by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I have written about the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, for the past two days, but it is an expanding and evolving saga, and there is more that needs to be said. Maybe after I purge today I will be able to move on to other things - but really none of us should move on until our government begins taking action on the tragic reality of school shootings.
If you have not heard Jimmy Fallon's monologue on school shootings (it is all over the internet), give it a listen and then pass it on to a dozen others. It is a powerful indictment of our times and a plea for basic humanity.
I read a piece in one of the Texas newspapers which said that employees of the gun store where the school shooter did his gun shopping were "shocked" at what he had done with the weaponry that they sold him. The teenager purchased two semi-automatic weapons, 375 rounds of ammo, and probably several high capacity magazines and a tactical vest as well - all within a three-day period - and the store employees who sold him that arsenal were "shocked" that he went on a killing rampage? Bullshit.
I read a piece on social media by a reporter from a state other than Texas who had gone to Uvalde to report on the horrific crime. One of the aspects of the story that the reporter wanted to explore was the store which had sold the killer his weapons. Even though there are several gun stores in the Uvalde area, the man quickly was able to find to which one had made the sales, and he drove to that location. He parked in the store's parking lot and as he was exiting his car he was met by a security person who told him he could not enter. The reporter, who had not identified himself, noticed others entering the business and asked why he could not go in. The security man replied that was because he was carrying a notebook and had an accent.
But a wigged-out eighteen-year-old with a pocketful of cash, well . . . come on down and shop 'til you drop! More bullshit.
This needs to archived here as well: As Texas Republican politicians flopped around trying to come up with a posture and a spiel that would let them appear to have compassion for the victims of Uvalde and their families, while remaining firm in their support of the NRA and gun "rights," Beto O'Rourke, a man of action, rolled up his sleeve and donated blood for the victims of the preventable tragedy.
Yesterday Donald Trump gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Houston - while Beto marched outside of the convention hall along with thousands of other good Americans who came to Houston to protest the NRA and its callous disregard for human life. Trump, who has long been a tool of Russian President Vladimir Putin, gave one of his long-winded diatribes that included his answer to school shootings. Trump wants to "harden" US schools with tall security fences and fortified doors and windows - and he proposes paying for these prison-like facilities with money that the US is currently spending to support Ukraine. Vladimir Putin would no doubt also be in favor of pulling US monetary support from Ukraine and spending it on turning American schools into gulags. More bullshit.
Yesterday there was an explosion of stories regarding the "timeline" of events during the shooting. It now looks as though one-hour-and-twenty-minutes elapsed between the time the teen gunman entered the school building and when he was killed. A group of local police - some reports say nineteen - were inside of the school building much of that time but were apparently waiting on a special tactical unit to arrive. They were also reportedly stymied because the classroom door was locked.
While the police were dawdling in the hallway, students inside of the besieged classroom were calling 911 and texting urgent pleas to "send the police in now!" And still the cops waited, failing the children and failing humanity. Bullshit, maximus bullshit!
Here's where it gets personal for me. I have six grandchildren ranging in age from six to twenty-three. Four of this six are boys, and the two little girls, who were born within a few weeks of each other, are both 10-year-old fourth-graders. One completed her fourth grade year about a week ago and the other lives in a different part of the country and will be in school until the middle of June. Both are good students and enjoy school.
My granddaughters, thank God, have neither one had to endure the bloody horror of a school shooting, but they have been "schooled" through "active-shooter" drills on how to react and respond if that rolling nightmare ever comes to their schools. And now they have seen the news stories about a classroom full of 10-year-old fourth graders - kids just like them - being murdered by a crazy older kid with a gun. It's becoming more real, it's getting scarier.
Don't tell me - and don't fool yourself into believing - that all children aren't already being harmed by this savagery, because they damned sure are! And to respond by turning schools into maximum security prisons will only increase the psychological damage that society is already heaping on these vulnerable kids!
