So What Are You Going To Do When The Guns Are Drawn?

Friday, May 27, 2022

Laureen O’Connor, Guest MINDSETTER™

PHOTO: file

Uvalde, TX, will now live in our minds alongside Sandy Hook, CT, and Parkland, FL. Reminding us that America’s kids aren’t safe from gun violence in their schools or anywhere else for that matter, as these incidents of domestic terror only grow worse and more frequent.

The 19 children murdered on Tuesday morning in Texas, were penetrated with the same kind of firepower as the 20 children in Sandy Hook, an AR-15 pumping .223 caliber bullets at 3,200 feet per second, through a Magpul high-capacity magazine, allowing streams of terror. Nearly a decade later and not a single gun control law has been passed in Congress.

How can they regard this kind of domestic terrorism as anything less than a threat to not only our livelihood, but our way of life, our grasp on a feeling of security in any given circumstance. Americans deserve more than empty promises and political fluff; “thoughts and prayers” haven’t stopped the massacres at places of worship or anywhere else.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

The gun lobby is of little help. The vitriolic rhetoric of Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA) after Sandy Hook only exacerbated extremism in the gun debate. In his tell-all memoir, Inside the NRA, former COS and Senior Strategist Joshua L. Powell details how the association ran damage control by pushing for more guns, and claiming any attempts to pass legislation in the wake of the tragedy would infringe Second Amendment rights. Gun owners panicked, sales skyrocketed at gun stores across the country, AR-15s became more popular than ever, and donations poured into the NRA; as it focused its advertising on the “extreme fringe, continually stoking a toxic debate, by appealing to the paranoia and darkest side of our members… hell-bent on keeping those donations coming.”

LaPierre has long opposed even modest attempts to rein in gun rights, even though 80% of NRA members supported universal background checks after Sandy Hook. Later this week LaPierre will be speaking at the NRA conference in Texas, along with the state’s Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, where we can expect history to repeat itself.

Unfortunately in the land of the free, gun violence is on the rise. We haven’t even hit this year’s halfway point and there have already been 30 school shootings and over 200 (213*) mass shootings in the country. Last year there were 693, 2020 saw 611, 2019 had 417, and 2018 had 336. (Mass refers to 4+ people shot, excluding the perpetrator; but it only makes national news when incurred by an active shooter.)

The pro-gun extremists would like you to believe that gun laws aren’t going to stop prospective active shooters from getting their guns, but in actuality, the guns used in these acts of terror are usually purchased legally in the 36 states that don’t require permits. In recent years concealed carry laws have also dissipated, with 25 states springing for “constitutional carry” laws. Meanwhile, measures to make guns less accessible remain stagnant in the US Senate, resulting in the highest incidents in gun violence casualties in our history.

Are we going to continue to deny our children and ourselves the safety we deserve or are we going to make sure that the only people who get their fingers on a trigger pass a background check to fully vouch for their sanity and stability? Getting a gun shouldn’t be convenient, or instantaneous, it should be a process that ensures the safety of society as a whole.

In Westport, Massachusetts, where I grew up, you need at least five people to write letters of recommendation before being granted a gun license. Why can’t similar requirements be implemented elsewhere? Why not tighten the belt on licensing laws nationwide by federally requiring everyone get at least one person to vouch for them. Such laws wouldn’t stop your average Joe from getting their hunting rifles, but it would stop a troubled teenager from buying an AR-15. The laws in place now are barely scratching the surface of the problem.

In Rhode Island and 14 other states, including our neighboring states, “Red Flag” bills have been enacted to remove guns from anyone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. They allow for people to raise concerns about violent individuals, by petitioning a judge to have their guns seized. They don’t necessarily stop the individuals from obtaining them in the first place, yet many see it as a threat to their civil liberties.

But the “Reg Flag” bill couldn’t save Bertha Hudson, 48, who was shot in the head multiple times in the summer of 2019 in front of her house, on Charles Street in Providence, by her ex-husband Oscar, against whom she had a restraining order. He left her bleeding in the streets and fled home to shoot himself instead of surrendering to police, as neighbors covered her in a sheet to shield her two children from the horror. Oscar’s previous misdemeanor domestic violence charge, requiring him to to turn in his firearms, was not enforced and as a result, a beloved member of our community is dead.

Gun violence in Providence has long been a stressor for our community -- last year, there was a shootout that left nine injured. But police here are doing what they can with those red flags, already seizing 100 guns so far this year, with a goal of surpassing last year’s 210. Seems like a lot until you realize that in the United States as a whole, there are 128 guns for every 100 citizens.

The horrifying reality today is that none of us are bulletproof, and guns are inarguably falling into the wrong hands. So what are we going to do about it? Will we leave it to the NRA funded members of Congress to figure out, or will we take a stand and do what’s right. Only time will tell, whilst we all just hope our time isn’t cut short by the nation’s next active shooter.

Laureen O’Connor is a URI alum and freelance writer based in Providence.

So What Are You Going To Do When The Guns Are Drawn?

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

So What Are You Going To Do When The Guns Are Drawn?

Related Articles

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast