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Posts Tagged ‘Gun Violence’

Fear and Loathing

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2013| 1 Comment »

It’s not often I find myself agreeing with John McCain. But thanks to twitter, I just read his response to this filibuster certain GOP/hardright/teapartiers have got going against background checks for gun owners:

“Sen. John McCain is flabbergasted, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer: ‘I don’t understand it. The purpose of the United States Senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand (so you’d encourage Republicans not to filibuster?) I would not only encourage it. I don’t understand it. What are we afraid of?'”

Good question Sen McCain. What are Republicans afraid of? This is really a bipartisan issue, a public health issue and not a 2nd Amendment issue IMHO! In states where background checks are required before purchasing a gun, gun trafficking has decreased 48% – nearly been cut in half. And women killed in domestic violence by a gun? Those numbers have decreased 38%. Bob always points out that the vast majority of gun deaths in this country are the result of suicide. I would imagine that waiting for a background check to clear may give a depressed individual time to rethink his decision.

I had to submit to a background check in order to teach in a public school. I had a young policeman, a friend of the Bride’s from high school, walk me through inking my fingerprints on pads of paper. My mug shot was taken. Maybe today they do a retinal scan? Sure, I was afraid a few parking tickets from the 60s might show up, but lucky for me I had no bench warrants for illegal parking. I passed. The Bride had to gain security clearance before her first government job out of college – FBI agents were talking with our neighbors. She passed. If you have nothing to be afraid of, if you tell the truth, and you want to carry a gun, HELL I want you to pass a background check…and so does 90 of the American public!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/04/03/90-percent-of-americans-want-expanded-background-checks-on-guns-why-isnt-this-a-political-slam-dunk/

In a UC Davis study this much was clear: : “…among those purchasing handguns legally, those with criminal records were more likely than others to purchase assault-type handguns,” (and) “among those purchasing handguns legally who had criminal records, those purchasing assault-type handguns were much more likely than those purchasing other types of handguns to be arrested for violent crimes later.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/banning_assault_weapons_works/ Which only makes me wonder why you can buy a handgun in California with a criminal record? It feels to me, the more I read, that we as a nation are going down a rabbit hole.

Senators, if we can’t reinstate an assault weapons ban after Newtown, then will calmer heads please prevail and agree with the lowly background check. It’s simple, we are already set up to do them in every state, we will most likely run into a backlog and wait for several weeks if not months for our pretty fingertips to check out, thereby preventing many suicides. The only thing you have to fear, is yourselves.

Proud of another senator, our own VA Sen Tim Kaine for tweeting this morning “I’m ready to vote yes on limits on combat weapons & universal background checks. Read my op-ed in the @PilotNews http://hamptonroads.com” Oh yeah, I’m jumping on this twitter wagon!
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Early Closing

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 17, 2013| 4 Comments »

Schools are closing early today because snow is in the air. Things are getting back to normal, it’s winter so bring it. The fire is on and I’ve got all-wheel drive, and even though I don’t have little ones coming home early for lunch, still, I couldn’t help thinking of Newtown.

Yesterday I was nearly crying at the gym, thereby ignoring one of the first rules I set down for the kids – Never Cry in Public! But I was on the bike without earphones, reading The New Yorker US magazine, when I became aware that something was happening on the big screen over the treadmill. Putting aside my need to know why Bethenny was divorcing her cute and rather normal hubby, I looked up and there was the VP about to introduce the President on CNN. Lucky for me, it had its closed captioning switch turned on, so unlike the other day when all I could do was listen to Mr Obama on NPR, I could now watch him and read what he was saying…about guns.

Thank you Mr President. Thanks for starting off the conversation about research, and how knowledge is good and go right ahead CDC. I’m telling you to study gun violence. I’m glad he puts the public’s health ahead of a lobbyist’s agenda. Thank you for signing 23 unilateral orders,  of which research is #14 Oh, and thanks for revisiting and clarifying the Affordable Care Act such that doctors ARE allowed to ask about guns in the home #16. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/01/obama-executive-actions-gun-list/61075/. Closing loopholes like gun shows and requiring law enforcement to run full background checks “… on an individual before returning a seized gun” just seem like no-brainers.

But along with telling our doctors what to say, and trying to stop all research into gun violence, did you know that gun manufacturers and dealers cannot be sued? It’s like they hold some huge, unspoken grip on our legislators, that grip that tightened when the clause to give the Assault Weapon Ban an expiration date was introduced back in 1994. OK we know that ‘Arms used in the theatre of war must not be used in movie theaters’ – one of my favorite lines btw – but somebody thought that maybe they just might want to kill about 60 ducks in one minute? Like the .223-caliber Smith & Wesson AR-15 assault-style rifle with a drum clip that could hold up to 100 rounds and was used in Colorado?

