Pulcer: Premature death – memories and loopholes

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Ron Pulcher of Rutland. It was first published on his blog Ski the Middle VT on April 4, 2013.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I remember where I was when I heard that a plane hit the World Trade Center. I was driving along Route 103, commuting to work. By the time I reached Chester, I heard another radio report, a second plane hit the towers. I’ll bet many of you remember the details of that day, especially the thoughts and feelings you had when you learned of the second plane crash.

For a period of time, Americans came together and mourned for our 3,000-plus citizens whose lives were taken prematurely. Most Americans, at least initially, supported the war in Afghanistan. But when it came to dealing with terrorism by invading Iraq in 2003, the American public became divided, yet again.

I remember where I was when I read about the young innocent children who lost their lives in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012. I didn’t find out until my lunch hour. I had just logged out of my email, and then saw the headline. “Oh God, not another shooting!”

Again, the nation came together to mourn. But when it comes to figuring out how to prevent, or at least minimize the amount of premature death that occurs in our country, we as a people find ourselves divided again. If we are not pitted against a foreign enemy, we seem to turn in on our fellow citizens, our neighbors.

Many Americans (including myself) attended Good Friday service and remembered the story of Jesus’ Passion. Dec. 14 was a “Bad Friday” for the families and citizens of Newtown and all Americans. For Christians, on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection, overcoming death and (our) sin. But can America as a nation turn the Newtown tragedy, and other gun deaths, into something positive?

This week is the 45th anniversary of the premature death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn., by an assassin’s bullet, on April 4 1968. Within seven days after Dr. King’s assassination, the U.S. Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed or national origin.

Since Dec. 14, it has been 111 days. Other than speeches, press conferences, hearings, devisive partisan debates and reader comment forums, things are pretty much the status quo, except for in states like Colorado and Connecticut.

If you are older than I am, you might remember where you were when you heard about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was only 5 years old then, and don’t remember too much, except for one detail. There was one morning when my parents got up very early. They were in the living room, just down the short hallway from the bedroom I shared with my brother. The TV sound was turned down very quietly. My parents talked occasionally in hushed tones. I could see the TV lights flicker, and strained to hear what was being said, but couldn’t understand anything. All I could surmise was that something very bad happened. I suspect that morning was sometime after the day JFK was killed by a gunman, a Saturday or Sunday. Or, maybe early on the day of the funeral, Monday, Nov. 25, 1963.

I can recall where I was when I heard the sad news about the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. I was only 9 years old then. The same thing goes for the assassination attempts on Gov. George Wallace in 1972. Ditto for the assassination attempts on Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. I recall the premature death of a non-politician named John Lennon, born in Britain, killed in America.

On the day my wife and I drove back to Vermont after my mother’s funeral, as we crossed the Lewiston bridge from Ontario into New York, we heard the news report about the school shooting in Flint, Mich. My mother, a cancer survivor, lived to age 63. But a 6-year-old girl, Kayla Rolland, was shot in her first grade classroom by a 6-ear-old boy.

But the freshest of these sad memories are named Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek, and Newtown.

I recall these memories not to point out how good my memory (still) is. Rather, at least in our radio, TV and Internet eras, that we can remember these incidents of gun violence, assassination, terrorism and war, even from a very young age. While other memories may fade, these memories have stuck with me for a lifetime.

One day in the late 1960s/early 1970s, a Detroit Free Press headline caught my attention, “Detroit is Murder Capital of America.” I was walking though our family room, saw the headline, sat down and read the entire article. This time, I wasn’t just imitating my father reading the paper, I was actually curious, especially since we lived only 4 miles from Eight Mile Road, the northern border of Detroit. The article stated that Detroit had over 800 murders in the prior year. In comparison, Windsor, Ontario, across the river, only had four murders. Toronto, Ontario, only had 25 murders.

I remember sitting there for awhile just trying to comprehend what I just read. It surely was news to me. My mother and her family came to the United States in 1946, after surviving World War II. I had heard the stories of Nazis coming through their village in Tuscany, as well as American and British troops. Luckily, the opposing troops were never there at the same time. Of all places, they immigrated to Detroit, which would later become a virtual war zone. I decided there and then, that when I grew up, I would leave the Detroit area. Eventually, I did.

Sadly, premature deaths of young Americans in Detroit continues.

I remember hearing the term “black-on-black” in regards to violence and crime. In Michigan, it seemed a way for elected officials to brush off the problem. In recent times, with Tucson, Aurora and Newtown, the killer was white and many of the victims were white. I haven’t heard anyone in the media or a politician use the term “white-on-white” violence. But I can’t help but think that this is one aspect of these mass killings that has caused such a sustained focus by Americans and the media (plus the fact that the victims were young children and college students). As for America’s sustained focus on this issue, better late than never.

I can understand people’s need and desire to protect their family and property. That was the case in Metro Detroit, with high crime and murder rates, and drug-related crime spilling into the suburbs. When I was in high school our neighbor to the south had an attempted break-in, and our neighbor to the north later had an actual break-in. My parents taught us to always keep a light on in the house when gone, and always lock the house and the car. My wife grew up in a small farm town in mid-Michigan, and her family would tease me whenever I locked my car door.

