“The Cries Of Tyranny”: Hey, NRA And Republican Stoolies: Obama’s Not The Tyrant Here
On Tuesday, after three years of trying to convince recalcitrant Republican legislators frozen in perpetual genuflection before arms dealers to pass responsible gun-safety legislation, President Obama did the next best thing. He offered a well-thought-out, well-vetted series of executive orders to expand background checks on gun sales, clarifying who is “in the business” of selling firearms.
Additionally, these measures aim to expand research on smart-gun technology, require reporting of guns lost in transit between manufacturer and dealer, facilitate the hiring of more FBI agents to process background checks, and improve the NICS background-check system.
You know, some real Pinochet-level, authoritarian shit.
Or at least you’d think that from the reactions of Republican stoolies running for president and American Politburo members cowering in fear that the 99 percent reelection rate of their ilk might somehow forget to include them. In other words, those craving easy National Rifle Association campaign checks like a quick fix behind the Capitol and/or future shovel-ready NRA jobs and/or speaking fees for past sucking up.
Their reaction—in a degeneration of Cesare Beccaria’s theory on crime and punishment—was swift, severe…and stupefied. Sure, it’s no surprise to anyone paying even the scantest attention to politics. Even impartial and conservative observers have wondered whether this once great party can continue to operate when its leaders seem to have mass-shotgunned The Blood of Kali. But coming from these poor (mostly) white souls, the cries of tyranny when the president is doing something 90 percent of Americans (and 85 percent of gun owners) support are rich indeed.
For if you’re looking for real tyranny, look no further than the NRA. Recent weeks have made clear that as it becomes more embattled—i.e., loses—it is moving past mangled euphemisms and apocalyptic prediction to straight-up threatening and encouraging violence against opponents. Sedition, domestic terrorism, call it what you will, but a group that already was about as cuddly as the characters on Fury Road has now shifted into first. For example:
Just four days before the fifth anniversary of the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the NRA targeted a pair of Brooklyn lawmakers Monday with a menacing image of bullets next to photos of the two gun control advocates.
America’s 1st Freedom, an NRA publication, tweeted the image of state Sen. Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, both Democrats, weeks after they announced legislation aimed at controlling the sale of ammunition.
The two lawmakers and other local supporters—including Mayor de Blasio and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams—condemned what came across as a veiled threat.
Cute, right? In case you are feeling charitable, thinking those 1st Freedomers didn’t mean any harm, the NRA promoted another article—decorated with a picture of nooses—suggesting “radical” Democrats will be hanged after they start a civil war over gun rights.
I know, maybe NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre just drank a bit too much cough syrup the night before. But then why, after some faculty at Bowling Green State University chose to exercise their actual first freedom by petitioning their state representative to oppose a loony open-carry bill, did an NRA affiliate in Ohio choose to do this:
Recently, the Buckeye Firearms Association went a step further and blasted criticism at Bowling Green State University faculty members who had written to State Rep. Tim Brown, R-Bowling Green, asking him to not support legislation allowing concealed carry of firearms on Ohio college campuses. House Bill 48, which has since passed the House, allows hidden loaded weapons to be carried on college campuses, school safety zones, day care facilities, public areas of airport terminals, police stations, and certain government facilities…
The Buckeye Firearms Association went on to publish the names and email addresses of BGSU faculty who contacted Brown with their comments, plus a photograph of [geology professor James] Evans, who had used his private email to send his comments. The result, at least for Evans, was a rush of emails to him from the association’s members, with wording that he characterized as threatening.
Let’s not even bother with NRA board member Ted Nugent’s public threats against the president of the United States, after which the Secret Service felt it necessary to pay him a visit. And notice we haven’t even touched upon the Fabulous Bundy Boys, who’ve chosen to go through their midlife crisis not by buying a Porsche or going to a strip club but holing up in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon waving guns and crying government tyranny.
