We Like Our Lives

In March of this year, the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” was put on indefinite hold in the House of Representatives when Democratic leaders couldn’t figure out how to move the bill without a harmful gun amendment attached. The bill would have granted D.C. residents voting representation in Congress for the first time ever (the United States is the only democracy on earth that denies residents of its capital such representation).

The gun amendment in question was drafted by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and sponsored by Senator John Ensign (R-NV). It would repeal the District of Columbia’s new gun laws across the board and prohibit the D.C. Council from enacting any law in the future that would “unduly burden the ability of persons” to obtain and possess firearms (changes that were not called for in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller ruling by the Supreme Court).

Earlier this year, Senator Ensign defended his amendment with noble-sounding references to “the Framers,” “the Constitution” and “Second Amendment rights.”

However, much has happened since then. In June, Senator Ensign admitted to an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer who was married to an employee in his D.C. office. The scandal led Ensign to resign his position as the Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee. The FBI has now opened an investigation into the matter that implicates another NRA Favorite Son, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

Ensign has apparently become so radioactive that one Senate aide commented, “[he] doesn’t have a lot of friends up here right now.” That’s unfortunate, because in the wake of his gun amendment, Capitol Hill was the only place in the District of Columbia the Senator had friends to begin with.

Under the weight of this pressure, Ensign made some incredibly candid and revealing remarks last Tuesday during a Senate Finance Committee debate on health care legislation. Commenting on the fact that the U.S. has a poor record on preventable deaths compared to other industrialized nations, the Senator suggested those statistics were unfair because they include deaths from auto accidents and gun violence. “When you take into account cultural factors—the fact that we drive cars a lot more than any other country; we are much more mobile,” Ensign said. “If you take out accidental deaths due to car accidents, and you take out gun deaths—because we like our guns in the United States and there are a lot more guns deaths in the United States—you take out those two things, you adjust those, and we are actually better in terms of survival rates.” You can view a video of Senator Ensign’s remarks here.

There you have it, victims and survivors of gun violence in D.C.—you simply don’t count. And if you District residents don’t want to abolish your firearm laws and make it easier for lunatics to get guns, well tough luck, that’s just one “cultural factor” you’re going to have to get used to.

Hmmmm... Thanks, but no thanks. As a D.C. resident myself, I can assure both Senator Ensign and the NRA that you might like your guns, but we like our lives and loved ones even more.

In a Split Second

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who blithely assume that their possession of a handgun—no matter what their level of training—would enable them to prevent or stop a gun-related crime without doing collateral damage. Such an assumption is often in direct contrast to the experience of well-trained, armed law enforcement officials.

On June 10, Bill Crummett, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), witnessed an armed crime unfolding as his car was stopped at a traffic light near the Capitol in Washington, D.C. As reported by Clarence Williams in the Washington Post, “Two pedestrians in a crosswalk pulled out semiautomatic handguns and opened fire on a third man, who was wounded and scrambled for cover behind a sports utility vehicle. The assailants then hid their weapons in their waistbands, leaving Crummett to make a split-second decision: Engage and risk a firefight or call for help.”

As Williams tells the story, “Crummett decided not to risk the chance of escalating a gun battle at an intersection crowded with commuters and pedestrians. Instead, he called D.C. police, gave them a description of the suspects and began a low-key pursuit until help arrived.” As a result of his actions, the guns used in the crime were recovered and one suspect was arrested later that day. No innocent bystanders were harmed at any time.

According to Agent Crummett: “There’s a couple of things that I could do at that moment. It was more dangerous for me to try take enforcement action…the smartest thing to do was to follow them.” Inspector Michael Reese with the D.C. Police agreed: “He could have opted to shoot, but he didn’t. I think he used good sound judgment. He let his expertise come into play.

I have heard far too many un-trained, would-be heroes confidently assert that they would pull their trusty piece and save the day in such a situation. Walter Mitty would be proud. In reality, reaching for your trusted piece will most likely result in increased tragedy. Owning a gun is a grave responsibility. Knowing when not to use one is imperative.

Two Horrifying Days

One horrifying day is seared in my memory—the day in 1962 I spent touring the remains of Auschwitz with a friend who had lost his wife, children and parents in that unspeakable death camp. I can not express the sense of evil that permeated those grounds. I was made acutely aware of the horror that can be unleashed by organized and armed hate groups.

The memory was brought vividly back to life by the tragic shooting at the U.S. Holocaust museum here in Washington, D.C. The perpetrator of the shooting left a note, “You want my weapons—this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie.”

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the killer “held subscription and mail-order memberships in an assortment of far-right and anti-Semitic organizations, including the California-based Institute for Historic Review, the Adelaide Institute, a far-right Australian group, and, at one point, was nominated as a ‘white racialist treasure’ by a visitor to Stormfront, a neo-Nazi Web site based in Florida. In 2004, [he] spent several months in Hayden, Idaho, home base of the now-defunct Aryan Nations, a longtime breeding ground for white supremacists and domestic terrorists that included The Order, a supremacist group that carried out murders and armed robberies in the 1980s. One intelligence document shows that…FBI agents discovered an application form for Mr. von Brunn for an Aryan Nations splinter group known as Church of the Sons of Yaweh.”

More frightening to me are the comments made by other spewers of racial hatred in the wake of the shooting. A friend of von Brunn’s, White Separatist John de Nugent, said "James von Brunn is significant because he is somebody who simply acted on his belief. But I think there are millions of white people who are trending in this direction. If I were to advocate the violent overthrow of the country I think hundreds of people would join me right now."

The Holocaust Museum shooting—so closely following on the heels of the shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller in his church—reminds us of how much damage can be done to our democratic ideals by a dedicated group of hate-mongers who have easy, unregulated access to deadly firearms. The comments of people like John de Nugent make my blood run cold.

Two of my current and former colleagues at CSGV, Josh Horwitz and Casey Anderson, recently published an important book, Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, that discusses in detail the harm that is being done to our fragile democracy by these armed insurrectionists.

Hobson's Choice a Faustian Bargain

Way back in June of 1783, nearly 400 soldiers of the Continental Army marched on the U.S. Congress in Philadelphia demanding back pay for their duty during the Revolution. The Congress called upon the Executive Council of Pennsylvania to stop the mutiny.

Pennsylvania's subsequent failure to protect the institutions of the national government, however, was a primary reason why the framers of the Constitution decided to create a federal district distinct from the states, where Congress could provide for its own security. The delegates therefore agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States."

In 1790, Congress created the District of Columbia to serve as the new federal capital. The small seat of government foreseen by the Congress has now grown into a major international city with more than half a million residents.

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction in the United States where Americans fulfill all the responsibilities of citizenship but are denied equal rights. Americans living in Washington, D.C., have no voting representation in either chamber of Congress. They truly suffer from “Taxation Without Representation.”

Recently, Congress took up the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” (H.R.157/S.160), bipartisan legislation that would grant one voting Representative to District residents for the first time ever.

This act of democratic sanity somehow struck a chord of fear and opportunism in the National Rifle Association (NRA) leadership in Virginia. The NRA quickly convinced lawmakers to attach an amendment to the Voting Rights Act which would remove the city's firearm registration requirements, repeal the District's ban on assault weapons, and prohibit the D.C. Council from regulating firearms in the future. The Senate then passed the bill with the NRA amendment, prompting this response from D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson: "The irony here is that on one hand they vote to give us voting representation, but on the other hand they strip any local representation in regards to our gun laws."

The bill is currently pending in the House of Representatives, where the Democratic Leadership is unwilling at this time to press for a vote, fearing that the NRA amendment will pass as well. Millions of D.C. residents are now facing a Hobson’s Choice: get one vote in the House of Representatives and sacrifice public safety in your city, or remain totally unrepresented in the People’s House. As an American citizen who has resided in the District of Columbia for the past 50 years, I deeply resent the attempt of a partisan right-wing political lobby to force such a choice on me and my fellow D.C. residents.

One thing is certain: the NRA’s “Ensign Amendment” is a clear and grave threat to public safety in the District of Columbia. Now is the time to fight back against the gun lobby’s cynical and cold-blooded ploy and stand together for the principle that is at the foundation of the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act”: self-determination.

March Madness

I can't help being struck by the irony of American college students being warned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to stay out of Mexico during Spring Break because of the danger of gun violence created by the assault weapons that are being trafficked south of the border from our own country. Authorities have confirmed that U.S. guns stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90% of Mexico’s crime guns. The American weapons of choice for Mexico’s drug cartels? 9mm pistols, .38 Super pistols, 5.7mm pistols, .45-caliber pistols, AR-15 type rifles, and AK-47 type rifles.

