Give Us This Day Our Daily Gun Tragedy Statistics

by Sunnyjane

Father and three-year-old daughter at Day of Resistance rally, February 2013, defending her right to be color-coordinated, perhaps. 

When Children Play with Guns, Somebody Dies
  
We tend to keep our progeny out of harm's way; it's instinctive.  How many parents allow their children to amuse themselves with matches or play soccer in busy streets?   Damn few, I wager, because those activities are dangerous, of course.  Amusement parks all over America are regulated by standards set forth by the American Society for Testing and Materials to the degree that children must adhere to non-negotiable height restrictions for even the tamest rides.  This is not messing with our freedoms; it's saving our children's lives.

The number of federal or state laws and regulations addressing children and guns?  ZERO.  Oh, there are plenty of tips for having weapons in the house; just typing in How to keep children safe with guns in the home yielded two hundred and thirty-four million hits. 

Two-year-old Caroline

All too often, where guns are a way of life, they are also a way of death -- strictly because there are no gun laws governing the age children should attain or the training they should have before being allowed to use weapons.  When an accidental gun tragedy occurs, the legal response pretty much amounts to nothing more than Shit Happens.  This shrug-of-the-shoulders attitude was brought to our attention just recently when a five-year-old with his very first My First Rifle shot and killed his two-year-old sister.  One  link to this adorable weapons manufacturer's marketing website says the website doesn't exist; another says it's down for maintenance.  

Eight-year-old Christopher

It's all legal & fun — No permits or licenses required!!!!  read an ad on the Westfield Sportsman's Club's website for their upcoming Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo back in 2008.   

Charles Bizilj, a Connecticut emergency room doctor and father of eleven-year-old Colin and eight-year-old Christopher, decided that running up to Massachusetts  to this event would provide his boys with a spot of jolly good entertainment.  It did not turn out that way.  

[Full disclosure: There is so much appalling about this story that it's difficult for me to write.] 

Dr. Bizilj gave his signed permission for his younger son to shoot an Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second.  The fifteen-year-old line officer, who was not licensed to possess machine guns or act as an instructor, actually advised the father twice that the gun was probably not a suitable weapon for his son because of its violent recoil.  Even though it was obvious that Christopher was having difficulty handling the gun, his father insisted that he be allowed to shoot the Uzi.  Ultimately, the child lost control of the weapon, shot himself in the head, and died.  Police determined his death was a self-inflicted accidental shooting.

Charges and Verdicts 

Involuntary manslaughter charges were brought against Edward B. Fleury, the former police chief who organized the gun expo.  Verdict: Not Guilty.
   
Involuntary manslaughter charge were also brought against Carl Giuffre and Domenico Spano, who supplied the guns for the show.  The prosecutor dropped the charges after the Not Guilty verdict for Fleury.

Michael Spano, son of Domenico Spano and the line officer who advised Dr. Bizilj that his son should not be shooting the Uzi, was not charged, even though Massachusetts law states that it is legal for children to shoot a gun only if they have a parent's permission and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor. 

Because there are no laws against parental stupidity in Massachusetts (nor in any other state where guns are concerned), Dr. Charles Bizilj was not charged in his son's death.  In fact, he and his wife sued the Westfield Sportsman's Club and settled out of court for $700,000.  In addition, Dr. Bizilj wrote an eighty-two-page book that sells for $23.  Was it about a parent's responsibility to make good decisions when it comes to guns?  No.  Did it advocate for new gun laws to protect the very young?  No.  Amazon.com described it in two sentences:  A clear and defined approach to managing the profound grief after the loss of a loved one. Written for those who have the desire and courage to return to meaningful life after such a loss.  (The customer reviews are brutal.) 

UPDATE:  In what can only be considered one of the most offensive statements a person who is morally responsible for the death of another can make, Dr. Bizilj said at his son’s funeral that they had experienced many adventures, of which the machine gun expo was just another.  Then he added:  Christopher lived a lifetime in his short eight years.  Susie and I have no regrets. 

End Note

It seems that some senators are  finding themselves between a rock and a hard place due to their voting against the expanded background checks bill that failed recently, and have signaled their willingness to take a second look at it.

I have a suggestion for Senate Majority Leader Reid that will put some teeth in the next gun reform proposal:

Introduce a bill that completely repeals the Second Amendment, and start the negotiations from there.  You've got very little to lose, Harry. 

Don't retreat; repeal! 