Obama has done what any human president would do, upon watching the slaughter of his country’s civilians in the real world, while Y’all Qaeda and Yokel Haram stockpile guns for the coming episode of The Running Man because they’ve run low on Olanzapine. These are background checks, plain and simple, and they still won’t go as far as needed without Congress.
Tyranny would be letting terrorists, criminals, cowardly domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill continue murdering and maiming scores of people every day because the most puerile, thick-skulled 10 percent of our society can’t understand statistics and fear the monsters on Maple Street.
By: Cliff Schecter, The Daily Beast, January 6, 2016
“Obama’s Gun Speech Was One For The Ages”: It Will Be Remembered For A Long Time To Come
For a president who sometimes is criticized as too cerebral and lacking emotion, the memories he carries from comforting grieving families in Tucson, Fort Hood, Binghamton, Aurora, Oak Creek, Newtown, the Navy Yard, Santa Barbara, Charleston, and San Bernardino came together in what history will likely record as one of President Obama’s landmark speeches on Tuesday.
It was an effort to bring urgency to the gun issue in the same way he rescued his candidacy with a speech about race when he first ran for the White House. And for the gun-safety advocates and gun-violence survivors packed into the East Room of the White House on Tuesday morning, it was a huge moment in a fight that for too long has seemed stalemated.
“The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage now, but they can’t hold America hostage,” Obama declared as he outlined the executive actions he is taking to circumvent Congress and expand background checks to cover the growing commerce of guns over the Internet.
“This is a great day for responsible gun owners,” said retired astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly, whose wife, Gabby Giffords, got a standing ovation as she entered the East Room. Then-U.S. Rep. Giffords was shot in the head along with 18 others outside a supermarket in Tucson five years ago this week. “We’re grateful to the president for standing up to the gun lobby,” Kelly said after the White House event, describing himself to reporters as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
Obama’s nearly 40-minute long speech was thankfully more sermon than college lecture as he sought to mobilize activists and voters alike for the long battle ahead. And one point, tears visibly streamed down his face. He didn’t use the word “movement” to describe the increasing array of gun-safety groups, some launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, but he reminded his audience that the women’s right to vote and the liberation of African Americans didn’t happen overnight, and LGBT rights took decades of work.
“Just because it’s hard, it’s no excuse not to try,” he said as he acknowledged the obvious, that gun violence and the scourge of mass shootings will extend beyond his presidency.
He expressed his puzzlement at how American society has reached a point where mass violence erupts with such frequency that it seems almost normal “and instead of talking about how to solve the problem, it’s become one of the most partisan and polarizing debates.” He put in a plug for a town meeting he is doing Thursday evening that will be televised on CNN. “I’m not on the ballot again. I’m not looking to score some points,” he said, adding that he wants to instill what Dr. King called, “the fierce urgency of now.”
“People are dying and the constant excuses for inaction no longer suffice,” Obama said. “We’re here not to debate the last mass shooting but to do something to prevent the next mass shooting,” a statement that got a big round of applause.
Obama’s rhetoric and his invocations of some of the lives lost brought people to tears, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, top aide Valerie Jarrett, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. Every year more than 30,000 Americans die in gun suicides, domestic violence, gang shootouts, and accidents, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost family members or buried their children.
“Many have had to learn to live with a disability, or without the love of their life,” Obama said. “Here today in this room, right here, there are a lot of stories, a lot of heartache… and this is only a small sample.”
After the event, several people stood out in the White House driveway in the bitter cold telling their stories. Among them was Jennifer Pinckney, the widow of slain Charleston minister Clementa Pinckney. She held a framed photograph of her husband as she told reporters about how her young daughters are frightened by any sound that could be a gunshot.
After Sandy Hook, Obama signed 23 executive orders reinforcing federal law in an attempt to restrain gun violence, and it’s taken the last year to navigate the legal thickets where Obama felt confident enough to go forward with closing the so-called “gun show loophole.” New guidelines on who qualifies as a gun dealer went up on an administration website as the president spoke.
