The greater Great Neck area got a bit of a shock during the recent Reach Out America Gun Reform forum held at Saddle Rock School.
The forum was practically overrun with staunch gun rights advocates – Oath Keepers they call themselves – who did their best to take over and dominate the meeting.
But it was instructive. A group accustomed to uniform agreement with the need for sensible gun-violence-prevention measures – universal background checks, for example, which have the support of 90 percent of the population, and limits on the size of ammo magazines – felt itself slip down the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland non sequiturs.
Apparently, we had just a small taste of what state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel experiences every day. Known as a staunch gun violence prevention advocate – she has championed microstamping for a decade, who actually began as an activist with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence – she is literally dogged wherever she goes.
While she spoke, this group of a couple of dozen people shouted over her and did everything they could to drown her out – so much for freedom of the speech, which just moments later, they were demanding for themselves so that they could take over the program.
Here’s a taste of how it went:
They present gun owners as “good guys”, “law-abiding” don’t ya’ know.
The guy that murders innocent people are not included in that equation (gun owner = good guy), as if there were another label, let’s say “gun possessor” for those people who get guns and wind up being “bad guys.”
After all, how could a “bad guy” legally possess a gun? There already are background checks, they say, and costly and cumbersome rigamarole to get a permit, so how could a bad person get a gun?
But under the existing system – which has been rendered as inefficient as possible and evolved before the internet – means that 40 percent of gun purchases are made without any background check.
In fact, the NRA which masquerades as representing the “good-guy gun owner” but actually represents the interest of gun manufacturers which are doing exceptionally well profit-wise, had supported gun control measures going back to the 1930s and as recently as 1999, when the NRA supported universal background checks.
Bill Cooper, president of New York State chapter of Oath Keepers, when asked about the NRA’s switch from supporting to opposing background checks said, “We’re not opposed to background checks but we don’t necessarily answer to the NRA.”
But his group regards any increase in background checks as the “slippery slope” to national registration, which of course will inevitably slip sliding into confiscation of all guns.
You know what I noticed? Not a single one of the Oath Keepers dared show any compassion whatsoever for the victims of gun violence – not the Newtown children, brutally murdered exactly one year ago, represented on stage by Rabbi Shaul Praver of Congregation Adath Israel of Newtown, who had to console a family whose child was murdered that day.
But Praver has a connection to a Great Neck shooting victim also: he grew up here and was a classmate of Susan Schaffer, a young mother murdered in her own home exactly five years ago by two teenagers suspended from school who had stolen a gun from a house they had burgled.
The Reachout Gun Forum was organized by Suzie’s mother, Lois Schaffer, who had been a gun control advocate before the tragedy and now has channeled her incalculable grief to energize her activism.
The Oath Keepers were not moved by Rabbi Praver presenting Lois with a glass heart, pierced by the number of gun deaths, saying “But it has remained intact.”
That takes something, or rather demonstrates some of the same lack of empathy that is manifest by the gunslingers who commit these slayings. That good guy? It demonstrates that there isn’t that great a separation, or at any moment.
They actually depict massacres as “normal,” like a fact of nature or a “cost of doing business” like a fine that a company incurs for bribing a government official to win a contract – an acceptable (and apparently tolerable) inconvenience in exchange for unfettered “freedom” to bear arms.
When Rabbi Praver tried to explain why the Second Amendment provides for regulation (as in “well-regulated militia”), at one point they shouted him down saying something incomprehensible about religion, as if a rabbi had nothing to say about the Second Amendment.
But what I couldn’t figure out is why these people, who claim that only good guys get guns and you need more good guys with guns, wouldn’t support universal background checks (essentially an expansion to close loopholes that presently leave 40 percent of guns purchased without checks), when they already support existing background checks?
The answer, they say, is a phantom fear of a federal registry and ultimate confiscation, even though the Senate bill (which failed not because it did not receive a majority, 54-46, but failed to get the 60 to stop the Republican filibuster) despite being supported by 90 percent of Americans, including the vast majority of NRA members) – in the clearest demonstration of the failure of democracy and all those principles enshrined in the Constitution which the Oath Keepers purport to defend.