Back to lawyers, there’s a little known clause in the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that says that the people who manufacture these guns and their dealers are immune to prosecution for negligence and product liability. Should I say this again? No lawsuits allowed! Which means even if you are a ‘law-abiding’ gun owner and your gun misfires due to no fault of your own and blows off your face say, or your hand, you cannot sue. Am I alone in thinking this is nutso? This week, Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif) will introduce legislation to roll back legal immunity for gun manufacturers and dealers. Thank you Rep Schiff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/adam-schiff-gun-bill_n_2471863.html

Here’s a thought. Maybe if we can keep the right side of Congress busy trying to figure out how to dodge and weave around gun control legislation, they will be too tired to introduce personhood bills? It’s funny how the GOP is so intent on being known as the Pro-Life Party, while it condones our 2nd Amendment Right to kill as many people as fast as we like. Oh wait, that’s not what the founders meant, was it?

I got choked up in the middle of Obama’s speech, then the Bride called me with fun news. So I stopped watching CNN and listened to her plan to get the Love Bug an exercise saucer. When we were done, happiness mixed with sadness, trying to read the last part of his speech through my tears. Grace McDonnell. A little girl who deserved to live.  A gorgeous little girl with a bright future, “…I think about how, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now — for Grace. For the 25 other innocent children and devoted educators who had so much left to give.” Thank you President Obama.

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7 year old Grace McDonnell

In every vote that is cast to curb gun violence, please make them a roll call vote. I want to know who’s thinking about our children’s safety. And who isn’t.

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A Gun Gag

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2013| 2 Comments »

I remember the first time I went to see my regular doctor at UVA for a general physical exam. The Bride had recommended him and it turns out he is a real life Dr McDreamy. Handsome and smart, plenty of time to answer my questions, not in any rush to shoo me out the door. Maybe this is what academic medicine is all about? I was surprised that he ordered tests for blood and bone density, mammography – and he didn’t actually touch me. I guess my Irish ancestors get the prize for giving me all the right numbers in blood pressure, and remember I didn’t come in with a problem. But my first surprise was the nursing assessment before Dr McDreamy walked in; she asked me if, “I feel safe at home?”

Bob tells me that this is a relatively new question in the battery of things we patients must divulge when we are putting our lives into the hands of someone. I understood, I suppose if I was a battered and abused woman maybe I’d feel safe enough here to break down and tell? It made me wonder what protocol they use if a woman or man answered that question in a different way. How much do we drink, do we smoke, and btw how do we feel in our home? I remember when Bob worked on a baby who had drowned in a hot tub. I’m pretty sure they weren’t asking questions back then about pools and hot tubs.

Last month I accompanied the Love Bug to her 4 month Peds check-up. How’s the nursing going, sleeping? And political junkie that I am, I thought about the small battle that was waged last year to gag doctors in FL. Legislators there were fighting to silence their pediatricians’ general wellness questions; in particular, one question, “Are there guns in the home?” Yes sir, politics has slipped inside that HIPPA protected wall of the doctor/patient relationship – one I liken to a priest/confessor – and is yet again telling our health care professionals what to do.

“The way some doctors see it, asking patients whether they own a gun is no more politically loaded than any other health-related question they ask. So when a Florida law that prohibited them from discussing gun ownership with patients passed last year, they moved to fight it. A federal judge issued a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of the law in July.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/27/165985266/taking-aim-at-restrictions-on-medical-questions-about-gun-ownership

I relaxed. I thought this will never do, it just can’t happen, if a federal judge in FL blocked this inane law, then it’s over. But no, it isn’t over.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2013/01/09/ac-acosta-gupta-health-care-guns.cnn?iref=allsearch

A little known 5 sentence provision was slipped onto the end of the Affordable Care Act. Legislators agreed to slash the language of the bill until all health care professionals could do was ask about guns – there is to be

NO documenting of their conversation about guns,
NO collection of data on guns, and
NO research on gun ownership as it relates to injuries…

Legislators argued and preened around the policy, taking out the part about doctors being jailed if they so much as ask about guns, or even losing their license. As many as 8 states are still fighting to reinstate this criminal provision. Remember the good old days when all we worried about was a transvaginal ultrasound? http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2013/01/09/ac-acosta-gupta-health-care-guns.cnn?iref=allsearch

Why should we care? 1 in 5 deaths of children in our country under age 20 is directly related to firearms – 1 in 5. In a 2 year study, for children ages 5 – 14, guns were shown to be the third leading cause of death. And now, the powerful NRA has basically stopped all research into this public health and safety problem. Let the newspapers print the names and addresses of gun owners. How many more rights are we willing to give up for the almighty money of the gun lobby?