Noting that two in three gun deaths is a suicide, Obama wants Congress to do more to fund access to mental health treatment. To those in Congress who rush to blame mental illness as a way to avoid the gun issue, he said, “Here’s your chance to support these efforts.” He also pledged to put the federal government’s research arm, including the Defense Department, behind gun-safety technology. “If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we need to make sure they can’t pull the trigger on a gun.”
The expansion of background checks so that people with criminal records, domestic-assault violations, and severe mental illness can’t buy guns is popular with all groups, including 64 percent of gun owners and 56 percent of those who describe themselves as “favorable toward the NRA,” according to pollster Anna Greenberg, who conducted the survey just before Thanksgiving for Americans for Responsible Gun Solutions, founded by Kelly and Giffords. Ninety percent of millennials support the kind of action Obama took, Greenberg said.
Elected officials have long memories, and Bill Clinton still blames the Democrats’ loss of Congress in 1994 on their support for the Brady Bill and an assault weapons ban. A lot of big names went down in that election, and gun regulation went down with them. What Obama did this week is “the most significant achievement since the Brady Bill” more than 20 years ago, said Kelly.
It’s a nice twist of fate that Hillary Clinton might be able to capitalize on the shift. “Thank you, @POTUS, for taking a crucial step forward on gun violence. Our next president has to build on that progress—not rip it away” she tweeted after Obama’s speech. Guns are on the agenda in 2016, and Democrats are no longer cowering, which signals a cultural shift that goes beyond Obama’s still rather limited executive actions.
By: Eleanor Clift, The Daily Beast, January 6, 2016
“Republicans’ Do-Nothingness On Guns”: Assuming A Superior Posture Of Purposeful Neglect
It is axiomatic that congressional Republicans will oppose anything smacking of “gun control,” which may as well be read as “ your mama.”
Thus, it comes as no surprise that President Obama’s announcement of executive actions to clarify and enhance federal gun laws prompted reflexive, hyperbolic responses from the right.
Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said “Obama is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) averred, “We don’t beat the bad guys by taking away our guns. We beat the bad guys by using our guns.”
Spoken like a true Canadian-born Texan who has been busy burnishing his “outsider” Outdoor Guy image. What’s next? Cruz drinking the warm blood of a freshly slain (unarmed) beast?
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) criticized the president for a “dangerous level of executive overreach” and for circumventing congressional opposition — as though Congress has been working feverishly to reduce gun violence. Rather, Republicans focus their laser beams on Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s political motivations, shocking to none, and remind us that we already have enough gun laws.
This may well be true, but couldn’t we stand to tweak them a bit? Or, perhaps, enforce them? And isn’t it possible to reduce the number of guns in the wrong hands without surrendering our Second Amendment rights or invoking the slippery slope of government confiscation?
Of course it is — and we can.
Obama made an artful and poignant counterargument to the usual objections Tuesday during a news conference at the White House. He reminded those gathered, including many who have lost family members to gun violence, that other people also have rights — the right to peaceable assembly and the right to practice their religion without being shot.
In fairness to the gun lobby, which may not deserve such charity, one can understand reservations about limiting access to guns. What is less easily understood is the refusal of Republicans to take the reins of any given issue and do something constructive rather than invariably waiting to be forced into the ignoble position of “no.”
It is one thing to be in the pocket of the National Rifle Association. It is another to do nothing and then assume a superior posture of purposeful neglect, as though do-nothingness were a policy and smug intransigence a philosophy.
The steps Obama is trying to take won’t save every life, but they seem minimally intrusive and could have significant effects. Summarizing briefly, he’s clarifying existing law and more tightly defining “gun dealer” in order to impose broader background checks; upgrading technology for improved information-sharing and safer guns; increasing relevant workforces to speed up background checks; and closing loopholes that have allowed criminals to buy guns online and elsewhere with a separate set of rules. Or no rules.
Giving the FBI more resources to modernize its system will help. So will giving $500 million to mental- health services aimed at keeping guns away from people determined to hurt themselves or others.
