U.S. Still Averaging Over One Mass Shooting Every Day

 

There is another mass shooting making the national news. This time it's in a private christian school. A 15-year-old girl killed a teacher and a fellow student and injured several others before killing herself

I'm sure the congressional Republicans will send another truck load of thoughts and prayers, but that won't help those shot and it won't prevent other school shootings or mass shootings in the future. But they will do nothing to help prevent the deaths of innocent children and adults.

If we just look at the mass shootings (where at least four people have been shot), it might look like these shootings don't happen very often. But that is not true. Mass shootings did decline slightly this year, but they still average about 1.34 for every day of the year (according to the Gun Violence Archive). In any other developed country that would be unacceptable - but not in the United States.

U.S. politicians (mainly Republicans) have decided that its more important for criminals and other dangerous people to have access to the gun of their choice than to save innocent lives.

Meanwhile, a majority of the public would like to see stricter gun laws, and an overwhelming majority want to see the loopholes in the background check law closed - so criminals, terrorist sympathizers, abusers, and the dangerous portion of the mentally ill cannot buy or receive a gun.

Republicans claim they are protecting the right of Americans to own a gun. But no one is trying to deny any law-abiding citizen from purchasing or possessing a gun. We just want to make it harder for dangerous people to get one.

Republicans will also try to claim this teenage girl had mental problems. That doesn't really matter. The one thing she had in common with all other mass shooters is access to a gun. How and where was she able to get a gun?

It doesn't have to be this way. We shouldn't be leading the developed world in both mass shootings and gun deaths. But until voters get serious about preventing the shootings and deaths (instead of just offering "thoughts and prayers", it will keep happening at epidemic levels.

Politicians who want to protect the right of dangerous people to get a gun should be voted out of office.

U.S. Public Wants Stricter Gun Laws

 

The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 8th and 10th of a nationwide sample of 1,626 adults, with a 3.3 point margin of error.

The Mass Shooting In A Georgia School Is Just One Of Many

Another mass shooting is making the national news. This time it is in a Georgia High School, where a 14 year old killed four people (2 students and 2 teachers) and wounded several others. 

But that mass shooting (a shooting where at least four people are shot) is just one of many this year. Most of them don't make the national news. In the first 248 days of this year, there have been 385 mass shootings in the United States. That's an average of 1.55 mass shootings every day!

And once again, we are hearing Republicans offer up thoughts and prayers. But thoughts and prayers don't save innocent lives - and they don't stop or slow the mass shootings. The only thing that will do that is the passage of sensible gun laws.

Republicans oppose all gun laws and restrictions. They claim passing any gun laws will impinge of the right of citizens to buy and own a gun. That's a lie!

The right to buy and own a gun is not absolute. The Supreme Court has ruled that reasonable gun laws are constitutional - including who can buy a gun, where they can carry that gun, and what kind of gun can be bought or possessed. 

The court has ruled that criminals and other dangerous individuals may be restricted from buying or possessing a firearm of any kind. They upheld the background check law passed many years ago. But sadly, that background check law was full of holes, and allowed many dangerous people to purchase a gun without a background check. Republicans refuse to plug the holes in that law - even though between 80% and 90% of the public wants it done.

The 14 year old Georgia shooter had an assault-style weapon. That's not unusual any more. Many, if not most, mass shootings have been done with an assault weapon. Unfortunately, our politicians let the ban on those weapons expire (even though the Supreme Court had ruled it was constitutional). 

The ban on assault weapons needs to be reinstated. And any assault weapons allowed must be registered and required to have liability insurance in a significant amount. There is no legitimate reason to allow these kind of weapons to proliferate in our society.

I am not advocating anything that would violate the Second Amendment. But we need to pass reasonable and constitutional restrictions on guns that would keep them out of the hands of dangerous people while allowing decent and law-abiding citizens to own a gun.

That's not going to happen as long as Republicans have the power to block those laws. They must be voted out of power - and the coming November election is a great opportunity to do that. Vote for gun sanity. Vote for Democrats.

52% Of Voters Now Live In A Household With A Gun

The chart above reflects the results of the new NBC News Poll -- done between November 10th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 registered voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.

It shows that a record 52% of registered voters now live in a household where someone owns a gun. That's 10 points higher than in 2013 (42%), and 6 points higher than 2016 (46%). Evidently, more people now believe they are safer with a gun in the house.

They are wrong. A family member is far more likely to be killed (or injured) by a gun in those households than in a household with no gun. This is simply not the way to a safer society.

I am not one of those who believes the Second Amendment doesn't actually give Americans the right to own a gun. It clearly does. But like other constitutional rights, it is not absolute. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are limits to the right (such as the kind of weapon that can be owned and the loss of the right by dangerous people such as felons).