The Oath Keepers were completely unmoved, though by the facts presented by Amy Wright of Mayors Against Illegal Guns that the legislation explicitly and categorically prohibited a federal registration (a felony) or confiscation. But they dismiss this, ignore it, obfuscate or simply lie – not unlike the style of attacks (“death panels”!) that have been attached to Obamacare.
Same with plastic guns. They oppose any further limit that would take into account the new 3D technology.
Why? Kevin Gray says because they aren’t efficient.
Basically you can’t kill very many people with a plastic gun (yet).
He is completely unfazed by the possibility of even a single gunshot on an airplane (no danger of taking the aircraft down, so it’s okay if only one bullet is fired), or any other “safe zone.” They don’t like safe zones at all. They mock safe zones (they see them as shooting galleries because they are not protected by enough ‘good guys with guns.’).
Take Sandy Hook. The solution to school shootings, they insist, is having armed guards. Even though airports have armed guards but a TSA officer got shot dead (he only died because the TSA held up paramedics for 30 minutes, so it’s okay that he was shot).
And it doesn’t bother them that armed people have murdered innocents – like the police who killed a (black) man injured in a car accident, who simply knocked on someone’s door seeking help and a (black) woman who was shot dead after she too sought help from a homeowner after a car accident.
The Gun Rights No Matter What folks are also shape shifters, skilled at contorting to dodge a question, deflect and divert.
For example, instead of addressing the easy access to military-grade weapons meant for the battlefield and ammo clips of 30, 50 and even 100 rounds by deranged individuals, criminals and terrorists, they shift the focus to the woeful inadequacy of mental health, yet the same gun violence advocates are the ones who block health care reform – Obamacare as a subjugation of freedom – that puts mental health in parity with other health care.
But practically speaking, how would you patrol mental health before a psychotic sprays a crowd with bullets from a 100 round clip?
Who makes the decision to intrude into one’s private thoughts? Do we lock these people up just because they act weird? Or are loners? Or play video games? Or do we ban video games altogether (warning, First Amendment protections, not to mention 4th, 5th and 6th, ahead!)
And how does their focus on the mentally ill jibe with a mentality that is so fearful of the government that it will confiscate guns in violation of Second Amendment rights, that they would somehow acquiesce to a government that determines who should be locked up?
Oh, I get it. You wait until the massacre happens, and then you give mental health help. But don’t do a background check or make mental health records part of the background check and heaven forbid you empower the government to confiscate a gun from a schizophrenic.
In fact, the Gun-Rights-No-Matter-Who-Gets-Killed advocates are vehemently opposed to the provision of New York’s new SAFE Act that allows guns to be confiscated from those deemed dangerously mentally ill. And they have pushed for legislation which would allow veterans who were deemed to have PTSD or mental illness to get their weapons back (recall the D.C. Sniper).
And yet, there already is gun regulation. It isn’t that there aren’t any such things as background check, or registration, or licensing or permits, going back to the 1930s. And it hasn’t stopped the United States from being the most heavily armed in the world.
During an exchange with Kevin, on of the Oath Keepers, I say, “No one is suggesting you not be able to keep a gun for defense or to hunt. But surely you will agree there is no reason for a 100-round magazine.”
“I want one,” Kevin says “because I might miss.”
I say, “Do you mean you couldn’t hit an intruder with 10, 20, 30 or 40 rounds? You must be a terrible shot.”
His friend says that even police miss their target 4 out of 5 times – under the heat of the moment.
That’s exactly the point! I say. If police, who are trained not just in shooting, but in handling specific situations, how could “Everyman” who is rarely in that intense situation?
I marshal all my wits to somehow consolidate into the most simple terms: all we want, I say, is to make it less easy to get a weapon that can murder 26 people – 20 children – in the space of 7 minutes, or murder a high school student within seconds of walking into school.
They insist that places are safer where there are more guns. Really? What about Australia? What about England, which instituted strict gun control and has 35 gun deaths a year, compared to 35 gun deaths each day in America, the land of the free and the home of the exceedingly well armed.
At some point, they like to shout out about Nazisand Stalin, and maybe a little Pol Pot, and throw out the figure of 200 million.