Requiring shippers to report stolen guns will also be helpful — and investing in smart -gun technology could be a game changer. As Obama said, tearing up at the mention of the Sandy Hook shooting that took the lives of 20 first-graders, if we can keep children from opening aspirin bottles, surely we can prevent their pulling the trigger on a gun.
As for expanding background checks, only the criminal or the suicidal object to waiting a day or two before taking home a gun. And if the government doesn’t complete the process within three days, seller and buyer can proceed anyway.
What concerns most people, meanwhile, are those weapons, especially semiautomatics with large magazines, whose only purpose is to kill people. Many argue that no current law could have prevented any of the mass shootings in recent years, but is this sufficient justification for doing nothing when doing something could make a difference we may never know about — the child who didn’t die because new technology prevented him from firing a pistol? The Islamic State-inspired terrorist who didn’t murder holiday revelers because he failed an online background check?
Obama’s actions won’t go unchallenged, needless to say. And much political hay will be threshed, bundled and sold to Republican primary voters in the meantime. But GOP voters should be as skeptical of those ringing the gong of doom as they have been of Obama. In a civilized society, more guns can’t be better than fewer.
By: Kathleen Parker, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 5, 2016
“Hawked By Dealers With A Ready Grin”: Where Mass Murderers’ Weapons Of Choice Are Sold With A Smile
As the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings approached, a weapon identical to the Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle used to murder 20 youngsters and six staff was on display at an Indiana gun show.
Next to it at the Crown Point show on Dec. 12 was a weapon identical to the DPMS AR-15 used by one of the terrorists who killed 14 at a San Bernardino holiday party.
Next to that was an AK-47 knockoff such as was used to kill a police officer and two other innocents at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado.
Nearby was a Smith & Wesson AR-15 identical to the ones used by the other terrorist in the San Bernardino killing and by the madman who killed 12 in a movie theater in Colorado.
And just past the assault rifles were handguns such as are used in the day-to-day carnage that receives only sporadic attention in between mass shootings.
Among the handguns was a .40 Glock, of the same caliber as the pistol used to target and kill 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee last month in Chicago, a little over an hour’s drive from Crown Point. The pistol was one of several now being examined by a girl of around the same age.
“Hello, young lady, did you come to buy your daddy a gun?” the dealer on the other side of the display table cheerfully joked. “I bet he’s the best dad ever. I bet he’s just going to love you for buying him a gun!”
Nobody seemed to see any great irony in the signs reading “NO Loaded Firearms in Building” and “Absolutely No Loaded Guns or Clips in Building” covering the glass doors at the entrance to this one-story red brick structure on the Lake County Fairgrounds. A uniformed cop inspected the guns of all new arrivals to ensure the weapons were unloaded.
“If you don’t have a gun, you can go through,” the cop announced.
Among the folks who had bought guns at earlier Crown Point shows in this same one-story red brick building on the Lake County Fairgrounds was a former suburban Chicago high school football star named David Lewisbey. He is said to have made a “to do” list upon arriving at college that included, “Get guns back up.”
To that end, he made repeated trips down to Crown Point and elsewhere in Indiana, which provides 19 percent of the illegal guns recovered back up in Chicago.
“He would go travel to Indiana, to these gun shows where he would load up literally a duffel bag, go from table to table paying in cash, large amounts of cash, and collect all of these firearms before returning from these gun shows right into the worst neighborhoods of Chicago, where he would sell them literally in the back alley and on the side streets,” a prosecutor later said.
In a two-day period, Lewisbey sold 43 firearms. He is believed to have sold many more before his arrest in 2012. He insisted he had only bought guns for his “personal collection” and dealt drugs, not firearms.
Lewisbey was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in federal prison. The trial record shows that he sometimes made the purchases through licensed dealers, which required him to undergo a background check. He would simply report that the weapon had been stolen if it was recovered in connection with a crime.
More often, Lewisbey took advantage of what is known as the “gun show loophole,” which allows private dealers to sell firearms without conducting background checks or filing any paperwork regarding the buyer.