It's not the kids fault, they are the victims. And it's not the one-parent homes, or the immigrants, or "transgenders," or video games, or immigrants, or the books in the school library . . .
It's the guns, stupid!
Addendum: Here are a few modest proposals, none of which would infringe upon the "right" of a true sportsman to go out and shoot a few squirrels:
- Persons with certain mental health diagnoses should be barred from owning or possessing guns, people who have been convicted of domestic violence, road rage, or crimes committed with guns, should not have the ability to own or possess guns.
- Children should be allowed to carry and use guns only with the direct supervision of a responsible adult.
- Law enforcement should be able to temporarily remove guns from people whom they or medical personnel regard as unstable, with a judge ultimately deciding if or when the weapons will be returned.
- There should be comprehensive background checks performed on all gun purchasers, even when the sales are through gun shows and among private individuals.
- All gun owners and gun users should be required to undergo gun safety training, and every gun owner should be required to have liability insurance on every weapon they possess, just as all drivers are required to have liability insurance on each of their vehicles.
- The sale of assault weapons, the guns of choice for mass murderers, should be banned nationwide.
1 comment:
I'd like to address your third bullet point, since the United State Supreme Court has already ruled on one aspect of it. Your point was that "Law enforcement should be able to temporarily remove guns from people whom they or medical personnel regard as unstable, with a judge ultimately deciding if or when the weapons will be returned."
The case is Voisines v. United States, 579 U.S. ___ (2016). Where a defendant is found guilty of a misdemeanor, not the infraction of a quasi-criminal municipal ordinance, charge of domestic abuse the State can sieze the defendant's weapons.
States need to codify that possibility. State legislatures need to stand firm and preemptively let the radicalized right wing gun thugs with miscomprehended magical understandings of the Second Amendment know that SCOTUS has already said this is constitutional.
The underlying federal statute is 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(9). In common parlance this section is known as the Lautenberg Amendment. The statutory definition of the the misdemeanor crime of domestic assault is found at §921(a)(33)(A). Basically for the Lautenberg Amendment to have teeth the defendant has to access to the full constitutional protections including rights to counsel and trial by jury. None of those rights are available in a Municipal Court because they are not courts of record, they don't have court reporters, they don't have juries, there is no discovery. Many cities pass ordinances to attempt to have the Lautenberg Amendment apply in their jurisdiction. If a defendant were convicted of the infraction of domestic assault and police were to take his guns, he could successfully sue the city for violating the takings clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Take the same defendants, with the same facts, and convict him in State Court, in Missouri either the Circuit or Associate Court for the county where the offense is alleged to have taken place, get the conviction with stiffer penalties, and then have the State size the weapons. No taking occurs.
So state legislatures need to codify the holding in Voisines v. U.S.
Even Missouri grants the State authority to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. §571.092 RSMo addresses the subject: "Restriction on transfer and possession of firearms, petition for removal of, when, requirements. — 1. Any individual who has been adjudged incapacitated under chapter 475, who has been involuntarily committed under chapter 632, or who is otherwise subject to the firearms-related disabilities of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(d)(4) or (g)(4) as a result of an adjudication or commitment that occurred in this state may file a petition for the removal of the disqualification to ship, transport, receive, purchase, possess, or transfer a firearm imposed under 18 U.S.C. Section 922(d)(4) or (g)(4) and the laws of this state."
This topic leaves us with the raw emotions of saying to hell with due process just take the guns and lock the bad guy up. But this is a rule of law issue. The criminal defendant and the mentally ill person both have due process rights. The steps we take to assure their rights are protected actually protects all of us.
There are no unfettered rights in the American scheme of ordered liberty. That goes for the Second Amendment. The primary school reading of the Second Amendment's "Congress shall make NO law" has been refuted by the Supreme Court's less-than-liberal Justice Scalia. He schooled the gun thugs on this subject in Heller v. D.C., 554 U.S. 570 (1980). He directly addresses military style weapons, such as semiautomatic rifles, in Part III of his opinion. He said "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."
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