For Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), the recent random shootings of movie-goers at a screening of “The Dark Knight” in Aurora, Col. was yet another grim reminder of her husband’s death and the severe wounds her son received at the hands of a shooter on the Long Island Rail Road.
“It just brings me back to a place you didn’t want to remember,” McCarthy said. “I think about the first time I saw my son when he came out of the O.R. and I didn’t recognize him.”
Her son, Kevin, survived with serious injuries in the Merillon Avenue station shooting by Colin Ferguson in the 1993 tragedy. Her husband, Dennis, was one of six people who died from their injuries. McCarthy still recalls seeing the police photographs of her husband slumped in his seat on the train.
“It’s always difficult. I can’t explain why, but this particular incident seemed to affect my family more than other shootings,” she saud
McCarthy said she thinks the reason is that the movie theater was a confined space, akin to the railroad cars where the 1993 rampage occurred.
McCarthy said she feels a particular sympathy for the families of those who lost loved ones and the surviving victims of the shooting and their families.
“What hurts me the most is know what these families are going to go through.” she said. “We don’t know what the aftermath of their treatment is going to be.”
The Long Island Rail Road shootings in 1993 prompted her activism on the issue of gun control and motivated her first run for Congress in 1996.
McCarthy is widely considered to be the most outspoken advocate of gun control in the Congress. In the aftermath of the Aurora, Col. shootings last week, McCarthy was interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and several other national media outlets. She used the opportunity to blast the federal government’s inaction in curbing gun sales.
“A lot of politicians know it’s the right thing to try to fight for something to save lives,” said McCarthy in her appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press. “They don’t have a spine anymore. They pander to who’s giving them money.”
McCarthy said she sees the recent violence in Aurora, Col. as a possible opportunity to gain passage of a bill that would prohibit the sale of large magazines of the kind alleged Colorado gunman James Holmes used to kill 12 people and wound 30 others.
“We make the ability to buy guns with such ease that you’re giving the opportunity to people who do want to harm people the ability to get hold of the ammunition and these high powered guns,” she said.
The assault weapon ban passed by both houses of Congress in 1994 expired in 2004. McCarthy said she has been trying to push the ban of large magazines for such rifles that hold 15 bullets banned since then without success.
She said many of her colleagues in Congress have asked her about the bill since the Colorado shootings occurred last week.
“I have to hope. It’s going to be difficult. There’s no two ways about it,” McCarthy said.
She has posted a petition on her Web site to garner grass roots support for the bill, designated HR 308, at SupportHR308.com.
The National Rifle Association continues to be a formidable lobby.
But McCarthy said she doesn’t understand their resistance to her bill, given the NRA’s professed support of police officers.
“Everybody forgets why we passed the assault weapons bill. It’s because our police are coming into situations where they’re outgunned,” she said. “When you work so hard to try to prevent these things, you don’t know what else you can do. Enough is enough.”
Holmes’ reportedly legal purchase of 6,000 rounds of ammunition is another source of concern that McCarthy said could spark congressional action. She said she and some of her colleagues are considering drafting legislation to shut down online ammunition outlets and noted that Google has announced it will no longer sell ammunition online.
“I am not naive enough to know I can stop every killing. But we can stop some of these killings,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy is running for re-election this fall in the reconfigured 4th Congressional District that now includes New Hyde Park, Floral Park, the Willistons, Mineola, Garden City, Rockville Centre, Franklin Square, Westbury, East Meadow, Freeport, Oceanside, Long Beach, Wantagh, Bellmore and Merrick.
