Writing Life

Following up from an earlier post, Howard County’s state’s attorney’s office won’t file charges against an undercover cop who “accidentally” shot two unarmed boys with his one magic bullet. The Baltimore Sun reports that the officer is on administrative duty pending an internal investigation. No word on whether that report will be released or if he’ll be exonerated behind closed doors, judged not by his peers but by his colleagues.

The shooter’s identity is being protected by police and government officials by claiming that his undercover status is of higher civic value than justice for the two teens he shot. I find it telling that these same police leaders have no problem repeatedly publicizing the name of the woman who accidentally struck and killed a Howard County police officer who was making “step-out” traffic stops on a County highway. She too wasn’t indicted by the grand jury, but her identity isn’t being protected.

I’m still pretty upset by the narrow-minded and short-sighted decision by five of the nine Supreme Court justices yesterday in the DC gun ban case. I was going to write a ranting post, then decided I was too pissed off and would just let other’s write about it. Then I read a poignant op-ed from E.J. Dionne in today’s Washington Post. He pretty much summed up my feelings, especially with this excerpt:

Conservative justices claim that they defer to local authority. Not in this case. They insist that political questions should be decided by elected officials. Not in this case. They argue that they pay careful attention to the precise words of the Constitution. Not in this case.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that prosecutors won’t file charges against two teens who were mistakenly shot by police. The April incident featured two undercover officers and two teens in a neighborhood off Route 1 in Jessup. The cops claimed the boys were involved in a drug deal, and one of the undercover officers came out of his car, gun drawn, finger on the trigger. The officer shot one of the boys, and there’s confusion as to whether he shot the other one too or if a magic bullet scenario played out with one bullet hitting both teens. The officer claimed that his gun accidentally went off (i.e. people don’t shoot people, guns shoot people).

What is shocking to me is that prosecutors didn’t bring any charges against the officer who shot the two innocent boys. (And yes, they were innocent, having been cleared by officials as not being involved with drugs or drug deals.) I haven’t heard much about how the police department will penalize the shooter and his undercover partner. If a lawful individual with a valid license to possess a gun accidentally shot a police officer, I’m not so sure the scenario would have played out in the same way.

What we saw in this case was the prosecutors bestowing upon the two victims the right of not being prosecuted for a crime, which I can only imagine would be described by prosecutors as “voluntarily stepping in front of a righteous officer’s accidentally fired bullet.” One of the boys’ families will be filing a civil suit and the other is waiting for their son to recover from his wound before moving forward.

Gun nuts say that guns don’t hurt people, people kill people. Tell that to a 4-year-old girl who shot herself with her granny’s concealed gun at a Sam’s Club (part of Walmart) in South Carolina. Granny was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, which she did in her purse. Her granddaughter pulled the weapon from her purse and shot herself in one of the store aisles. Granny’s upset but she and others are spinning it as an accident. They’re not blaming granny and the state of South Carolina that put a gun within easy reach of a child. Granny hasn’t even been charged with a crime, even though child endangerment pops immediately to the top of my head. But, in gun-loving circles, I guess we would have to blame the child, not the parent, state and NRA.

I’m shocked that people would oppose requiring those who own guns to report them missing or stolen. As you’ve probably guessed from my previous posts, I’m not into guns and don’t see a need for people to have them in their urban and suburban homes. But, currently, that’s how the law is interpreted in Maryland.

Given that, I would certainly see the need to balance the benefit of personal gun ownership with the communal responsibility to safely maintain it. If it’s stolen, I’d expect you to report it. If it’s lost, well, I’d suggest that you regularly check where your gun is. I’m sure you check on the location of your car? And your toaster, even if you only toast on weekends? And, last I checked, people couldn’t steal your toaster and then kill someone else with it during a robbery.

Come on people, there’s got to be some level of responsibility if you are allowed to own and keep guns. A little accountability isn’t going to take away your gun, unless you show wanton disregard to protecting this object that’s in your possession. Then, you probably should have your gun taken away. If you drive drunk, you lose your license. If you act irresponsibly with a gun, e.g. not know where it is, then you should lose your license to own it. Maybe a one-year suspension? Maybe more for a second offense. How about three strikes and your out of owning a gun for life in the state?

