An Effort to Understand

There are many memorial dates that stand out on the gun violence prevention movement calendar. One of the most poignant to me is June 4. Last week, that date marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of anti-war presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy’s shooting coming so close on the heels of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left the country in great turmoil. President Lyndon Johnson appointed Milton S. Eisenhower to head a Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. One of the commission’s recommendations was to restrict the availability of handguns.

President Johnson urged Congress: “In the name of sanity…in the name of safety and in the name of an aroused nation…give America the gun control law it needs.” The centerpiece of his administration’s proposed legislation, introduced by Congressman Manny Celler (D-NY), was registration of all firearms and the licensing of gun owners.

The NRA launched an all-out war on the bill, saying that it would “sound the death knell for the shooting sport and eventually disarm the American public.” Following a rancorous five-day Senate debate in which Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) accused the NRA of “blackmail, intimidation and unscrupulous propaganda,” the Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968. By that point, the licensing and registration provisions had been stripped from the bill. In the end, the act banned the interstate shipment of firearms; prohibited the sale of guns to minors, drug addicts, mental incompetents and convicted felons; strengthened licensing and record-keeping requirements for gun dealers and collectors; increased penalties for those who use guns in the commission of a federal crime; and banned importation of foreign-made surplus firearms.

As limited as this law was, it was the first significant piece of federal gun control legislation passed by Congress in 30 years. Before long, the NRA would begin work on a well-financed campaign to repeal several of its provisions.

Years after the King-Kennedy assassinations, the widows of both men, Coretta Scott King and Ethel Kennedy, became National Co-Chairs of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Their strong, wise and compassionate advice and leadership were a great source of comfort as we worked on this vital issue.

But it is the words of Sen. Kennedy himself that echo in my mind as we mark his passing. On the night that Dr. King was killed, Sen. Kennedy addressed a crowd in Indianapolis and gave them the tragic news. He then said, "We can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."

This is still our goal and our responsibility.

Memorial Musings

During the past 40 years that I have been involved in the gun violence prevention movement, I have witnessed many things that have perplexed me. Not the least of these is the way our media treat some victims of gun violence.

Imagine this scene: Your family is in a crowd of people hanging out with friends and family at a neighborhood park at night on a holiday. Suddenly, the crowd is sprayed with gun fire. Six adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 receive gunshot wounds to the chest, thigh, torso, abdomen, and foot. One child is even grazed on the forehead by a bullet.

Now picture these children as African-American.

Is your horror the same? It should be. In fact, this exact scene played out on May 26 and the mainstream media did not even report on it. Yet they somehow found the time to keep us abreast of the latest Hollywood gossip.

I venture to say that had these teens, these children, been white, this would have been headline news. Every major news outlet, AP reporter, and weekly magazine would have descended on the crime scene and reported on every single second of this tragedy.

Have we really become desensitized to the fact that young black men and women are being gunned down daily in their neighborhoods? Is this now an accepted “norm,” business as usual in a self-obsessed nation?

So I am asking the media, and the American public, to make all gun-related injuries and deaths a national priority. The day we start seeing any child affected by gun violence as one of our own—as an integral and precious part of our national fabric—is the day we can start taking a serious stand on the easy access that youth have to guns in America.

The alternative—to remain complacent and embrace an “everyone-for-him/herself” mentality—is too terrible to contemplate.

Teddy

Like the rest of the nation, I was stunned and saddened by the recent news about Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy’s health. It seemed to knock the breath from our collective lungs here at the Coalition. But, in true Kennedy nature, Senator Kennedy is leading us through pain and grief yet again. With stoic pride and strength, he is showing us that patience and understanding are the ways to get through a rough time—not by reacting in anger.

The same was true when his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy, were gunned down and murdered. Although racked with grief, he refused to respond to the tragedy by calling on his fellow Americans to take up arms against one another. Nor did he himself exhibit a need for retribution. In those dark moments, he remained calm and let go of his fear and anger. And it was faith and reason that brought him through.