When I was about 11 years old, I must have been bored one day. While my mother was outside or downstairs, I started opening up drawers, out of curiosity I guess. I came upon a gun in a drawer in my parents’ room. I knew what it was, and what it could do, so I just looked at it and closed the drawer. But then I knew that my father kept a gun nearby, just in case. He was not a hunter, but he was a Korean War vet, and had learned to shoot.

Later, when I was in the Boy Scouts, I learned to shoot a gun and did some target practice during campouts. My father once set up a target in our tiny backyard, and brought out a BB gun. He gave my brother and I some basic training on shooting and safety. Luckily, we didn’t hit our neighbor’s garage. That was it, just once, and never a word after that about guns.

When I got older, I realized that since my eyesight is not very good (I’ve worn glasses since second grade), and I was not very good at shooting targets, that I would pass on owning a gun. Rather than live in fear and own a gun, I decided to move somewhere that was relatively safer. I ended up in Ingham County, before later moving to Vermont.

I also realized that there is a dilemma presented in owning a gun. If there is an intruder, if your gun is locked away, you might not get to it in time. If you leave the gun within easy reach, a young child might find it (like I had done). If you suddenly wake up and think you hear an intruder, there could be an accident.

Three years before I graduated from high school, the Vietnam War draft ended. Given the murder rate in Detroit, and the young American soldiers (and Vietnamese) who lost their lives, I could not help then but to think that America (or its politicians) did not seem to care about the lives of its young people. In recent years, I’ve had similar thoughts about members of Congress who voted for the unnecessary war in Iraq, yet campaign on their pro-life stance.

After America was attacked by foreigners (mostly Saudis) on 9/11, many in Congress knew exactly what to do: Invade and occupy the wrong country (Iraq), rename French fries to Freedom fries, and try to get Americans riled up and fearful about all Muslims. But when Americans are killed by other Americans, many in Congress don’t know what to do, other than worry about the next election and their NRA rating.

My grandfather passed away in 2004, at age 98. Sometime between the initial shock and awe” of the invasion of Iraq and his death, I talked with him on the phone. He had just watched the news from Iraq. He recalled a memory from long ago, and said (in broken English), “Di guerra, dis terrible” (“The war is terrible”). Then he paused and said, “I remember the night they bombed Lucca, I woke up and heard the bombs.” Lucca was 18 kilometers from his town. My grandfather could sympathize with Iraqis living under foreign occupation, as he had also lived under occupation during WWII.

After my mother passed away, my father, my wife and I took a trip to Italy to visit the country and village where my mother was born. We had planned the trip for October 2001. Although it was right after 9/11, we decided to go ahead with our plans. Near the end of our trip, my mother’s cousin hired a tour guide to help us visit Lucca. We saw some of the city’s many churches. One church was still being rebuilt and repaired after the damage from the WWII bombing. We next walked to a piazza where a demonstration was taking place. Many of the young people looked like teens wanting to skip out of class. Our tour guide walked over and talked to a policeman. She was told that the students were protesting America’s “invasion” of Afghanistan. Talk about memory, and generations later! Being Americans, we decided it was best to leave that piazza as quickly as we could.

Before we left for that trip from Boston’s Logan Aiport to Milan, we went through a screening process. The lines for domestic flights were incredibly long, as this was just before the official TSA agency was created. Luckily, for a foreign flight we had a much shorter line. The security screeners kept checking and scanning my father’s suitcase, and he had to unload most of it. The screeners finally found some thread and a sewing needle. My late mother was a great seamstress, and made some of her own clothes. She apparently kept a sewing needle in the suitcase if she needed to repair something. Given the 9/11 boxcutters, we lost my mother’s sewing needle. But on the other hand, it was like my Mom was saying “Hi” and wishing us “bon voyage.”

During the recent Senate hearing with outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it seemed that some senators were fixated on the four Americans killed in Benghazi, Lybia. Although tragic, these were foreign service officers who knew the dangers of working overseas. But when it comes to Americans being killed by other Americans, in America, Congress as a whole doesn’t seem as interested (or capable) in addressing the issue of “premature death” by guns.

During the Jan. 30, 2013, Senate Judiciary hearing, Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the authors of the Brady Bill, alluded to the compromise that was necessary to pass the bill (clip starts around 01:30:10). Thus, the “gun show loophole” was enshrined into law, enabling practically anyone, even criminals or the mentally ill, to buy guns without going through a background check.

During this year’s SuperBowl, an ad was played by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The ad contrasts NRA President Wayne LaPierre’s recent testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with his 1999 testimony in front of Congress. In the 1999 clip LaPierre said, “We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory, instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere, for anyone.”

Either Mr. LaPierre’s opinion has evolved, or devolved since then. Or, is this a case where the behind the scenes NRA lobbyists are saying yet another thing to members of Congress?

I agree with the Wayne LaPierre of 1999. For over a decade now, Americans must go through TSA screening in order to board a plane. So why can’t everyone who wants to buy a gun go through a background check? When TSA screening began, many politicians and pundits said that “if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about.” That same statement can be applied to universal gun background checks. As Wayne LaPierre of 1999 said, “No loopholes anywhere, for anyone.”