But I cannot believe that the route to a safer society is more gun ownership. The real route to a safer society is to control who is able to legally buy a gun. Most people know this. Over 80% of adults (including most gun owners) would like to see a stricter background check law on gun purchases (or gifts).

A strict background check law would not impinge of the right of law-abiding citizens to buy or receive a gun, because they could easily pass the check. Failure to pass such a law doesn't protect the rights of law-abiding citizens (as Republicans claim). It just allows dangerous people (like felons) to legally buy a gun.

This must be changed, but it will only happen when politicians opposing a background check law (mainly Republicans) are voted out of office.

U.S. Is Averaging Over 57 Mass Shootings A Month

 

Another mass shooting is making national headlines. This time a right-winger in Maine killed 18 people and wounded over a dozen more. But that is just one of many mass shootings happening in this country. Most of them just don't make the national news.

As I write this, the United States has had 573 mass shooting this year - an average of 57.3 mass shooting each month. And there are still two months to go in the year.

No other developed nation has anywhere near this massive number of mass shootings, or deaths by guns (35,607 so far this year). 

Republicans in Congress are blocking any kind of solution to this problem. They claim to be protecting the Second Amendment right to possess a firearm. But that claim is specious. They want you to believe the right to own a gun is absolute, but no right in our constitution is absolute -- not even the right to vote or the right to free speech (and the GOP supports restriction on both of those).

The Maine shooter has some psychological problems in his past. Republicans will use that to claim the massive number of mass shootings and gun deaths is due to mental illness. That is a lame excuse at best. Other nations also have mentally ill people, and the number of mentally ill in the United States is no larger than in those countries. They just don't make it easy for the mentally ill to by or possess firearms.

Republicans also claim the shootings are due to the diminishing number of religious people in the country. But most European countries are less religious than the United States, and they don't have the problem with shootings.

Republicans have also tried to claim the shootings are due to the proliferation of violent video games -- another lame excuse. Other nations have the same video games without having the problems with mass shootings or gun deaths.

The truth is the United States has too many guns floating around in the country (significantly more guns than people in the country), and it is too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to buy and possess any kind of firearm they want (including weapons of war designed to kill as many people as possible in a short period of time).

It doesn't have to be this way. There are reasonable and constitutional solutions to the problem. While it may not be possible to completely eliminate mass shootings and gun deaths, they could be drastically reduced with some sensible gun laws.

The following measures would save many lives without violating the Second Amendment:

1. Close the holes in the national background check law. The current weak law allows too many people to avoid having to get a background check when purchasing a weapon. This failure just benefits criminals, since law-abiding citizens could easily pass a background check. And the measure is supported by over 80% of the population (including a significant majority of gun owners).

2. Ban assault weapons. These are the choice of most mass shooters. Other weapons of war are banned (machine guns, tanks, etc.), and so should assault-style rifles. Other weapons are better for hunting and self-defense. There was a ban on them for a few years, and the mass shootings were reduced. A new ban could accomplish the same.

3. Ban ammunition magazines holding more than 10 cartridges. The more a mass shooter has to reload, the better chance a person has of stopping him.

4. Red Flag Laws. This would allow the police to take guns away from people whose pose a credible threat to others.

These sensible and constitutional measures would save many thousands of American lives. Sadly though, none of them will happen as long as there are enough Republicans in government to veto them. These Republican politicians have sold their soul to the gun industry, and they would rather protect corporate profits than save American lives.

If you want to stop the carnage, then remember this when you go to the polls to vote.

The Gun Law Scorecard Of The States

 

From The Annual Gun Law Scorecard by the Giffords Law Center.

The Epidemic Of Gun Violence Won't Be Fixed By Republicans

The United States has more gun murders than any other developed nation.

The United States has more gun suicides than any other developed nation.

The United States has more mass shootings than any other developed nation.

The United States has more mass murders by gun than any other developed nation.

The United States has more injuries from gun violence than any other developed nation.

Those things are not true by a small margin, but by a very large margin. For instance, the United States has about 37 gun murders per 100,000 people, while Italy (which finishes second) has only 0.68 gun murders per 100,000 people.

Republican officials, who refuse to pass stricter gun laws, have offered several excuses. Some say it is because of violent video games. But all of the other developed nations have the same violent video games and it has not caused gun violence to rise in their countries.

Some GOP officials claim it is because religion, especially christianity, is becoming less popular in the country. That doesn't make sense either. The other developed nations are nearly all less christian (and less religious in general) than the United States.