Here is a picture of the graffiti that has appeared on our new bridge over the Rivanna River. “Love” on one side, and “Peace and Faith” on the other. I hope it stays there for awhile, that free speech travels upriver.
photo

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If Not Now, When?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on December 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?”

But I don’t want to know his name
Or that he wore combat armour
That he lived with his mother
Or they seemed like a normal family

I don’t want to know the number
The size or make of the guns
Or that there will be 20 brighter
Stars in heaven this Christmas

I don’t want to know “Why”
What motivated a man to
Wake up one morning and
Cowardly mow down children

Because it doesn’t matter
All that doesn’t begin to explain
The unexplainable or to stem
The tide of grief and anguish
Still to come in this nightmare

What matters is that we
Wake Up
And take a collective sigh
And make gun violence a priority

“And if I am only for myself, then what am I?”
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC
“The signatures on this petition represent a collective demand for a bipartisan discussion resulting in a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.”

Our society will always have mentally ill people; they will go to a classroom at VA Tech or Columbine High School, they will walk into a shopping mall or a movie theatre. They will get into a taxi, then stroll into a parking lot and shoot a congresswoman. I must be crazy to think that the overwhelming factor in this national carnage isn’t the shooter – so let’s lock all our doors and live in fear, and btw let’s arm ourselves?

NO, the problem is GUNS…the abundance of guns in our country and their easy access. The United States loses 87 people a day to gun violence. Yesterday we lost 27 people in a small New England town, including the shooter and his mother. Let’s not play the blame game, and ask how he got into the school, or if somebody heard his threats. Without those guns in his hands, he would have injured his mother, with a knife or a heavy object or his own hands, and maybe, just maybe that would have been all? We place second in the world to gun ownership per citizen, next to Yemen.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/20/gun-violence.html

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel
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Executive Privilege

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on June 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

They’re at it again in the District. Republicans would like to have the Justice Department’s 80,000 documents related to that vaudevillian program of gunrunning called “Fast and Furious.” I wrote about it here: https://mountainmornings.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/unintended-consequences/

Our President told them to just hold on a minute, and issued his Executive Privilege, which means they can’t have them. Ouch. Remember back in 2007 when Justice fired 9 judges and the Democrats thought this was a political move? The shoe was on the other foot as a Democratic Congress asked for some clarity from President George W Bush. He issued his privilege to keep Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten from testifying in front of Congress. It’s nothing new, in fact our first President thought it up!”President George Washington set the precedent in 1796 when he refused a House request for documents relating to how the Jay Treaty with Great Britain was negotiated.” http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/20/politics/executive-privilege-history/index.html?hpt=hp_mid

Isn’t this akin to a parent saying “Because I’m your Mom/Dad and I said so?” Now since all of you were kids at one time or another, I’m sure that tactic still irritates you. It’s the absolute last move in any disciplinary chess game. Ironically, we’ve all had to use it ourselves from time to time. Trust us, you’ll understand it when you’re grown. Kids can’t think ahead, not logically at least until a certain age. Hence the temper tantrum. And that’s what’s happening now.

Yesterday, by a vote of 23-17, the House Oversight Committee is recommending that Attorney General Eric Holder be cited for contempt – even though the President has said these documents are confidential. And this sets up our political landscape for a long-winded fight right before an election. The party of the NRA wants to know why the ATF was so loosey goosey with all those firearms. Now I’m all for quality control, maybe even calling in some outside consultants to figure out what went wrong. Although it seems pretty obvious to the casual observer; give Mexican drug lords more guns? Our gun culture, our failed war on drugs, our woefully inadequate Congress – where to start. Ms Bean agrees with me
It’s just that at some point, the boys will be boys club on the Hill has got to stop bullying from their pulpits and go about the business of running our Country before we sink into an even deeper economic hole.

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A Cautionary Tale

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on February 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“The world breaks everyone…”

Another school shooting, this time in Ohio. Another teen died this morning, making two so far. We hear there was a football coach who chased the student/shooter out of the school, that he and another teacher had donned bullet proof vests they kept in a closet. And of course, the media is focused on the perpetrator, TJ Lane who is 17 years old and described as a “quiet” kid by some and an “outcast” by others. He attended an alternative school, for at-risk students. It was most likely a half day program – mornings at the regular school campus, afternoon bus to the vo-tech or alternative campus. Have we learned anything since Columbine?

Well, the book Columbine by Dave Cullen was surprisingly cogent and illuminating. It’s not about the stereotypes, outcasts, jocks vs goths or greasers and preps, depending on your decade. It’s about depression and pschopathology. It’s been reported that 6% of American teens suffer from clinical depression – that adds up to 2 million kids! Until we can revamp our educational system to serve ALL our young people, and not by shuttling the disconnected off to another campus, we will have to rely on teachers to buy bullet proof vests. Until we control how, where and who can buy guns, (sorry GOP) we will unfortunately continue on our wild west path.