(H/T: JCos)

Forty-five Senators Support the Mass Murder of Americans

by Sunnyjane

  Second Amendment Rewrite: A well funded NRA, being necessary to the job security of gutless Republicans and Democrats who believe in the right to massacre Americans, shall not be infringed.

One day before a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was gunned down by a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, forty-five U.S. Senators decided it was better to let Americans be murdered than to have gun purchasers suffer the inconvenience of a five-minute background check.  And let us be clear: this was a vote of sheer cowardice, having nothing to do with their alleged Second Amendment convictions.  [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also voted No, but for procedural reasons that will allow him to bring the amendment back up at a later date.]

As for those Second Amendment convictions, it is worth noting that forty-two of the senators who voted No have received campaign funding from the NRA.  I know; shocking, isn't it?

A Shameful Day: Spitting on the Graves of Newtown Victims

President Obama:  The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. 

A grim and angry President, a distressed Vice President, a former Representative who is a  gun violence victim, and anguished family members of the Newtown dead stood in the Rose Garden after the Senate vote that defeated the  Manchin-Toomey Amendment.  This watered-down-to-weak-tea amendment, which was introduced as a compromise to satisfy pro-gun senators, only provided background checks for commercial gun sales; private sales would have required no background checks.

The remainder of President Obama's statement from the above caption said, They claimed it would create some sort of Big Brother gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite.  

The President went on to give a well-deserved smack-down to Sen. Rand Paul, who had insolently referred to the Newtown parents lobbying Capitol Hill as props:  It's a dog and pony show, it's a parade, it's theatrics.  

President Obama:  I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced–a 'prop,' somebody called it.  Are they serious?  Do they really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue?  Do they think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate? 

Two other amendments -- a ban on the sale of military-style weapons and a limit on the size of ammunition clips -- both failed.  

To register your disgust with the spineless senators who voted No on the gun bill(s), tweet them!
    
Crackling and Cackling Static from NRA Lackeys 
 

Fearful of further soiling their skid-marked Fruit of the Looms, the forty-five senators who voted against the amendment defied the will of ninety percent of Americans who want to reduce their chances of being killed or wounded by gun violence.   Even seventy-five percent of card-carrying NRA members favor commonsense gun reform.

After Arkansas GOP state Rep. Nate Bell tweeted that Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine, Joseph Farah of Wing Nut Daily World Net Daily took up that mantra, writing the systematically disarmed residents of the Boston and Cambridge area cowered in their homes and hid in their closets in fear of one armed and dangerous terrorist presumed to have been involved in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Frighteningly, the Boston Bombing suspects possessed what police called an arsenal of weapons, which included a M-4 carbine assault rifle, a weapon similar to those used by American forces in Afghanistan.  Information to date suggests, but does not confirm, that these weapons were not obtained legally, as the younger brother was not old enough to obtain a gun permit and the elder brother was not on record as having a permit.
 
Appropriately named GOP Senator Jeff Flake obviously believes that under the First Amendment, he has the right to lie shamelessly to the relatives of shooting victims.  He wrote to the mother of a gun violence victim that While we may not agree on every solution, strengthening background checks is something we agree on.  He voted No.  And when asked about his duplicity, he replied That's the beauty of a six-year term.  

Reactions to the Vote that Defeated Gun Reform

Public reactions to the irresponsible, anti-American vote in the Senate can be seen in this excellent video: The Senate "decided to do nothing."  We've had enough gun violence.  "Vote them out."   H/T to GottaLaff at The Political Carnival.

Editorial response from the media was brutal: cowardly ... cowed into submission ... more shameful and dysfunctional than we've known ... revealed more than a "do-nothing" body ... a sanctuary for too many cowards...

 End Note

It is past time for sound reasoning and commonsense to rule the gun reform debate instead of special interests and the contrariness of the ten percent in our country who only care about hanging on to their right to have as many weapons available to them -- and to people who have no business with guns -- as possible.

At the Second Continental Congress in 1776, Dr. Lyman Hall arrived in Philadelphia as a representative from Georgia.   At the direction of his constituents, he voted No on the proposal to fight for independence from England.   However, he later changed his vote to Yes, saying to John Adams,  I remembered something I'd once read, "that a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."  Rather wryly, he then told Adams, It was written by Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament. 
     
When it comes to judgment, integrity, and doing what is right for all Americans, we could learn some good lessons from people like Dr. Lyman Hall.