Perhaps the biggest excuse Republicans cling to is to claim the gun violence is due to mental illness. But the percentage of the population with mental illness is not any larger in the United States than in any of the other developed nations.

The excuses simply do not work. We all know why gun violence is so prevalent in the United States, whether Republicans want to admit it or not.

IT IS THE GUNS!!!

The United States has enough guns floating around to arm every single man, woman, and child in the country -- and have a few million guns left over.

And too many states allow anyone to easily get any kind of gun (and as much ammunition) as they want. And many of them allow people to openly carry those guns anywhere they want.

I am not talking about restricting gun ownership by decent and law-abiding citizens (as the Republicans like to claim). We can have sensible gun laws and still protect the right of law-abiding citizens to own a gun. 

Plugging the holes in our background check law would not prevent law-abiding citizens from purchasing to owning a firearm. But failing to do that just makes it easy for dangerous people (criminals, terrorists, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers) to buy and carry the firearm of their choice.

Banning the sales of assault-style rifles would not prevent law-abiding citizens from owning firearms to protect themselves or engage in hunting. Those weapons are only good for killing large amounts of people in a very short period of time. We do not allow citizens to own other weapons of war (like machine guns, rocket launchers, etc.). We should not allow assault-style rifles either, especially since they have become the weapon of choice in mass shootings.

Republicans are not going to pass any sensible gun laws. They only engage in excuses, thoughts, and prayers -- none of which will save any American lives.

Most Americans say they want some stricter (and constitutional) gun laws. But they must carry that conviction to the ballot box. Re-electing gun-loving Republicans will not get anything done. It will just make sure the epidemic of gun violence continues.

We need two parties willing to debate and compromise to solve the country's problems. Sadly, today's Republican Party is not willing to compromise. Until they are, they must be voted out of power.

The lives of many thousands of innocent Americans depends on it.

It's Been 10 Years And Nothing Has Been Done By Congress

Ten years ago, a criminal armed with an assault-style rifle entered an elementary school I'm Connecticut and killed 20 6 and 7 year old children and six adult teachers. Reasonable people thought surely this would cause Congress to pass some sensible gun laws -- like banning assault-style weapons and closing the huge loopholes in the background check law.

We were wrong. Congress has done virtually NOTHING that would prevent a repeat of Sandy Hook -- and indeed, it has been repeated in Uvalde, Texas. 

As of December 14th, 628 mass shootings have occurred in the United States this year -- and 42,167 people have died from gun violence.

Republicans whine about the Second Amendment as the reason they refuse to pass sensible gun laws. But neither an assault-style weapon ban nor background checks for ALL gun buyers would violate the Constitution's Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has already ruled about both, and found the constitutional.

The truth is that too many politicians (mainly Republicans) consider gun manufacturer profits (and the campaign donations from them) to be more important than the lives of Americans (both children and adults).

This will not change until these politicians, who have the blood of children on their hands, are voted out of office.

Fixing The Background Checks Law Would Save Lives

 

There is a simple and constitutional way to cut down on gun violence and save many American lives -- just plug the holes in the national background checks law for anyone wanting to buy a gun. Between 80% and 90% of citizens support doing that (including a large majority of gun owners). Sadly, Congress won't do that (mainly because the Republicans don't want to do it).

Robert Gebelhoff has an excellent article on ways to reduce gun violence in this country. Below is what he had to say about background checks in The Washington Post:

Federal law requires background checks to obtain a gun, but those checks are extremely porous.

Under federal law, only licensed gun dealers have to perform these checks; private individuals and many online retailers don’t. It’s hard to pin down exactly how many guns are legally acquired without a background check, but some surveys put it upward of 22 percent.

Some states go beyond federal law and require background checks for all gun sales. But since it’s so easy for guns to travel across state lines, it’s hard to judge the effectiveness of these policies on gun deaths.

Still, there’s evidence that such expanded background checks can help limit the flow of guns into illegal markets. We also know that most gun offenders obtain their weapons through unlicensed sellers. One survey of state prison inmates convicted of offenses committed with guns in 13 states found that only 13 percent obtained their guns from a seller that had to conduct a background check. Nearly all those who were supposed to be prohibited from possessing a firearm got theirs from suppliers that didn’t have to conduct a background check. Closing that loophole federally might help.

What else can we do to strengthen background checks? Four possibilities:

Close the “Charleston Loophole”

Most gun background checks are instant. But some — around 9 percent — take more time, and federal law says if a check takes more than three business days, the sale can proceed. As a result, thousands of people who are not supposed have access to guns ended up getting them, as the Government Accountability Office reported.

Among the people who benefited from this loophole? Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. Ending this practice would save lives.