As a college student, I had the opportunity to serve as an intern in the office of Senator John F. Kennedy. That was a unique experience I will always treasure. His assassination and the shootings of Senator Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were the major reasons for the founding of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Over the intervening years, it has been a great pleasure to work with Senator Ted Kennedy on a series of important gun control measures.

I have the utmost admiration for the senator for his years of leadership and counsel. Teddy and Vicki, you are in our thoughts, prayers and hearts. May peace be with you. We look forward to having you back in Washington soon.

When We Are Called

A wise person once observed that there is a nexus between those who study because they suffer and those who suffer because they study.

It seems to me that the gun control movement is one of those places. Too many people come to the movement because they suffer as victims or survivors of gun tragedy. Others come to the movement because they have taken the time to study the issue and are outraged by what they find. Either way we enter, the pain becomes the same once we’re in.

In today’s political climate it is sometimes difficult to keep a positive attitude about the state of our movement. How do we carry on in the face of so much suffering? At such a time, I find myself turning to poetry and song. One song which has given me comfort is “When We Are Called to Sing Your Praise” (words by Mary Nelson Keithahn):

“When we are called to sing your praise with hearts so filled with pain
That we would rather sit and weep or stand up and complain,
Remind us, God, you understand the burdens that we bear;
You, too, have walked the shadowed way and known our deep despair.

When we are called to sing your praise and cannot find our voice,
Because our losses leave us now no reason to rejoice,
Remind us God, that you accept our sad laments in prayer;
You, too, have walked the shadowed way and known our deep despair.

When we are called to sing your praise and life ahead looks grim,
Still give us faith and hope enough to break forth in hymn,
A thankful hymn, great God of Love, that you are everywhere;
You walk the shadowed way with us and keep us in your care.”*

In those times when we must look inside for strength, I can only offer the hope that we can break forth in song and find that which is the source of our confidence.

*Copyright 2000 by Abingdon Press, admin by The Copyright Co.

The Little Leader

In the play “Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei)” by Bertolt Brecht, Gallileo is told by his daughter, Andrea, “Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero." Galileo responds, "No Andrea, unhappy is the land that needs a hero."

As we enter a summer certain to be filled with more horrific incidents of gun violence, our country is unhappily in need of heroes. The spring, however, seems to have already brought us one: Kai Leigh Harriott of Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Kai Leigh’s story was related by Marie Szaniszlo in the April 30 edition of the Boston Herald. Kai Leigh was just 3 years old in 2003 when she was struck on her front porch by a stray bullet which pierced her spine, leaving her paralyzed from the chest down.

The shooter was arrested and at his sentencing three years later, Kai Leigh turned her tear-stained face to the accused and told him that what he had done was wrong, but she forgave him.

Later, the convicted shooter videotaped an apology from behind bars urging other youth to learn from his mistakes. Viewing the tape, Kai Leigh (now age 7) said, “I would tell him thank you for making an apology because you can inspire so many people by telling them, ‘Don’t do bad things.’”

Kai Leigh’s spirit reminds me of the vision of the peaceable kingdom offered by the writer of the Book of Isaiah (chapter 11, verse 6 in the King James Bible):

“The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”

The Long Hot Summer Ahead

It is still spring and yet the indications are already here that we will have a long and deadly summer. Youth homicides are already beginning to reach epidemic proportions in many cities across the country as the economy slumps further and temperatures turn upward. Mayors in places like Chicago and Washington, D.C. are calling for emergency actions to reduce teen gun violence.

A decade ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a study that pointed out U.S. children ages 14 and younger are 12 times more likely to die by gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Young Americans are more likely to die from gunfire than from all natural causes combined.

Why is this? Some would argue that there are cultural differences—that Americans gorge themselves on violent videogames and movies. I have traveled around many countries of the world and I know that youth the world over watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video and computer games. While there is no doubt that there are many factors involved in American gun violence, the single largest factor is the easy availability of guns. This is where the similarities between other nations and the U.S. disappear.