Nationwide, some 5,000 gun shows are held each year. Indiana is among the 33 states that allow such loophole sales. The regular gun shows at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Crown Point were said to be “one of the prime topics” at a kind of summit of 20 federal, state, and local law enforcement officials two years ago.
In an indication of slight progress, no private dealers were in evidence at the most recent Crown Point show. The dealers were all licensed, which meant purchasers had to undergo a nearly instant background check via one of the laptops each dealer had.
“They tell me to proceed and then it’s yours,” a dealer told one prospective customer. “You just have to have an Indiana driver’s license or picture ID.”
But there was nothing in the law to prevent a private citizen from then giving the gun to another private citizen.
And among those who would be happy to keep it that way and maybe roll back restrictions altogether was a gentleman collecting petition signatures for both Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
“Get gun rights candidates on the ballot!” he exhorted.
He noted that both senators had a top NRA rating.
“A-plus,” he said.
He could offer no rating for Donald Trump, on whose behalf a woman in a pink T-shirt reading “Get on the Trump Train” was collecting signatures at the next table.
“He’s unique because he’s never held elective office,” the man said of Trump. “He’s unproven.”
Strict gun laws have proven to reduce gun violence and would almost certainly cut deaths dramatically if all states adopted them uniformly. But as long as we keep manufacturing high-capacity weapons, there is no way to guarantee they will not fall into the hands of people who should not be allowed anywhere near a firearm. California has some of the toughest restrictions in the country, but the San Bernardino killers had little trouble arming themselves with assault rifles such as were for sale at Crown Point.
“Every customer is a friend,” words on the DPMS AR-15 box read. “We wish you many years of enjoyable use of your product. Welcome to our family.”
Across the top of the box was the exhortation “Get Ready to Flip the Switch.”
A paper tag said the DPMS could be yours for $599. The tag on the Bushmaster beside it read $649. The dealer was asked the difference between the two assault rifles.
“Mainly brand,” the dealer said. “Little bit of accessory difference, but that’s about it.”
He added, “They’re both midlevel ARs.”
He was asked what might be a top level assault rifle.
“Far as your budget would allow you to spend,” he said. “LWRC, Daniel Defense, you could spend two, three grand on an AR.”
The LWRC and Daniel Defense assault rifles are indeed in that price range. Mass shooters favor the mid-level ARs, which also includes Smith & Wesson, going at the show for $639.99.
“Very important: Instruction book inside to ensure safe use,” read a small notice on this box.
Beyond that table was one that displayed hunting rifles and shotguns, all of which would satisfy the right to bear arms as contemplated by the Founding Fathers and were more than adequate for self-defense.
Maybe call these long guns DRs, for defense rifle.
But they lack the military hoo-hah that apparently makes ARs—the A seeming to stand for arousal as well as assault—popular with boys who never quite grow up. DRs also lack the capacity for mass carnage that make ARs the favorite of terrorists and murderous madmen.
The deadliness of ARs definitely appeals to gangbangers and other street criminals. The problem for them is that the weapons are difficult to conceal. Thugs generally prefer handguns such as the Glock .40.
The dealer at Crown Point gave Glocks high marks for durability. He cited a YouTube video of “the Glock torture test,” in which the guns are dragged behind a four-wheel vehicle and buried in dirt.
“They spray them off with a hose, load them up, and fire a thousand rounds,” the dealer said. “Glocks are pretty much indestructible.”
Also for sale at the show were extended magazines that allow a gangbanger to let loose as if with a shrunk down AR-15.
“The more shells the merrier,” a Chicago gang member told The Daily Beast the other day.
Among the legitimate citizens who have felt compelled to arm themselves is Felix Gonzalez, a 42-year-old real estate lawyer from Chicago who came to the Crown Point show with his two sons, 10-year-old Diego and 9-year-old Nico.
As a second calling, Gonzalez teaches gun safety to like-minded citizens, particularly to those who legally carry concealed firearms. He left the show having purchased two giant plastic bags of .45 caliber and 9 mm bullets, 500 of each, for a total of 1,000. His younger son pronounced himself less than thrilled by the visit to a gun show, his first.
