"This kind of pain -- there's no medicine," said the grandmother of Major Heath Kelly, who, along with Christian Riege, Miranda McElhiney, and Florence Donovan-Gunderson, lost his life in the mass shooting at the Carson City IHOP last month.
The gunman, Eduardo Sencion, who was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and high-capacity assault clips also wounded seven others. There undoubtedly is no medicine to cure the pain those victims, and their families and friends, now endure.
Over and over in America, dangerous people pull the triggers on their guns and instantly unleash the kind of pain that no prescription can dull or eradicate.
It happened Oct. 12 in a hair salon in Seal Beach, Calif., this summer at roller rinks and birthday parties and during parades, and in January in Tucson, Ariz.
Over and over in America, police, emergency room personnel, doctors, nurses, faith leaders and counselors tend to the wounded and their loved ones in hopes of treating the injuries to their bodies, minds and souls.
But the problem of gun violence in America is too large to lay in the laps of these outstanding community servants. And it does not belong to them. The tragic toll of gun violence belongs to us, all of us as Americans. No other high-income country sacrifices its citizens to gun violence the way America does.
Our rate of gun violence is nearly 20 times higher than in all other high-income nations combined.
These are losses that break our hearts and shatter our equilibrium. And we ought to be wholly impatient with any suggestion that nothing can be done about them. That's not who we are. That's not our DNA.
To honor the 80 Americans who lose their lives to gunfire every day and the families, and communities like Carson City, that suffer so grievously, let us do what we can to stop the toll of gun violence. Stop it in our neighborhoods, our schools and communities. Let's just commit to stop it.
I implore you to consider doing just one thing to stop the toll of gun violence.
Educate yourself. Host a candlelight vigil. Create a memorial. Write or post a video message about your experience with gun violence.
Visit an elected official, the way Lori Haas, mother to a child shot at Virginia Tech, does every day.
Join a group that's working to prevent gun violence. Start your own group.
Unload and store your gun separately from the ammunition. Ask friends if their guns are properly stored.
Call or write elected officials -- mayors, state legislators, members of Congress or the president. Tell them to require Brady criminal background checks on all gun purchases, not just those from licensed dealers. Tell them there is no place in our society for assault weapons and assault clips, which are the tools of mass killers.
Be courageous, like Jim Brady.
Relentless, like Sarah Brady.
Determined, like Colin Goddard, who was shot four times at Virginia Tech.
Fearless like Tom Mauser, who wears the shoes his son, Daniel, wore when he was killed at Columbine, so that people won't forget.
Take action, so that this kind of pain can stop.
Note: This blog was originally published as an op-ed by the Reno Gazette-Journal
Dennis Henigan is the Acting President of the Brady Campaign and author of Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009). Previous blogs by Dennis Henigan are also posted at the Brady Campaign's Brady Blog.
Something more than "wah, wah", or general panic about firearms.
Unless you are a really cute chick (and I sure don't see it) crying gets you nowhere.
Really? Sanding down the firing pin? I believe you mean to say hammer sear, say it with me, HAMMER SEAR, that would keep the hammer from resetting and allow full auto shooting in a VERY dangerous way in that even dropping the gun it would still fire. On SKS rifle varients, if the bolt gets dirty and the firing pin gets stuck in a foreward position this same result, know as "slam fire" can happen. It is the gun shooting on the recoil of the bolt which keeps "slaming" foreward even without the pulling of the trigger untill all rounds in the firearm have been shot. I have been saying it for years, and I can see from articles like this I'll be saying it well into the future, If you are gonna stand for or against something, please know the correct terminology. Otherwise you look like a fool.
"Do you even know what a barrel shroud is?"
"Actually I don't know what it is, I believe it's a shoulder thing that goes up."
"No it's not." Interview with Democrat New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy in 2007
Thanks for sharing.
Let's see. "Assault clips". Made up term to sound scary.
"Assault rifle". Nope. Not an automatic weapon. So that's just a lie.
Same shtick, different day, from Henigan.
http://www.admin.ch/ch/f/rs/514_54/index.html
If we tried to implement a similar system in the US the NRA would declare war on the US government. Talk about gun control, you can trust the world's bankers and watchmakers to know and control weapons. I'm afraid the Swiss experience is an argument in favor of what we would call strict gun laws.
Semper fi
If a legislator asks you, "what do you want me to do?" are you going to tell him to wave his magic wand, or what?
This is a democracy, and your responsibility does not end with complaining.
Let's hear your better idea.
Somehow Jim always puts himself at the end of the HP line so people can't answer him, but I'm guessing he must mean that if a sheriff showed up and wanted to handcuff him for violating the law, that's violent.
I know Jim & lots of others think the UN is out to grab their guns. Yeah, it sounds really weird, but the fact is that sheriffs & other real people have more problems than to go looking for somebody who isn't causing trouble.
But if you're David Koresh, they may be interested. And when an unstable fellow holes up with an armory, well, we all know what happened.
It would have been a lot better if they had just sent a platoon of Marines up there in the middle of the night - it would have been over in a half hour, and almost everybody would have survived.
Poor Dennis:
Americans have shifted to a more pro-gun view on gun laws, particularly in recent years, with record-low support for a ban on handguns, an assault rifle ban, and stricter gun laws in general.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150341/Record-Low-Favor-Handgun-Ban.aspx
Dennis (or Dennis's intern. Whoever wrote this article):
How do you propose honoring the (minimum of) 219 instances of defensive gun uses every day?
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/noframedex.html
As for the rest of your suggestions....let's file them in the circular filing cabinet.
You want to ban guns but you’re met with opposition at every turn. Since you have no popular, monetary, or political way to make this happen, you feel completely helpless to change any of this.
Your group struggles just to be heard and your leader is reduced to debating law professors in mostly empty banquet halls.
Now your main goal is to find enough money to keep the lights on.
That must suck.