Just four days before the ATF travel alert, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in the U.S. Senate to approve a National Rifle Association-drafted amendment to the D.C. voting rights bill that would force the 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C. to legalize assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines in the city. The bill, which is supposed to stand for the principle of self-determination, has since been stalled in the House of Representatives because Democratic leaders cannot figure out a way to overcome their own party’s supplication to the gun lobby.

Then, last Tuesday—in what can no longer be called a coincidence in our gun-obsessed and violence-ridden nation—a man who had failed in his dreams to become a U.S. Marine and police officer went on an assault weapons shooting spree in the Alabama countryside. Discharging more than 200 rounds from two assault rifles with high-capacity magazines that were taped together, Michael McClendon killed 10 people and then himself.

The term "March Madness" is taking on new meaning this year.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

The Terrible Toll

Over the years that I have been involved in the gun violence issue, there is one thing that has bothered me more than anything else. Every day, I am barraged with stories of the deadly cost of our national fascination with guns. The ones that tear at my heart the worst are those involving children. These stories come in every horrible form imaginable: children who accidentally kill themselves with guns they find in their homes, depressed fathers who shoot and kill their loved ones, and even children who murder their own parents with firearms.

The toll of children and teens lost to gunfire has been well chronicled by the Children’s Defense Fund—one child or teen every three hours, eight every day, 58 children and teens every week; with more than five times that number suffering non-fatal firearm injuries. No other industrialized democracy in the world experiences anything like it; we are unique in putting our youth at such risk.

Fortunately, I have recently seen some hopeful signs that our elected officials are ready to do more to ensure the safety of children.

First there was the Obama Administration’s public declaration that they support making guns in this county childproof. For more information about these initiatives, visit the Million Mom March website.

Then there was the news that the District of Columbia will be including a Child Access Prevention statute in its newly revised gun laws. This provision will impose criminal liability on adults who negligently leave firearms accessible to children or otherwise allow children access to firearms.

Finally, after a series of shootings involving families with young children, the state legislature of Maryland is considering two bills which would give judges more authority to remove firearms when a victim seeks a protective order against a spouse.

Hopefully these measures will serve as an example to other states. No action, legislative or otherwise, is too ambitious when it comes to protecting our kids.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something strange seems to come over far-right Republican Members of Congress during election season. A case in point is seven-term Congressman Mark Souder from the state of Indiana. He is by all accounts an opponent of “Big Government” and federal interference in local matters. But in an election year when he is facing a stiff challenge from Democrat Mike Montagano, Souder has decided to spend his time pushing a bill that seeks to usurp the powers of the mayor, city council and residents of the District of Columbia.

H.R. 1399 would pre-empt the Supreme Court’s recent decision in District of Columbia v. Heller and prevent the city from complying with the ruling by instituting a new registration system for handguns. Souder’s bill would allow individuals to possess unregistered firearms, repeal the District’s ban on assault weapons, and prohibit the city from taking any future action “to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms.” Federal lawmakers are essentially being asked to impose on the city of Washington something they would never tolerate for their own home districts.

Given the state of the economy and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, one would think our Congress has far more important things to do than serve as the city council for the District of Columbia. However, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains a lobbying power on Capitol Hill and it is eager to throw raw meat to its contributors as the November elections approach. According to The Hill newspaper, the NRA will be grading Members of Congress on whether they support a discharge petition to bring H.R. 1399 to the floor of the House. Conservatives looking for NRA money and support have been put on notice.

The District is vulnerable to such an attack, of course, because it continues to lack voting representation in Congress. Rep. Souder and many of the co-sponsors of H.R. 1399 are the same politicians that time and again have opposed the “District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act,” which would give the city a voting representative in their chamber for the first time ever. D.C.’s non-voting Delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has been perfectly clear regarding her opinion of Rep. Souder’s legislation, stating, “I've seen some outrageous attempts to violate home-rule, but this nakedly political and unnecessary NRA-driven attempt is a new low because, by acting now, they deny the District the decency and respect due any American jurisdiction going through the prescribed process for complying with [a decision by the Supreme Court].”

In a time when our country is facing real and pressing issues domestically and abroad, it’s not only D.C. that should be feeling outrage. Voters who want their elected officials to deal with the problems that actually affect them and their families might also want to keep their eye on what Rep. Souder and the NRA are trying to pull off in Congress.