My heart goes out to these families. And not just the victims, but to the Lane family as well. And now the President is being criticized for being “snobby,” for articulating what every single parent wants for their child – achieving a post HS degree. To survive high school with your confidence intact is a noble thing. The survivors in Ohio will have to fight to return to some kind of normal. We all navigated our way through adolescence in different ways. I was the song and dance girl, Bob was the brainiac, the Bride was brilliant and carried a big field hockey stick, and the Rocker? He was my music man who couldn’t care less about the hierarchy.

“…and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” Here is the rest of Hemingway’s prose that Clinton didn’t read: “But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” Thanks Ernest.

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Unintended Consequences

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on October 13, 2011| 1 Comment »

The first time I heard the phrase, “A law of unintended consequences,” it hit the right note of understanding – that intuitive feeling that no matter what we mortals try to plan, chaos is just one or two steps away.Take our poor Attorney General, Eric Holder for instance. A House Republican has subpoenaed his documents dealing with the farcical operation called “Fast and Furious” that originated out of a Phoenix, Arizona ATF office. Here was a plan destined to go horribly awry. Why not allow ‘straw’ aka illegal gun buyers to sell more than 2,00 firearms in order to track them to drug cartels in Mexico?

It’s as if Shakespeare wrote a play for Cheech and Chong. What could go wrong? According to the experts, there are three categories of unintended consequences.

1) Unexpected benefits – For example, research has shown that after Roe vs Wade, there was a statistically relevant drop in crime in the 90’s. Now the House is supposed to vote tomorrow on a bill that would deny women a life-saving abortion in a hospital taking federal funds. We all know this would only have an effect on the poor – if this passed, we may have the opposite of “unexpected benefits.”

2)Unexpected drawbacks – Let’s look at Prohibition. Watching Ken Burns’ series on PBS this week was compelling. Congress passed the Volstead Act leading directly to the rise of organized crime. It seems we are still trying to legislate morality by our so called War on Drugs. Drug cartels and the increase in our prisons of non-violent drug offenders are the direct result of not treating this as a public health problem.

3) Perverse results – This is exactly what happened in Mexico. Two of those guns registered to that ATF sting were found in Arizona near the killing of a federal agent. The Mexican government has reported finding these guns at more than 170 crime scenes. So I guess the questions for Holder will be along the lines of “….what did you know and when did you know it?”

Anytime we hear about a horrible massacre, like the one in Norway, or this morning’s smaller tragedy at a beauty parlor in California, Bob – who has pulled many a bullet out of patients – will always say, “It’s the guns.” Maybe it’s time to look at gun violence from a different angle.


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Policy Deadlock

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged on July 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

So, one of the first things to pique my interest after I moved South was a sign outside of a restaurant on the Historic Pedestrian Mall that pictured a handgun with a red slash going through it. It read something like, “No concealed weapons in this establishment,” just in case you didn’t get the picture.

I had never seen such a sign before. No dogs allowed, no bare feet, but never no guns. It was a moment when I had to admit, this move is a BIG change, a cultural shift. Like learning to pump my own gas.

Our Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, is currently in a standoff with the University about gun policy. You see the administrators of Mr. Jefferson’s Academical Village have outlawed weapons on the campus for many years. To quote the UVA policy on Firearms, Weapons and Destructive Devices, the “…possession, storage or use of any firearm, weapon, ammunition or explosives” in any facility, including the medical complex, by staff, students, community or visitors is  prohibited, period. With only two exceptions: one being a police officer; or the written permission of the Chief of Police .

And now Mr Cuccinelli has stated that anyone with a permit to carry a concealed weapon trumps the school policy! In other words, it’s OK to walk into the hospital with a handgun on your belt. Now if you were an ER physician, or nurse or patient, would you like to see that sticking out of a shirt?

Should a state law always override a public institution’s policy? Right after we moved here in 2007, a horrific massacre occurred at VA Tech killing 32 people and wounding 25 others. I heard people say ‘if only’ a student or professor had had a gun that day they may have stopped the carnage. Or ‘if only’ the perpetrator had been diagnosed mentally ill. Not much was said about the assault weapon ban that was left to silently expire, or the ease of obtaining a gun in this country. Or the fact that more than 100,000 Americans are victims of gun violence every year, claiming over 30,000 lives according to the CDC.

Being an old school policy wonk, I’d like to advise our schools to change their destructive device policy pronto. Perhaps a change to “Rules and Regulations” where certain politicians must keep hands-off. Also keeping those concealed weapons out of restaurants and bars? Good idea!

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