Close the “Boyfriend Gap”

An estimated 70 women each month are killed with guns by spouses or dating partners, according to a 2019 analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by Everytown for Gun Safety.

Federal law prevents anyone with domestic violence misdemeanors from having a gun, but that law is defined narrowly and doesn’t include all domestic violence perpetrators — for example, boyfriends. More specifically, the law doesn’t keep guns from abusers who are not married, do not live with their partner or do not share a child with them.

Some states have expanded on federal law — and it works. One studyfound that rates of domestic-violence-related homicide decline 7 percent after a state passes such laws.

Implement waiting periods

The evidence that waiting periods to acquire guns reduce violent crime is limited. But there’s more evidence that they prevent suicides.

Research shows that people who buy handguns are at higher risk of suicide within a week of the purchase, and that waiting periods can keep them from using guns to harm themselves. In fact, one study found that when South Dakota repealed its 48-hour waiting period in 2012, suicides jumped 7.6 percent in the following year.

Improve reporting on mental health

Mental illness is associated with a relatively small portion (around 5 percent) of gun homicides. Federal law already prohibits anyone committed to a mental-health facility or deemed dangerous or lacking all mental capacities through a legal proceeding from having a gun.

But mental-health records are notoriously spotty. There’s limited evidence that improved reporting at the state level might reduce violent crimes. Connecticut started reporting mental-health data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in 2007, and one study found that violent crimes committed by people with mental illness there significantly decreased.

We can also make it easier for family members to seek court orders to disarm relatives who might do harm to themselves. In Connecticut, which has allowed this since 1999, one study estimated that the law averted 72 suicide attempts through 2013 from being fatal.

Most In The U.S. Still Want Stricter Gun Laws

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll -- done between October 3rd and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,009 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Mass Shootings Are Not Rare In U.S. - They're Daily Events

 

There is another mass shooting in the United States that's making headlines nationwide -- this time in Highland Park, Illinois. A 21 year-old idiot killed 7 people and wounded dozens with an assault-style weapon.

If you got all of your information on mass shootings from the national news, you might think mass shootings are fairly rare in the U.S. -- after all, it's been a couple of weeks since the last one. But you would be mistaken. They are not rare. They are commonplace.

Last year, there were 692 mass shootings in the United States according to the Gun Violence Archive. That is nearly two mass shootings for every day in that year. And they are not subsiding. As I write this, there have already been 315 mass shootings this year -- and we are just entering the summer months (the prime time for mass shootings).

Mass shootings are very rare in other developed nations. It is only in the United States that they are more than a daily event. 

Republicans would like for you to believe that it's because of the mentally ill. But most mass shooters are not mentally ill, and most of the mentally ill are not dangerous. The U.S. doesn't have any more mentally ill people than any other developed nation.

What we have more of - a lot more - is guns. We have over 400 million guns in this country with a population of only about 330 million people. And our laws are loose enough to allow anyone (including criminals and other dangerous people) to buy any kind of gun they want.

It doesn't have to be this way. We could pass some stricter (and constitutional) laws to control gun violence in this country. We could close the loopholes in the background check law. We could ban the purchase of assault-style weapons (the choice of most mass shooters). We could restrict the size of ammunition magazines. And we could pass a national red-flag law to take guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

All of the above are constitutional, and none would take guns away from honest and law-abiding people. Those who say it would are LYING!

Sadly, we have one political party that has decided guns are more important that American lives. They refuse to pass any kind of gun laws. Some of them voted for a rather weak bipartisan bill recently, but that bill did nothing that would actually curb gun violence in the country -- keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Nothing will be done until gun-loving Republicans are voted out of office. It is up to the voters. Do you want politicians that will protect guns, or politicians that will protect the lives of innocent people.

2 Out Of 3 Voters Support Stricter Gun Control Laws

This chart is from the Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between June 10th and 12th of a national sample of 2,005 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

Australia Had A Gun Culture & Fixed Their Problem With Gun Violence - Why Can't The U.S.?

Gun lovers like to claim that we can't get rid of gun violence in the U.S. because the U.S. has historically been a gun culture. But that ignores the fact that other countries have historically had a very similar culture. One of those is Australia. But they solved their problem with gun violence (and did that under a Conservative government). 

Here is an op-ed on that by Aaron Timms in The New York Times:

Within hours of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month, as President Biden flew home from a trip to Asia, he found himself wondering why liberal democracies like Australia, Canada and Britain can get gun violence under control, while America has tried for decades without success. “They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes,” he said in an address to the nationlater that night. “They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that they happen in America. Why?”