“Boring,” Diego said. “Because there’s nothing to do. All we were doing was watch you buy ammo.”
The father paused and shared his feelings about legal gun ownership with The Daily Beast. His foremost reason for carrying a handgun is to protect his family. He said “God help” anyone who tried to hurt his sons and declared himself ever ready to defend their lives with his own.
“Because I love you,” he told them.
The father added, “The enemy will not win if he comes against us.”
Diego said, “You don’t know that for sure.”
The father said, “I am at peace. I don’t worry about dying.”
The two bags of bullets to be used for self-defense training were loaded into the back of the family minivan. Father and sons then set off for Chicago, where a boy the same age as Nico had been targeted when three gang members in a black SUV saw him on the swings in a park after school back on Nov. 2.
Tyshawn Lee was the son of a reputed member of the New Money gang, which has been in a protracted war with the Bang Bang Gang (BBG). One of a trio of BBG members exited the black SUV, sauntered into the park, and picked up a basketball that Tyshawn had set down when he clambered onto the swing.
The BBG member spoke to Tyshawn and apparently persuaded him to cross the street into an alley behind the boy’s grandmother’s house, where there was a basketball hoop. A second BBG member followed. At least one of the gang members then produced a .40 caliber pistol and executed the boy.
The BBG member who remained in the SUV is said to have informed on the other two. One, Corey “Tez Poe” Morgan—whose brother had been killed and his mother wounded by New Money members in October—was arrested and charged with murder. Kevin “Ace” Edwards remained a fugitive at last report.
On the foggy morning the gun show opened down in Crown Point, the swing in Dawes Park hung empty save for the memory of the murdered boy who had been coaxed from there to his death by gun. Somebody had affixed a pair of wooden signs to a tree.
One sign read, “Rest in Heaven Tyshawn Lee,” the other, “Mothers against Street Shooting.” At the base was a cross fashioned with sticks and a ribbon tied in a bow.
The Chicago police had pledged to crush both BBG and the New Money gang, but there were more than enough pistols handy from gun shows and gun shops, and the gangs remained ready to use them. New Money members followed a member of another gang called Bloody 8 home and seriously wounded him. BBG shot and killed a reputed New Money member named Willie Clifton late last week. Clifton, the 21-year-old father of a baby girl, is said to have been waiting in an alley for his girlfriend with bags of laundry when he was ambushed.
One might have thought that yet another killing by a gang accused of deliberately targeting a 9-year-old would have sparked a public outcry. But the murder passed with little notice, and the killings promise to go on and on and on.
The next Crown Point gun show is on the weekend of Jan. 23 in a New Year that challenges us all to end the madness.
By: Michael Daly, The Daily Beast, December 22, 2015
“Not Just An Abstract Idea”: Want To Make Buying Guns Hard? Make It As Tough As Getting An Abortion
It’s not just an abstract idea. It’s a bill going through the state house in Missouri. Mandatory evaluations. Mandatory talks with local leaders. Mandatory accountability. One state rep wants it to happen—and soon.
Hours before shots rang out in San Bernardino, California, leaving 14 dead and 21 injured, Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman introduced a bill with a simple premise:
What if the process to buy guns in America was as difficult as the one to get an abortion?
A flight crew member turned political consultant, Newman was inspired to run for office after watching her daughter Sophie, then 6, talk about guns and kids on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. After founding a statewide political action committee called Harriet’s List, she was elected to office in 2009, where she’s built a reputation of being tough on firearms.
Her Twitter bio, beneath a pink StandWithPP picture, describes her as: “wife, Mom, Nana, obsessive about reproductive justice, voters rights, women’s rights, equality & of course—gun violence prevention.”
Her bill, first reported on by St. Louis Magazine, isn’t modeled after the general restrictions to getting an abortion in America, but her state’s specifically. Missouri has some of the toughest in the nation. Missouri is one of just a few states operating with fewer than five abortion clinics, and one of four that enforces a 72-hour waiting period.
