In an article published July 17, 2011, journalist Frank Bruni stated: “Massacre after massacre hasn’t changed this nation’s mind-boggling blitheness about guns.” He was specifically referring to the newly elected, gun-toting, freshman Arizona state senator Lori Klein, who appeared just two days after the Arizona massacre for her swearing-in ceremony proudly showing off her Ruger. Senator Klein was questioned about her handgun, to which she replied, “Oh, it’s so cute.” Bruni responded in his article: “No, Senator Klein, it’s a potentially deadly weapon. When are you and the rest of the country going to wake up to that?”
In 2008, State Senator Eric Schneiderman (elected in 2010 as New York state attorney general) partnered with Assemblywoman Schimel to sponsor the Microstamping Bill, which would require legislation to encode or microstamp bullets in order to trace their origin. Schneiderman and Schimel admit that microstamping will not prevent gun violence, but at least it will be a viable means to assist law enforcement in tracing gun ownership. The Microstamping Bill was passed by the state assembly but has still not been passed by the Senate.
A poignant example for the need to pass the Microstamping Bill was made after the horrific shooting of Maurice Gordon in June 2010. Gordon, an off-duty customs and protection officer, was shot twenty-five times. Twenty-five shell casings were recovered, but still his murderer remains free. With only anonymous shell casings as evidence, the Gordon family has been denied justice and closure.
Andrew Cuomo compellingly stated the necessity for microstamping on November 2, 2010, during his gubernatorial campaign. He said:
We must keep our communities safe. Gun violence remains one of our most serious problems. We must enact common-sense safety laws, such as requiring the microstamping of guns. Microstamping, a pro-law enforcement, low-cost method of expanding the ability of police to identify guns used in illegal activities, would require all new semiautomatic handguns to be equipped with microscopic identifying markings, which are transferred to each cartridge when the firearm is fired.
Tragically, we learn daily about ordinary citizens who are murdered. Gun violence is a cancer on our society that is growing unchecked. A single bullet can extinguish the life of an innocent person. In the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, little Christina Taylor Green succumbed to one bullet to her chest. Constant gun violence occurs in homes, on the streets, in places of worship, in shopping areas, and on high school and college campuses—all because of the easy accessibility of handguns. When guns end up in the wrong hands, we see suicides, accidental deaths, and homicides. Handguns are easily obtained. They are often stolen. There is the gun-show loophole where anyone can purchase a gun “no questions asked.” We frequently read that someone on the police force was shot because a gun landed in the wrong hands.
After his election, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo further emphasized his concern about gun violence. His speech at a breakfast in which he forcefully reiterated how gun violence has impacted the lives of every citizen in Harlem on November 18, 2011, was reported in the Daily News. “This recent rash of gun violence should concern us all, because it’s frightening and it’s only getting worse,” he said. The governor made these concluding remarks: “It has been decades where we have been fighting Washington for sensible laws controlling guns, and we need those laws passed, and we need them passed now.”
An individual’s right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment has caused heated controversy regarding gun possession between the pro-gun and gun-safety advocates.
It is a war being waged against the growing number of deaths due to gun violence between reasonable people and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on the one side and the well-financed and unyielding power of the National Rifle Association (NRA) whose mantra is defense of the Second Amendment. Any concern the NRA may have to protect human life is outweighed by their almost fanatical desire to resist all regulation of firearms.
Leah Gunn Barrett, the executive director of the non-profit gun safety organization New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV), said, “It’s interesting to note that the NRA receives millions of dollars each year from gun manufacturers, so in essence it is an industry organization, not a public grassroots, public-advocacy/gun-safety organization. Their main reason for resisting common-sense gun laws is that regulations such as background checks would cut into gun sales. Making guns with safety features such as chamber-load indicators, triggers with enough pressure so a child cannot pull the trigger, Smart Guns that can only be fired by their owners, would mean additional cost. It’s all about the bottom line.”
Gun-safety advocates accept the right to bear arms for hunting and legitimate self-defense purposes. Shooting animals is one thing—shooting human beings is another.
Richard Aborn, activist and New York City attorney, has worked tirelessly to prevent gun violence. He was president of Handgun Control, Inc. (now called the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) when the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban were passed. At present, he is president of the Citizen Crime Commission of New York City and a board member of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. In 1993, Mr. Aborn stated, “The NRA claimed that they vigorously fought [the Brady Bill] at every turn and every step—because it was the nose of the camel [under the tent]. Today we would like to tell you what the rest of the camel looks like.”
The gun lobby fiercely defends the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The National Rifle Association claims that guns should be owned by everyone as a matter of self-defense, asserting that therefore no deaths will occur. Such utter nonsense!
This salient point was expressed in Ellen Zelda Kessner’s book After the Violence, which was written more than thirty years ago. The book, a wrenching account of the murder in Los Angeles of her twenty-eight-year-old daughter Sheryl, describes the brutality of her death and the extremist power of the National Rifle Association. Mrs. Kessner writes about the conversation she had with the district attorney after the sentencing of her daughter’s murderer: “You still belong to Handgun Control?” he asked. Mrs. Kessner nodded her head to confirm that she did, surprised at the reaction of the district attorney, who repeated his NRA mantra: “If your son-in-law had a gun, your daughter would be alive today.”
Mrs. Kessner continues to articulate this twisted thinking:
Eleven years later, a double murder on my street confirmed the wrongness of this fantasy. Christmas Eve 1991, while my son’s former classmate was fleeing from her dangerous boyfriend to cousins in the Bronx, her dad, a retired court officer, knowing the rifle-toting stalker would come looking for her first in his house, sat braced in his kitchen with his gun cocked. But the boyfriend broke down the door and shot him first. Then he shot his son, a court officer, too. Also armed.
This is America, supposedly a humane society, and yet we witness tragic deaths daily due to gun violence.
Sensible legislation is continually being explored by thoughtful people and organizations. One of the proposals is to initiate a waiting period before one can own a gun. In 1993, US Attorney General Janet Reno stated, “Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal.” In that same year, Senator Charles Schumer of New York said, “We’re going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We’re going to beat guns into submission!”
The Schumer and Reno quotes are humane but unrealistic in 2013 and just as uncompromising as the NRA. Gun safety individuals/organizations do not want to abolish legal gun ownership; rather the goal is to have reasonable discussions with gun lobbyists for sensible legislation. So it remains at a standstill.
Much has changed in the twenty-first century since the early 90s. Gun violence has escalated. The NRA has become more powerful than ever, adamantly unwilling to change their views regarding the Second Amendment. They consider background checks to be unconstitutional