It’s easy to imagine his mind lingering on Australia. After a bitter fight with rural gun owners and conservative activists, Australia introduced sweeping measures to restrict gun access in the wake of a 1996 shooting that left 35 dead. The reforms were truly comprehensive in scope and included a ban on all automatic and semiautomatic shotguns, stringent licensing and permit requirements, and the introduction of compulsory safety courses for all gun owners, who were also required to provide a genuine reason for owning a firearm that could not include self-defense. The federal government also announced a gun amnesty and federal buyback that led to more than 650,000 weapons being surrendered to the police and destroyed.

Mass shootings and firearm deaths, including suicides, have markedly declined in the 26 years since Australia reformed its gun laws. To Mr. Biden, crossing the Pacific Ocean on Air Force One, that story must have offered a glimmer of hope, a sign that sometimes, countries can change, reducing gun violence and tragedy. If it could happen in Australia, why not in the United States?

Like America, Australia was a European settler colony, founded in the blood of massacred Indigenous people, and has a frontier myth in which guns and conquest have played a historically important cultural role. America had its cowboys, buckaroos and gunslingers; Australia its squatters, drovers and bushrangers. And like America, Australia today is a multiethnic state-based federation in which gun-friendly rural areas enjoy considerable political influence.

But these similarities tell only part of the story. Australia’s success in pushing through gun reform in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was mostly the result of timing, luck and the idiosyncrasies of the Australian Constitution. On gun policy, the fundamental differences between Australia and America outnumber the similarities. If anything, a closer examination of Australia’s success with gun reform reveals the magnitude of the task ahead for America.

Resistance to gun reform in Australia had been fierce in the years leading up to Port Arthur. In 1987 two massacres in Melbourne left a total of 15 people dead and placed the issue of gun control firmly on the national political agenda. But the firearms lobby and lawmakers in gun-friendly states like Queensland and Tasmania worked to frustrate efforts at federal reform. Part of the problem, and an obvious point of similarity with the situation in the United States today, was that guns were mostly regulated by the states, which made reform dependent on national coordination.

Mere weeks before the Port Arthur massacre, a federal election was held that saw the conservatives — a coalition between the mostly urban and suburban center-right Liberal Party and the rural National Party — return to power after 13 years in opposition. The magnitude of their victory gave the incoming government an overwhelming mandate. Capitalizing on the depth of revulsion across Australia at the slaughter in Port Arthur, the new prime minister, John Howard, moved quickly to push through reforms, coordinated across all the states, that had stalled in the wake of earlier shootings.

The Australian gun lobby did not take these changes lying down. Gun owners protested against reform in the thousands. Effigies of the National Party leader, Tim Fischer, were burned at several rural demonstrations, and Mr. Howard took the extraordinary measure of addressing a crowd of gun supporters in the Victorian coastal town of Sale in a bulletproof vest. (He later said that he regretted wearing the vest.) But as in the United States, the 1990s in Australia were a politically more innocent time, with less polarization, more bipartisan agreement on basic issues of justice and fairness, and a less toxic media environment than the one we have become accustomed to.

It still took conviction and courage for conservative leaders to stand up to their constituents and advocate change. Mr. Fischer, in particular, faced fearsome opposition within his own party to his support for Mr. Howard’s reforms, and these divisions created real, lasting damage, permanently poisoning the country’s political discourse. But reform was still possible, thanks in large part to the shared norm of bipartisanship and the willingness of conservatives, acting on principle, to risk alienating their base.

In addition, Australia faced none of the structural or constitutional obstacles standing in the way of gun reform here in the United States. Australia does not have anything resembling the Second Amendment. It has no filibuster, no Bill of Rights and no constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. The Australian Constitution explicitly codifies a handful of other rights like the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion, and Australia’s High Court has ruled that the Constitution contains an implied right to freedom of political communication. But on guns the country’s founding document has nothing to say. The great drama of contemporary Australian jurisprudence is about enshrining, rather than removing, rights within the Constitution, making the debate on individual rights and freedoms in Australia quite distinct from the one in America.

Australia loses as much as it gains from this constitutional deficiency — a point that’s often lost in American media coverage of gun policy in the emotional days that follow a mass shooting. Compared with the herculean effort that would be required to repeal the Second Amendment, Australia’s gun reforms entered into law relatively easily. But without a Bill of Rights, there’s no constitutional framework in Australia to prevent the mandatory and indefinite detention of asylum seekers, or to insulate free speech from the chilling effect of defamation suits.

