For most Americans, the holiday season is about the peaceful enjoyment of family and friends, those who mean the most to us in our daily lives. But even this season of peace knows no respite from the plague of gun violence. For too many Americans, this holiday season will be remembered only for the devastating sense of loss as their loved ones are torn from their lives by senseless gunfire.
In Texas, on Christmas Day, a man facing marital and financial problems shoots and kills his estranged wife, his two teenage children, and three other family members while dressed in a Santa Claus outfit.
In Colorado a 3-year-old accidentally shoots and kills his 5-year-old playmate.
In Indiana a 7-year-old boy is shot in the head during a Christmas celebration with his family as shots are fired from the street outside his house.
In California a soldier who had received a Purple Heart for his wounds in Afghanistan is shot and paralyzed during an argument over a football team.
On some level it seems that we ought not to have to confront such horror during the season of peace. But not even the most joyous time of the year can immunize us against the reality of gun tragedies. The deadly drumbeat of gun violence just goes on and on, an American tragedy of a kind and dimension unknown to other Western nations. Among all the Western, high-income nations of the world, 80 percent of gun deaths occur in the U.S., a particularly unwelcome instance of American exceptionalism.
Many thought the Tucson mass shooting of almost a year ago would rouse the Washington politicians to action. After all, one of the most admired Members of Congress, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was herself struck down and still struggles bravely to recover from a grievous head wound. Yet the only gun-related legislation to reach a vote in Congress since the Tucson shooting would make it easier for dangerous carriers of concealed weapons, like the Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, to carry their guns across state lines. The politicians are not listening to the voices of ordinary Americans whose families and communities have been devastated by gunfire. They hear only the intimidating voice of the gun lobby, with its finely honed message that any demonstration of common sense on the gun issue will be met with political reprisal.
Yet this is an issue that should transcend politics. No one who hears the stories of the victims -- those who survived the gunshots and those who did not -- can possibly believe that gun violence is an issue to be determined by the politics of the moment. No one who hears these stories can escape the conclusion that the unnecessary loss of life and untold suffering from easy access to deadly weaponry presents not a political issue but a moral issue. The politicians are not hearing, because they are not listening.
That's why, on Jan. 8, 2012, a year to the day after the Tucson shooting, Americans will join together to ensure that the voices of the victims are honored and are heard. From San Francisco to New York, from Austin to Duluth, Americans will light a candle in remembrance of those struck down, and in protest against the callous inaction of those in power who seem able to find every flimsy excuse for national policies that guarantee that the deadly drumbeat of gun violence will go on and on. The Too Many Victims Candlelight Vigil campaign allows ordinary Americans to make a simple yet powerful statement that our country deserves more than cowering politicians afraid to stand up to the bullies of the gun lobby.
Our country deserves a season of peace uninterrupted by the tragic reminders that, for too many Americans, there is no peace from gun violence.
Dennis Henigan is the Acting President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the author of Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009).
This item and previous entries also are posted at the Brady Blog.
Dennis A. Henigan: Thousands Lit Candles Against the Darkness of Gun Violence
Jeff Biggers: Review: One Year Later: A Safeway in Arizona by Tom Zoellner
When will Hennigan write a piece about that?
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/noframedex.html
University Study Confirms
Private Firearms Stop Crime 2.5 Million Times Each Year
http://www.rense.com/general76/univ.htm
PLEASE do not use rense.com as a source of anything. To do so is to open yourself up for ridicule as the site is mostly about UFOs, aliens, sasquatch, lake monsters, etc. and has zero credibility.
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/noframedex.html
Wisconsin Bishops Ask Parishioners To Leave Guns At Home
Dimensio Commented Nov 3, 2011 20:52:08
“I am curious: have you any actual rational commentary to offer?”
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New Photography Book 'Chicks With Guns' Shows 'Unsettling' Images Of Women And Their Firearms
Dimensio Commented Oct 25, 2011 15:46:49
“Have you any rational commentary to offer?”
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Wisconsin Concealed Carry Gun Law Signed By Governor Scott Walker
Dimensio Commented Jul 8, 2011 19:30:52
“I am curious: have you any actual rational argument to offer in support of your position, or are you relying upon hyperbole and upon ad hominem attacks due to an awareness that your advocacy lacks any intellectual merit?”
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Wisconsin Concealed Carry Gun Law Signed By Governor Scott Walker
Dimensio Commented Jul 9, 2011 At 01:41:56 in Politics
“I am curious: have you any actual argument of substance to offer, or is your position so devoid of merit that you are able to advocate in support of it only through use of ad hominemattacks?”
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Wisconsin Concealed Carry Gun Law Signed By Governor Scott Walker
Dimensio Commented Jul 9, 2011 02:03:04
“I am curious: is your position so entirely devoid of merit that you are able to advocate in support of it solely through use of insults, or are you merely incapable of rational argumentation?”
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A few discouraging words on this thread from Dimensio against other posters who would enter into discussions, if discussions were to be had on gun threads, rather than abuse from the gun tag-team:
No Season of Peace from Gun Violence
DimensionCommented Jan 1, 2012 at 05:19:45
“Attributing morality to inanimate objects is irrational. Claiming that firearms serve only a singular purpose, killing, is dishonest. Your comment is consistent with my hypothesis that advocates of unreasonable restriction upon civilian firearm ownership are frequently ill-informed, dishonest and irrational.”
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Dimensio Commented Dec 30, 2011 at 21:43:34
“Your speculation may be more credible were you to relate it to reality.”
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Dimensio Commented Dec 30, 2011 at 21:42:41
“You are engaging in the "poisoning the well" fallacy. Doing so is not logically equivalent to presentation of a rational argument.”
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Dimensio Commented Dec 30, 2011 at 21:38:33
“I am curious: have you any actual argument to offer, rather than incoherent hyperbole and unsubstantiated assertions?”
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Brady Bunch response #5: Never acknowledge anything in the past that would hurt our cause. Always insist on the present topic that helps our cause to ban guns.
http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2011/12/two-that-didnt-make-it.html
So it's making money for the Brady's and their staff, but what did it do besides that?
When is Henigan going to write a piece about that?
Why is this lie always repeated? Under the guidelines of HR 822, Jared Loughner could not carry a gun across state lines, considering he never had a permit to carry.
Criminals don't need a law saying it is okay for them to carry a concealed firearm, they do about anything they like as long as they don't get caught. In my state we are in such debt that the state is cutting everything including law enforcement, but even before when a police officer is dispatched after a 911 call they are rarely there to help the caller, they usually show up to secure a crime scene.