That’s the number of people they claim have been killed by “gun registration” – that is, government oppression (they have a word for that, it’s “gov-ecide”). Try telling them that regardless of background checks, registration or actually being armed, the government could still kill you.
Most of the gun deaths in America, they insist, are suicides. Or gang violence. So there.
I have two problems with this: “Most.” The fact is that the U.S. has a gargantuan number of gun deaths, so “most” still leaves a helluvalot, like 10,000 innocent victims and 100,000 injured.
And what about the innocents who are killed in the crossfire, like the 15-year-old Chicago girl, Hadiya Pendleton, an honors student who went to school a mile from President Obama’s house, who had just been in Obama’s Inauguration Parade in Washington, and was shot dead in a park.
And what about the latest fad, suicide by cop- the people who kill random innocents but stop when the police come and then commit suicide. Like Adam Lanza.
And what about fame by another name? Who would remember Lee Harvey Oswald, this pipsqueak of a wannabe except for his dastardly deed, using a $12 mail-order gun, or the next Adam Lanza looking to set a new record for horror.
Amy Wright of Mayors Against Illegal Guns tried to make the case that the political tide is on the side of gun violence prevention, especially in terms of popular support. But that is hard to square with the reality that since Newtown.
The New York Times reported last week that about 1,500 state gun bills have been introduced since the Newtown massacre – 178 passed at least one chamber of a state legislature,109 have become law. But of these, astonishingly, 70 actually expand gun rights, only 39 enact sensible gun violence prevention measures. “ Most of those bills were approved in states controlled by Republicans.
Those who support stricter regulations won some victories — mostly in states where the legislature and governorship are controlled by Democrats — to increase restrictions on gun use and ownership.”
And this week, Colorado sheriffs have said they would refuse to enforce Colorado’s new gun laws.
Andy Pelosi, founder and director of Gun Free Kids and the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus (armedcampus.org)notes that in some states there is pressure to force campuses to allow concealed weapons.
“If you do not want your child to attend college where people are carrying concealed weapons, then pay attention. In 2014, we anticipate gun bills in Georgia, Indiana. And even if this is not New York where your kids are from, you still need to care because a lot of fine college all across country – Indiana, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, where we will see bills introduced to change the law to allow concealed weapons.”
(Note to Parents: contact colleges your children are considering applying to and ask if they allow weapons on campus or if they plan to, and tell them you will not allow your child to apply if they do. For a horrifying glimpse into the campaign to expand guns on campus, see Carry on College Campus?).
The Oath Keepers introduce themselves as being the defenders of the Constitution – as if they are the only ones who value or uphold this founding document of a government “of the people, for the people, by the people.”
But when they say they are “defending” the Constitution, what they really mean is they identify with the rebels against a colonial power. They do not see government as “We the People,” even when a majority of people elected the government.
And this is obvious because except for a phrase taken out of context of the 2nd Amendment, they disregard all the rest of it: trial by jury (the guy with the gun gets to decide guilt), unreasonable punishment (execution for minor offense), free speech.
The Oath Keepers were intimidating enough; now imagine if these several dozen people wore semi-automatic guns on their hip instead of the Oath Keeper black t-shirts (what the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense experienced in Dallas, Texas, when a meeting at a restaurant brought the sudden appearance of 40 men armed with semi-automatic rifles ). How free would that conversation have been?
This came out clearly when Rabbi Praver asks who could recite the Second Amendment, and in unison, the Oath Keepers loudly proclaim, “The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.”
But, he says, you missed the beginning of the amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well-regulated. There is it: Regulation is in the Constitution. (One of the Oath Keepers said “regulated” did not refer to “regulation” but rather, “regular” as “everyday”).
Militia. Without a standing army, citizens had the obligation to protect their community and government. The Oath Keepers retort, that was then; today, “everyone” is the “militia.”
“Being necessary to the security of a free State” – that is, to protect this nation and our government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, In an interview with John Hockenberry of NPR’s “The Takeaway” (Sept. 16, 2013), said, “.. the Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete. ..When the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms but it was for one purpose only, and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.”