The Port Arthur gunman reportedly chose his site, a former penal colony turned into an open-air museum, in part as a homage to Australia’s bloody history of colonial violence: The weakness of Australia’s architecture of express individual freedoms may have inadvertently helped put an end to frequent mass shootings, but the absence of a Bill of Rights is also, arguably, one of the reasons Indigenous Australians, those dispossessed and murdered by the same people who built Port Arthur, continue to endure life expectancy and standards of living well below the national average.

And despite the very real drop in gun violence witnessed across Australia since the mid-1990s, signs of erosion in the national framework of gun control have recently begun to emerge. There are now more guns in Australia than there were at the time of the Port Arthur massacre (3.8 million in 2020 compared with 3.2 million in 1996), and a quietly resurgent gun lobby is spending, on a per-capita basis, about as much as the N.R.A., according to a recent report. Stringent gun control standards have not stopped Australia from incubating its own radicalized killers and exporting violence abroad: The gunman in the 2019 Christchurch massacre that left 51 dead was an Australian.

So the Australian experience of gun control resists easy translation to America. But if Australia is to serve as any kind of example, it is for the bravery and principle shown by conservative and rural leaders, often at great cost to their own political fortunes, in making the case for reform to their gun-loving constituents. Character of this caliber may be far harder to extract from the ranks of today’s Republican Party than it was from Australia’s conservatives in the 1990s.

Public Wants Change - Doesn't Expect Congress To Do it

 

The charts above are from a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between June 3rd and 6th of a national sample of 1,576 adults, with a 2.5 point margin of error.

Strong Public Support For These 4 Changes To Gun Law

The charts above reflect the results of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 4th and 7th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,314 registered voters). The margin of error is 2.7 points for adults, and 2.9 points for registered voters. There is huge support for these changes.
 

M. McConaughey Makes Powerful Speech For Gun Laws

On Tuesday, Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, made a powerful speech pleading for reasonable and constitutional gun restrictions to save American lives. In the photo above, his wife holds the green Converse shoes of one of the victims of the Uvalde tragedy. Those shoes were the only way the tiny girls could be identified due to the awful damage the AR-15 rifle made to her body.

Here is what Mr. McConaughey had to say in the press conference held in the White House press room:

My wife and I — my wife and I — Camila — we spent most of last week on the ground with the families in Uvalde, Texas, and we shared stories, tears, and memories.

The common thread, independent of the anger and the confusion and sadness, it was the same: How can these families continue to honor these deaths by keeping the dreams of these children and teachers alive? 

Again, how can the loss of these lives matter?

So while we honor and acknowledge the victims, we need to recognize that this time it seems that something is different.  There is a sense that perhaps there is a viable path forward.  Responsible parties in this debate seem to at least be committed to sitting down and having a real conversation about a new and improved path forward — a path that can bring us closer together and make us safer as a country, a path that can actually get something done this time.

Camila and I came here to share my stories from my hometown of Uvalde.  I came here to take meetings with elected officials on both sides of the aisle.  We came here to speak to them, to speak with them, and to urge them to speak with each other — to remind and inspire them that the American people will continue to drive forward the mission of keeping our children safe, because it’s more than our right to do so, it’s our responsibility to do so.

I’m here today in the hopes of applying what energy, reason, and passion that I have into trying to turn this moment into a reality.  Because as I said, this moment is different.  We are in a window of opportunity right now that we have not been in before, a window where it seems like real change — real change can happen.

Uvalde, Texas, is where I was born.  It’s where my mom taught kindergarten less than a mile from Robb Elementary.  Uvalde is where I learned to master a Daisy BB gun.  I took that — that took two years before I graduated to a 410 shotgun.  Uvalde is where I was taught to revere the power and the capability of the tool that we call a gun.  Uvalde is where I learned responsible gun ownership.

And Uvalde called me on May 24th, when I learned the news of this devastating tragedy.  I had been out of cellular range working in the studio all day when I emerged and messages about a mass shooting in the town I was born in began flooding my inbox. 

In a bit of shock, I drove home, hugged my children a bit tighter and longer than the night before, and then the reality of what had happened that day in the town I was born in set in.

So the next morning, Camila, myself, and the kids, we loaded up the truck and drove to Uvalde.  And when we arrived a few hours later, I got to tell you, even from the inside of our vehicle, you could feel the shock in the town.  You could feel the pain, the denial, the disillusion, anger, blame, sadness, loss of lives, dreams halted.

We saw ministries.  We saw first responders, counselors, cooks, families trying to grieve without it being on the frontpage news.

We met with the local funeral director and countless morticians who — who hadn’t slept since the massacre the day before because they’d been working 24/7 trying to handle so many bodies at once — so many little, innocent bodies who had their entire lives still yet to live.