Opponents say this measure is unenforceable? Why? Let’s deal with the stolen part. If your house is broken into and things are taken, how about checking on your gun? I’m sure that’s a valuable possession, as well as a deadly one. It’s not like guns cost 50 cents. So, check up on it. And, let’s have the police include that when they take an incident report: “Do you own a gun? If so, do you still have it?” As for the lost part, I’m sure that if you buy a gun, you intend to use it or clean it or check on it from time to time. I doubt you’d buy a gun and throw it in the Chesapeake? So, let’s take a little responsibility for the current right to own a gun in Maryland.

Over the past two nights, we watched Michael Moore’s stark documentary Bowling for Columbine. This film delves into the disastrous results when America’s culture of guns is coupled with its media-and-politically-driven culture of fear. If you haven’t seen this film, give it a chance. The images of NRA poster boy Charlton Heston praising guns in Littleton, Colorado, just over a week after Columbine, and in Flint, Michigan, just days after one six-year-old shot and killed one of his classmates with a gun, will make your blood boil.

The film isn’t all negative and shows how two survivors of Columbine go with Moore to K-Mart headquarters to ask them why they sell ammunition, the same ammunition whose spent bullets are still in their bodies. After staying in the corporate headquarters lobby and demanding to speak to someone with answers, they are poorly handled by a communications hack. The next day, they return with two things: the local media and shopping bags full of all the ammunition they could buy at a local K-Mart store. A VP comes out to talk with the crowd and reads a statement that says K-Mart will eliminate the sale of all ammunition from all its stores within 90 days. Wow! Now that’s activism. And, according to Moore and the two students, they were looking for answers and didn’t expect (though certainly embraced) this corporate policy change.

So, after last night, I was depressed but had a glimmer of hope. This morning, while scanning the wires, I ran across this amazing story. Cincinnati set a record last year in number of homicides. Just recently, a student was shot and killed at an event that was promoting nonviolence. In response, Cincinnati’s Democratic Mayor Mark Mallory has decided to not use a starter pistol to begin a 5K race this weekend. Instead of firing blanks from a pistol, he’ll use a whistle. The mayor said, “I think the symbolism is just bad. It’s just something I don’t do.”

Hats off to you Mayor Mallory. You’ve given this blogger a jolt of hope.

The Howard County high schooler who brought a gun to school officially admitted he brought the gun to school. [I posted about this event back in June.] This kid was caught with the gun in his waistband and clips in his pockets. He pleased “involved”, which the Sun article says is like guilty for juvenile court. He’ll be in home detention until his sentencing, scheduled for near the end of the summer. Kind of interesting, since it’s the home where he got the gun. He got the gun out of his dad’s gun safe. Not too safe, I guess, if the Hammond High School freshman just grabbed the gun and extra ammunition and popped off to school with it.

The story, however, seems to be being spun as a gang thing. The freshman claimed he brought the gun to school to protect himself from a gang. Howard County Juvenile Court Master William Tucker raised the bogeyman of gangs. He said they’re a problem, even if no one else wants to believe it. Yes, Mr. Tucker, there are gangs. But, why aren’t you talking about gun control, gun safety, why the kid so easily removed it from his pappy’s “un”-safe storage unit? Or what about the rise of violence to solve problems? Sadly, this isn’t just a juvenile thing, as we’ve seen the President of our own country use violence as a means to both create and solve problems across the globe. There’s a stellar example, I guess.

But, you chose to talk about gangs. Because gangs are scary. Because they’re outside our control. They’re outside the law, unless it’s the law of the jungle, right? They’re also never our fault but someone else’s, right? So, you can blame gangs but not the kid who brought the gun to school, the father who let his kid get such easy access to his guns, the legislator who supports people having semiautomatic handguns in their homes, etc. Shame on you for not using your privileged pulpit in the state’s apparatus to address this public health crisis.

I can’t believe this Baltimore Sun story that I just stumbled upon. A Hammond High School freshman was arrested with a semiautomatic handgun. He might have been targeting someone, maybe not. But, that’s not the point. Where’d he get the gun? Was it his folks? Do his folks need a gun? I don’t think so. If he didn’t get it from his folks, where’d he get it from? And did that person need a gun? Why do we have guns so readily available?