Within our own country there is a similar disparity. A Harvard University study demonstrated that children in the U.S. are more likely to be killed with guns in states where there is a high level of gun ownership as opposed to states with low levels of gun ownership. Dr. Matthew Miller, lead author of the study, said “In States with more guns, more children are dying. They are dying in suicides, in homicides, and in gun accidents. This finding is completely contrary to the notion that guns are protecting us. The differences in violent death rates to children are large, and are closely tied to levels of gun ownership. The differences can not be explained by poverty, education or urbanization.”

So as we enter the long and violent summer, we can look forward to our big city mayors calling for more action to restrict the easy access that children, criminals and other prohibited purchasers have to guns. Their pleas will be met with silence by our elected officials and candidates for political office. And most likely the tears of parents of dead teenagers will, once again, fail to be seen or heard by our government.

We are the only ones that can change this bleak prognosis and move our nation toward a more rational gun policy. Are you willing to get involved for the sake of our children?

Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House

You can look on the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence website and find a myriad of reasons to not have a gun in the home. Most of the arguments are grounded in statistics and research, but one of my favorite reasons was cited by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (2001-2003) in the following poem:

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House

The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

The Wrong Question

Last week marked the first anniversary of the gun massacre at Virginia Tech. The remembrance was marked by more than 70 "Lie-Ins” across the nation, including one at the university, which also conducted a candlelight vigil and other commemorative events.

I could not help but be moved by the remarkable way the VA Tech community has responded to this great tragedy. I am also impressed that so many of the Hokies—students and parents—have become involved in the movement to stop gun violence.

As each of these shooting events takes place, the public response has for the most part become predictable. Most Americans are horrified and frustrated in equal parts. Certain politicians decry the violence, yet proclaim that guns have nothing to do with the problem. We all know that is not true. Guns have everything to do with it. There is no other consumer product used so frequently to deliberately kill our fellow citizens.

The pro-gun lobby is predictably using the recent school shootings as an opportunity to ask, “What if the teachers and students had been armed?” That is the wrong question.

The right question is, “What if the perpetrator had NOT been able to obtain those firearms?” How many lives would have been saved? Instead of asking what the U.S. would be like with more guns, shouldn’t we be asking what our country would be like with fewer guns? Guns do not solve problems, they create problems. A handgun is designed for the sole purpose of taking human life.

It is tragic that we have come to this; that we are obliged to be fearful of gun violence in our schools, our places of work and worship, our streets and highways. Our efforts must be dedicated to ending this shameful chapter in the life of the nation.

Conventional Wisdom

Over the years, I have learned a couple of things about "Conventional Wisdom”: 1) It is conventional—not a lot of thought has gone into it, and; 2) It is seldom wisdom.

The current conventional wisdom on gun violence is that it is an intractable problem that cannot be solved and that no one in or running for public office is willing to deal creatively with the issue.

I am constantly dismayed that people who have witnessed dramatic changes in public policy—the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dismantling of apartheid and the creation of a new South Africa, the winding down of the nuclear arms race, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, etc.—people who have seen these miracles in their own lifetime, will look at you dumbfounded when you say, “We can have a society free of gun violence.”

Where is our vision? What is our hope? We must confront and change the common wisdom that will lead us to despair and hopelessness. We can and must envision a nation in which we are not afraid of the gun lobbyists, a nation in which we have sensible gun laws; laws meant to protect us, to protect our communities, to protect our children.

We cannot achieve what we do not first dare to dream.

Style and Grace

In my 40-year journey through the gun violence prevention movement, I have had the opportunity to meet—and at times to debate—many fascinating people. One of the most interesting individuals I’ve ever encountered was Charlton Heston, who served as President of the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 1998 to 2003.

I must admit that I was never a fan of Mr. Heston's wooden acting style, nor his stentorian delivery.
Neither could I find much value in the right-wing political philosophy he embraced later in his life. However, I found him to be a kind and humorous gentleman in person. Perhaps I was swayed by his referring to me as a "young man"; something I had not been called in years!

Heston was extremely successful at portraying some of the great characters of history on the silver screen. But perhaps the greatest character he was able to project was that of Chuck Heston, the larger-than-life, rugged American hero. His manner of sharing his final battle with Alzheimer's disease was a great testimony to the man, as was the forceful way in which he led the NRA. I will truly miss his style and grace.