And that is there that we met two of the grieving parents, Ryan and Jessica Ramirez.  Their 10-year-old daughter, Alithia — she was one of the 19 children that were killed the day before.

Now, Alithia — her dream was to go to art school in Paris and one day share her art with the world.  Ryan and Jessica were eager to share Alithia’s art with us, and said if we could share it, then somehow maybe that would make Alithia smile in heaven.  They told us that showing someone else Alithia’s art would in some way keep her alive.

Now, this particular drawing is a — is a self-portrait of Alithia drawing, with her friend in heaven looking down on her drawing the very same picture.  Her mother said, of this drawing — she said, “You know, we never really talked to her about heaven before, but somehow she knew.” 

Alithia was 10 years old.

Her father, Ryan — this man was steady.  He was uncommonly together and calm.  When a frazzled friend of his came up and said, “How are you so calm?  I’d be going crazy,” Ryan told him — he said, “No, you wouldn’t.  No, you wouldn’t.  You’d be strong for your wife and kids, because if they see you go crazy, that will not help them.”

Just a week prior, Ryan got a full-time line job stringing powerlines from pole to pole.  And every day since landing that well-paying, full-time job, he reminded his daughter, Alithia — he said, “Girl, Daddy going to spoil you now.”  Told her every single night.  He said, “Daddy is going to take you to SeaWorld one day.

But he didn’t get to — he didn’t get to spoil his daughter, Alithia.  She did not get to go to SeaWorld.

We also met Ana and Dani- — Danilo, the mom and the stepdad of nine-year-old Maite Rodriguez.  And Maite wanted to be a marine biologist.  She was already in contact with Corpus Christi University of A&M for her future college enrollment.  Nine years old.

Maite cared for the environment so strongly that when the city asked her mother if they could release some balloons into the sky in her memory, her mom said, “Oh no, Maite wouldn’t want to litter.”

Maite wore green high-top Converse with a heart she had hand-drawn on the right toe because they represented her love of nature.

Camila has got these shoes.  Can you show these shoes, please? 

Wore these every day.  Green Converse with a heart on the right toe.  These are the same green Converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting.  How about that? 

Maite wrote a letter.  Her mom said if Maite’s letter could help someone accomplish her dream, that then her death would have an impact, and it would mean her dying had a point and wasn’t pointless — that it would make the loss of her life matter.

The letter reads: “Marine biologist.  I want to pass school to get to my dream college.  My dream college is in Corpus Christi, by the ocean.  I need to live next to the ocean because I want to be a marine biologist.  Marine biologists study animals and the water.  Most of the time, I will be in a lab.  Sometimes, I will be on TV.”

Then there was Ellie Garcia, a 10-year-old, and her parents, Steven and Jennifer.

Ellie loved to dance, and she loved church.  She even knew how to drive tractors and was already working with her dad and her uncle mowing yards.

“Ellie was always giving of her gifts, her time, even half-eaten food on her plate,” they said.  They said, “Around the house, we’d call her the ‘great re-gifter.’”  Smiling through tears, her family told us how Ellie loved to embrace.  Said she was the biggest hugger in the family.

Now, Ellie was born Catholic, but had been going to Baptist church with her uncle for the last couple of years.  Her mom and dad were proud of her because, they said, “She was learning to love God, no matter where.”

The week prior to her passing, she had been preparing to read a verse from the Bible for the next Wednesday night’s church service.  The verse was from Deuteronomy 6:5.  “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

That’s who Ellie was becoming.  But she never got to read it.  Service is on a Wednesday night.

Then there was the fairytale love story of a teacher named Irma and her husband, Joe.  What a great family this was.  This was an amazing family.

Camila and I, we — we sat with about 20 of their family members in the living room, along with their four kids.  They were — the kids were 23, 19, 15, and 13.  They — they shared all these stories about Irma and Joe — served the community and would host all these parties, and how Irma and Joe were planning on getting a food truck together when they soon retired.

They were humble, hardworking people.  Irma was a teacher, who, her family said, “went above and beyond, and just couldn’t say no to any kind of teaching.”  Joe had been commuting to and from work 70 miles away in Del Rio for years.

Together, they were the glue of the family.  Both worked overtime to support their four kids.  Irma even worked every summer when school was out.  The money she had made two summers ago paid to — paid to paint the front of the house.  The money she made last summer paid to paint the sides of the house.  This summer’s work was going to pay to paint the back of the house.

Because Irma was one of the teachers who was gunned down in the classroom, Joe, her husband, literally died of heartache the very next day when he had a heart attack.

They never got to paint the back of the house, they never got to retire, and they never got to get that food truck together.