This hits really close to home since this is the high school right near my home. I drove past it this afternoon on the way to the Kings Contrivance Village Center. I saw a WJZ TV truck with its transmitter antenna deployed. I wondered what event was going on, but I was thinking more about classes closing down for the summer or some sports or after-school event. I didn’t expect to hear that we could have had a school shooting five minutes from my house.

Update: WJZ has their story online now.

I just read an Associated Press story, one of their “snapshot” pieces related to a current issue. The issue: High profile shootings. The time frame: the last ten years. The number of shootings: 18. The number of innocents slaughtered: 95.

Ninety-five!?! And no serious clamor for changes to America’s blind lust for guns, guns, and more f-ing guns. Even hunters were on NPR this week saying that no one goes hunting with a semiautomatic handgun with a 30+ bullet extended clip. Ban those to start. And then keep going. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t guarantee a Glock in every hand and an Uzi in the glove compartment. A well-regulated militia. In the late 1700s, that was probably a good thing to codify, especially since there was no real central government or army yet. The Continental Army had just finished the Revolutionary War but really was a collection of state militias and what not.

In the 21st Century, the United States has a standing army of over 1.5 million soldiers with a reserve army of 1.2 million persons. The United States has federal police, state police, county police, city police, local police and sheriffs. It sounds like we have a pretty damn strong and proud presence of men and women under arms that can protect the United States at home and abroad from foes foreign and domestic.

The need to form a militia on a moments notice (perhaps from a call to arms signaled by a lantern in a tower) is no longer an issue or a need in contemporary America. Common sense would dictate this. If not, then let’s legislate it. And when the NRA mobilizes their blood money lobbyists, let’s meet them with legal force. And do not for a moment doubt that NRA money is blood money. As noted at the beginning of this post, the blood has been replenished with the blood of these 95 human beings and many many more in regular shootings that occur every day in rural and urban America.

Let’s Amend the Constitution if necessary and repeal the 2nd Amendment. Make the whole argument moot. Let’s do something so that AP and others won’t be able to continue to update this list.

Update: I can’t believe it. I just published this post and there’s another high profile killing. This one in Houston at the Johnson Space Center. A madman, with a gun, killed a hostage and then himself this afternoon. So, the total is now 96. How many more!?!?

[I put this in my Scandal category as well as opinion because if this issue isn't a scandal, I don't know what is.]

I saw a report at Political Radar on Bush’s comments at the memorial service at Virginia Tech this afternoon. It struck me in several ways, and I had to put my thoughts down, even though it may seem too simplistic or too much of a rant. Here they are:

• First, does anyone else notice how familiar the words of our leaders are today, as they are after every such violent and horrific event? Have they become so commonplace (I think they have) that we just feed the rote speech into the teleprompter or press release template?
• Today, Bush said, “[The victims were] simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” NO!. It’s not that simple and it can’t be washed away like a coin toss. The very fact that guns are so easy to get and are glorified in this nation put these people into the horrible situation from yesterday. No ifs, ands or buts on this one. Real gun control or abolition? No wrong place or wrong time since the situation wouldn’t exist. No, our nation, its laws and its obsession with guns created the situation that then an individual exploited to kill.
• Bush later said “It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering.” Let’s make sense of it by addressing the culture of guns in this country. Let’s look at the underlying circumstances that led to this situation happening in the first place. We can begin to understand how and why this happened and prevent it from happening again. I couldn’t make sense of not addressing this!
• Bush closed with “In times like this we can find comfort in the grace and guidance in a loving God.” I’d find comfort in a President’s signature on a Congress’s legislation on gun control. I doubt this president or this Congress will do anything, but I won’t find comfort until these types of events don’t happen anymore.
• Update: Let’s move the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 through Congress.

The campus shootings today at Virginia Tech have absolutely shocked me. My thoughts are with the families and friends of those injured and those killed today.

They’ve reappeared with a graphic novel full of coded imagery that seems even beyond them. Raw Story has put the actual novel online, whose existence was initially denied by NRA supporters across the country as a hoax when it was reported by Wonkette. Wonkette, by the way, has seemed to have a slew of dead-on reporting lately that you would never have believed, e.g. the letter by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA 05).