,” as if they tripped down a flight of stairs; they were shot to death. These victims of gun violence weren’t “laid to rest” as if they will wake up in the morning. They were buried in the freezing cold earth, or their bodies were burned and the remaining residue was ground into dust. Here’s the brutal reality. They are all needlessly “graveyard dead,” they will never take another breath, and their families will never see or touch them again – at least on this plane of existence.
Contact me at ccherry2@ gmail.com; holler at me at www. facebook.com/ccherry2; follow me on Twitter @ccherry2.