Tag Archives: gun violence

Make Them Look At Human Gun Carnage

Posted on by
Reply

Make the NRA and their GOP sycophants look at the torn and shredded remains of those American children and adults slaughtered by firearms. Number one reason children die in this country? Someone shoots them.

I survived an act of gun violence in 1984 when I was held up and shot in the head at point blank range. The bullet remains lodged in the brain. Members of our American family – including our children – are being shot down every day. It is time to make those preventing a safer country to get a close up look at reality.

The author, weeks after the shooting, September, 1984.

Make these accessories to murder look at the pictures, up close. Film, photograph, and record their reactions to seeing these pictures.   

Put them in a crime scene and say look at this torn up child. Still don’t like background checks? Keep looking. Still don’t want to ban assault weapons? Say that out loud, for the camera that’s trained on you while you’re looking at this horror.  

Then, with the pictures of human carnage present, have them publically explain why this carnage is the price members of our American family must pay for our freedom. 

The greed-driven thugs who oppose universal background checks, red flag laws, and a ban on assault weapons, are directly or indirectly, accessories to murder and attempted murder. 

James Brady and author, circa 1990
James Brady and author, circa 1990

If anyone thinks, even for a moment, that labelling these folks accessories to murder is a stretch, it’s not. Not even a little. 

The Cornell Law School’s online Legal Information Institute says an accessory before-the-fact (the crime), 

 ”is a person who aids, abets, or encourages another to commit a crime but who is not present at the scene. An accessory before the fact, like an accomplice may be held criminally liable to the same extent as the principal. Many jurisdictions refer to an accessory before the fact as an accomplice.

See  Evans v. State, 145 So. 3d 674 (Miss. 2014); accessory”

Now, the NRA leadership and its GOP sycophants know  – they know – children and adults in our American family will get shot and killed because of them. They know thousands upon thousands will get shot and survive. Peoples lives blown to pieces because these are greed-driven thugs who want money. Profit before people. Let the people die.

Nothing that I propose here should happen without the permission of the survivors of gun violence, their families, and the families of those who did not survive the act of gun violence. 

Back to the woods

Posted on by
1

The woods have been my sanctuary since I was a small boy, and now, after another wrestling match with a dose of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), it is my sanctuary. The PTSD is the result of being held up and shot in the head in 1984.

IMG_3887
The author. April 4, 2020

Needless to say, events like that one shift life’s landscape to varying degrees. It’s not unusual for it to take time to, first, recognize the changes, then, the hard step, accept them. You have to accept them in order to manage them. If I did not accept my eyes won’t let me read anymore on their own, I wouldn’t wear glasses when I read.

If you don’t accept the presence of whatever it is that is impeding your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it will continue to drag you down, and it won’t stop.

The woods and all the magic that awaits there, welcomes everyone with as pure an equality as there is in life. I’ve done a lot of healing in the woods. They’re helping me heal now.

NRA putting Pence’s life in danger?

Posted on by
Reply

For reasons not fully understood,  the National Rifle Association has decided to place Vice President Mike Pence’s life in jeopardy by issuing a ban on guns at Pence’s Friday night speech to the National Rifle Association conference in Dallas. Or, for the first time in its history, the NRA is admitting the presence of guns increases the presence of life-threatening danger.

NRA executive director and CEO Wayne LaPierre was vehement in his assertion that giving guns to “armed security” in schools would make the schools safer.

“The whole idea from some of our opponents, that armed security makes schools less safe, is completely ridiculous,” LaPierre said, during February’s Conservative Political Action Conference.

Surely Lapierre would take the moral high ground when it comes to keeping children safe. If true, then the ban on guns is knowingly putting Pence in danger. Or, LaPierre and his crew don’t give a damn about keeping children safe.

I don’t think LaPierre and the NRA leadership give a damn about school safety.

 

 

 

Break for freedom – Day 14 (the One Shot Club)

Posted on by
Reply

Day 14 – Thursday, August 24, 2017 (The One Shot Club)

6:23 a.m. – 33 years ago today I was held-up and shot in the head. Like it or not, it’s been something of a banner over my life ever since. I remember Jim Brady, the White House press secretary for President Ronald Reagan who was shot in the head during a 1981 assassination attempt on the president, drawing my attention to the fact both of us lived with injuries that, by their very nature (We both lived with bullet fragments lodged in our brain.), would get us attention, and we should use the attention to help others understand the reality of brain injury, and the merciless reality of gun violence.

Jim left this life three years ago this month. He was a good, loving, and courageous man. There are people alive today because of the Brady Bill.

Jim is not the only person I’ve known who has survived being headshot. Or, as my late friend William would say, “The One Shot Club.” William was a member, so too were Kevin, Tyrone, Donald. We all really and truly loved and cared about each other. One day, William, me, Tyrone, and Donald were standing outside in a small circle talking. Suddenly a big smile burst onto Tyrone’s face. “Hey, we’re all standing?”

This observation was followed immediately by all of us of us putting our arms around the shoulders of man on either side of us. We were all smiling, no one said a word. The reality Tyrone’s question brought to the fore didn’t require words. Had any of us said a word in those next moments, the spiritual beauty of the experience would have vanished. In short, we loved each other, our respect for each other was bullet proof.

8:01 a.m. – Home after cool, crisp, enjoyable walk. The walks are becoming easier. Anxiety down a good 80 percent. This means I’ll soon change the route again, and add distance. When you’ve reduced your opponents’ punches to weak jabs, go to the next level, challenge its harder punches, and punch back.

Here’s to every member of the One Shot Club, I love each of you with all my heart.

************

For Donald, Jim, Kevin, Tyrone, & William

Break for freedom – Day 10 (The bullet)

Posted on by
1

Day 10 – Sunday, August 20, 2017 (The bullet)

7:51 a.m. – Back home from my walk. I looked up around 6:40-something this morning and said: “I want to go out.” In short order, out I went into the early morning cool.

I did not get as sweat-soaked today. I think (I don’t want to say this too loudly) I may be beginning to carve away power from fear. If you happen to bump into fear at a social event, please don’t let on. Fear is quite the control freak, any sign that someone is breaking free of its grasp makes it angry.

For whatever reason, perhaps because this is the month I got shot, I found myself thinking of the bullet lodged in the frontal lobe of my brain during the walk. The brain has no nerve endings, so I don’t feel it. If I were to identify one disappointment linked to its presence, it would be this; I don’t set off airport alarms. I had plans of approaching an airport metal detector and bowing my head forward so it would be the first to thing enter its realm. My thought was, the bullet will set the alarm off, the inspector will point at my head and ask, “So whattaya got in there?” and I’ll respond, “You’re never gonna believe this.” But, alas, these detectors don’t detect lead.

The bullet has been part of my being for most of my life now, 33 years the 24th of this month. It has done its damage, and no doubt plays a role in my life, to some degree. It has its limitations. Name one, you ask? Sure. It couldn’t stop me from taking my morning walk today.

KahrmannHeadXray2.jpg

************

For James Scott “Jim” Brady aka Bear