We also met a cosmetologist.  All right?  She was well versed in mortuary makeup.  That’s the task of making the victims appear as peaceful and natural as possible for their open-casket viewings.

These bodies were very different.  They needed much more than makeup to be presentable.  They needed extensive restoration.  Why?  Due to the exceptionally large exit wounds of an AR-15 rifle.  Most of the bodies so mutilated that only DNA tests or green Converse could identify them.  Many children were left not only dead, but hollow.

So yes, counselors are going to be needed in Uvalde for a long time.  Counselors are needed in all these places where these mass shooters have been for a long time.

I was told by many that it takes a good year before people even understand what to do next.  And even then, when they become se- — secure enough to take the first step forward, a lifetime is not going to heal those wounds.

Again, you know what every one of these parents wanted, what they asked us for?  What every parent separately expressed in their own way to Camila and me?  That they want their children’s dreams to live on.  That they want their children’s dreams to continue to accomplish something after they are gone.  They want to make their loss of life matter.

Look, we heard from — we heard from so many people, all right?  Families of the deceased — mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers.  Texas Rangers, hunters, Border Patrol, and responsible gun owners who won’t give up their Second Amendment right to bear arms.  And you know what they all said?  “We want secure and safe schools, and we want gun laws that won’t make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns.”

So, we know what’s on the table.  We need to invest in mental healthcare.  We need safer schools.  We need to restrain sensationalized media coverage.  We need to restore our family values.  We need to restore our American values.  And we need responsible gun ownership — responsible gun ownership. 

We need background checks.  We need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21.  We need a waiting period for those rifles.  We need red-flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them.

These are reasonable, practical, tactical regulations to our nation, states, communities, schools, and homes.

Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals. 

These regulations are not a step back; they’re a step forward for a civil society and — and the Second Amendment. 

Look, is this a cure-all?  Hell no. 

But people are hurting — families are, parents are.  And look, as — as divided as our country is, this gun responsibility issue is one that we agree on more than we don’t.  It really is.  But this should be a nonpartisan issue.  This should not be a partisan issue.

There is not a Democratic or Republican value in one single act of these shooters.  It’s not. 

But people in power have failed to act.  So we’re asking you and I’m asking you, will you please ask yourselves: Can both sides rise above?  Can both sides see beyond the political problem at hand and admit that we have a life preservation problem on our hands?

Because we got a chance right now to reach for and to grasp a higher ground above our political affiliations, a chance to make a choice that does more than protect your party, a chance to make a choice that protects our country now and for the next generation.

We got to take a sober, humble, and honest look in the mirror and re- — rebrand ourselves based on what we truly value.  What we truly value.

We got to get some real courage and honor our immortal obligations instead of our party affiliations. 

Enough with the counterpunching.  Enough of the invalidation of the other side.  Let’s come to the common table that represents the American people.  Find a mil- — middle ground, the place where most of us Americans live anyway, especially on this issue.

Because I promise you, America — you and me, who — we are not as divided as we’re being told we are.  No.

How about we get inspired?  Give ourselves just cause to revere our future again.  Maybe set an example for our children, give us reason to tell them, “Hey, listen and watch these men and women.  These are great American leaders right here.  Hope you grow up to be like them.”

And let’s admit it: We can’t truly be leaders if we’re only living for reelection.

Let’s be knowledgeable and wise, and act on what we truly believe.

Again, we got to look in the mirror, lead with humility, and acknowledge the values that are inherent to but also above politics.  We’ve got to make choices, make stands, embrace new ideas, and preserve the traditions that can create true — true progress for the next generation.

With real leadership, let’s start giving us — all of us, with real leadership — let’s start giving all of us good reason to believe that the American Dream is not an illusion.

So where do we start?  We start by making the right choices on the issue that is in front of us today.

We start by making laws that save innocent lives and don’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights.  We start right now by voting to pass policies that can keep us from having as many Columbines, Sandy Hooks, Parklands, Las Vegases, Buffaloes, and Uvaldes from here on.

We start by giving Alithia the chance to be spoiled by her dad. 

We start by giving Maite a chance to become a marine biologist.

We start by giving Ellie a chance to read her Bible verse at the Wednesday night service.

We start by giving Irma and Joe a chance to finish painting their house, maybe retire and get that food truck.

We start by giving Makenna, Layla, Maranda, Nevaeh, Jose, Xavier, Tess, Rojelio, Eliahna, Annabell, Jackie, Uziyah, Jayce, Jailah, Eva, Amerie, and Lexi — we start by giving all of them our promise that their dreams are not going to be forgotten. 

We start by making the loss of these lives matter.

Thank you.  Thank you.