Tag Archives: gun violence

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Cassidy personifies courage

The current Bravest Person in the World is a 15-year-old Texas girl named Cassidy Stay.

She has just witnessed the worst act of cruelty any human being can ever imagine: the slaying of her entire immediate family, her parents and her four siblings, ages 4 through 13. Cassidy also was a target of the shooter. She was hospitalized in critical condition but she’s now out of the hospital.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/12/justice/texas-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Cassidy today stood before friends and family members gathered at a memorial service and quoted Dumbledore from the Harry Potter stories. “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times,” Cassidy said, citing J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” “if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

How does anyone — let alone a teenager — stand before the world and offer comfort to the rest of us?

Cassidy lives in Spring, a Houston suburb. Ronald Lee Haskell is charged with capital murder. He allegedly barged into the Stays’ home and opened fire. He was seeking his estranged wife, who wasn’t in the house.

Her strength and courage defy description. “I know that my Mom, Dad, Brian, Emily, Becca and Zach are in a much better place, and that I will be able to see them again one day,” Cassidy said at the gathering.

My goodness. How does one summon the strength to say such things in public so soon after witnessing what no one ever should witness?

The nation should pray for this little girl. I’m doing so right now.

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Sandy Hook didn't stop anything

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Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t that mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., supposed to be the Mother of All Wakeup Calls to end gun violence in America?

Weren’t we supposed to have been shaken to our core, energized in an unprecedented way to seek an end to this madness?

I thought so, too.

Silly me.

Check out the map here and ask yourself: Why has this violence continued?

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/10/5797306/map-school-shooting-sandy-hook

Seventy-four.

That’s the number of school shootings that have occurred since Sandy Hook, where 20 first-graders and six teachers were killed by that single madman, who then shot himself to death.

The latest incident occurred near my hometown of Portland, Ore., where a 15-year-old Reynolds High School student walked into a locker room and killed a 14-year-old freshman instantly with a single bullet. The shooter then took his own life.

We’re outraged yet again. President Obama said after the Portland tragedy that “we’re the only industrialized nation” where this kind of violence occurs with such regularity.

I don’t have the answer. Nor do I know where to find it.

The Second Amendment says we have the right to keep and bear arms. I don’t believe it says everyone in America — regardless of their mental condition — has the same rights to a firearm as most of the rest of us.

There must be a way to prevent them from putting their hands on deadly weapons — and putting our children at such horrifying risk.

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Fort Hood … again

Violence has erupted at Fort Hood yet again.

It’s early in the aftermath of the latest shooting rampage at the sprawling Army post in Central Texas.

Four people — including the gunman — are dead and many others are injured.

It was less than five years ago that Army Major Nadal Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers while protesting the Pentagon’s war policies in Afghanistan. Hasan, a psychiatrist and a devout Muslim, had been ordered to Afghanistan; he wouldn’t go, so he embarked on a senseless rampage. An Army court martial convicted him and sentenced him to death.

Now this event.

The nation’s heart breaks once again at this senseless shooting. President Obama vows to get to the bottom of what transpired. Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said the Pentagon’s main focus right now is to support the families of those who were killed or wounded.

Meanwhile, the simplest of questions arises from this tragic act. Why?

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Tragedy defies ability to comprehend

There are times when national tragedies go far beyond people’s ability to understand.

Today was one of those times.

Twelve innocent victims are dead at the hands of a gunman, Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, who then was killed in a fire fight with law enforcement authorities at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard.

How does one grasp something like this?

A few questions popped into my head during the day as I was running around at work and catching snippets of news broadcasts on TV.

I learned that Alexis had a concealed handgun carry permit, issued in Texas. I also learned that he had two minor firearms-related incidents on his record, one in 2004 and another in 2010. I haven’t yet heard when Alexis was issued his concealed carry permit. Was it after those incidents? Was it before they occurred? If he received the permit after the shooting-related incidents, how did he qualify to carry a handgun on his person? If he received the permit beforehand, were the incidents entered into his background data base? If not, why not? If so, how was he allowed to keep his permit?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/another-day-another-mass-shooting-and-more-shattered-lives.html/

Of course, Alexis reportedly was carrying three weapons into the Navy Yard: a pistol, a shotgun and an AR-15 assault rifle. The only weapon covered by the concealed carry permit would have been the pistol.

However, he purchased all the guns legally — including the assault rifle, according to news reports.

Again, given his record of firearms-related disturbance, how did that happen?

This tragedy is going to take some time process.

Our hearts are broken once again.