Beyond the difficulty of getting an abortion in Missouri, Newman’s bill was likely inspired by the level of firearm violence in her state. In 2010 Missouri’s rate of homicide, 5.6 per 100,000 people, was 56 percent higher than the national average—making it the fourth-highest in the nation. Gun deaths in the state have surpassed motor vehicle fatalities since 2013.
When The Daily Beast asked Newman for the impetus behind the bill, she replied, “utter frustration.”
“We were at our wit’s end,” she said. After spending 15 years arguing against guns the traditional way, she decided to get creative.
This bill, she knows, will never get a hearing, much less approved. That’s not the point.
“I’m on the defense team, I understand that,” she said. “A lot of my job is getting the word out there.”
Using an unconventional bill to raise awareness for an issue is a move she’s tried before. In 2012, she introduced a bill that would prohibit men from getting vasectomies unless the procedure was meant to prevent serious injury or death.
After the story gained traction this year, Newman decided to try the radical method again—this time using an issue for which conservatives have an “endless appetite”: abortion access.
There is only one abortion clinic in the entire state. There are at least 3,000 places to buy guns. But what if those numbers were reversed? From attending the funeral of a gun victim under 18, to watching videos of fatal firearm injuries, here is what it would look like if buying a gun in Missouri was as difficult as getting an abortion.
Prior to any firearm purchase in this state, a prospective firearm shall:
— Confer and discuss with a licensed physician the indicators and contraindicators and risk factors, including any physical, psychological, or situational factors, that may arise with the proposed firearm purchase at a firearm dealer located at least 120 miles from the purchaser’s legal residence.
— Submit to an evaluation for the physician to search the individual for indicators and contraindicators and risk factors and determine if such firearm purchase would increase the purchaser’s risk of experiencing an adverse physical, emotional, or other health reaction.
— Listen to oral statement regarding the risks associated with the purchase as well as read and sign a written statement that includes the following:
1. The name and license number of the licensed firearm dealer.
2. The immediate and long-term medical risks associated with firearms, along with medical descriptions and photographs of fatal firearm injuries, as collected by emergency pediatric medical professionals, law enforcement, and prosecutors’ offices.
3. Alternatives to purchasing a firearm, which shall include materials about peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution.
4. A statement that the dealer is available to answer any questions concerning the purchase of a firearm, together with the telephone number of the dealer that the dealer may be reached to answer any questions the purchaser may have.
5. The prospective firearm purchaser shall obtain written consent of his or her parents in order to qualify for the purchase of any firearm.
— Watch a 30-minute video on fatal firearm injuries, as collected by urban medical professionals, law enforcement, and local prosecutors, and verify in writing he or she viewed the entire video in the presence of a licensed firearm dealer.
— Verify in writing by a licensed physician that the purchaser has toured an emergency trauma center in the nearest qualified urban hospital on a weekend between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. when gun violence victims are present.
— Within 72 hours of a firearm purchase, the prospective firearm purchaser meet with at least two families who have been victims of violence involving a firearm and two local faith leaders who have officiated, within the past year, a funeral of a victim of violence involving a firearm who was under the age of eighteen.
Perhaps if these measures were in place, Newman suggests, some of the more than 32,000 people who die from gun violence in the U.S. each year would be saved. It’s a sentiment echoed eloquently in a now-viral Facebook post by Brian Murtagh, who suggested (like Newman) that we treat young men who want to buy guns the same as we treat women who want an abortion.
“Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun,” he writes. “It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right? I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?”
With 20 to 30 abortion bills filed each year, Newman wants to capitalize on the momentum. Mirroring the restrictions for abortion access, she says, allowed her to show the “ridiculousness” of both the pro-gun lobby and the pro-life one.
“If this is one way that I can influence a voter to keep this their number one issue, then it’s something,” she said. “It’s something.”
Correction 12/4/15 3:45 p.m.: A previous version of this article stated that Missouri had two abortion clinics. It has one.
By: Abby Haglage, The Daily Beast, December 4, 2015
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