"Celebratory Gunfire" Kills. Watch For It This New Year's

Every year, I hear reports of people shot, injured, or nearly hit by bullets fire on New Year's and other holidays (4th of July comes in second, when I last blogged on the topic).  For instance, HERE is one from last New Year's, where a 14-year old boy was wounded in Illinois.

Another from last New Year's was a 12-year old boy in Florida (the "Gunshine State"), Diego Duran.  He was sitting outside watching fireworks with his family when a bullet struck him in the head.  He went into a coma for a while, but survived and has recovered, though with memory damage and a shunt in his head.  From an article:

As 2011 turned to 2012, Diego and his family were celebrating the New Year by watching fireworks from their yard; their home is an oasis of peace, surrounded by acres of solitude. Within the first few minutes of the New Year, Diego suddenly fell to the ground, bleeding. A bullet, fired into the sky from possibly miles away, found him and changed his life forever. Somewhere out in Ruskin, his assailant remains unknown and unidentified, someone who fired a gun into the air in celebration without giving thought to the fact that the bullet that emerged from the barrel did not simply disappear into the night sky. It came back down and struck a child. Intent or deliberation are not factors because the thoughtlessness of such an act is little different from a direct shot at a child; the end result was the same. A child was struck in the head by a bullet and instantly began fighting for his life. Until that moment, the young family rightfully thought they were safe in their own yard, celebrating the New Year together at home. But celebratory gunfire knows no boundaries. No one is safe from it. 

Over the past year, Diego has endured repeated surgeries, gains and setbacks. He never stopped fighting for his life and is now on the road to recovery. And now he is fighting for the lives of others.
 “Diego continues to improve overall,” Sandy said. “He still has a shunt to help drain his cerebral spinal fluid and he is on blood thinners due to a constricted artery in his brain. Still, he seems to be just great! If anyone was to see him in person, they would not even have a clue of what he had been through since January 1 of this year.” 

Upon meeting him it is clear that Diego is an intelligent, polite, creative and sensitive young man. His struggle to recover and his fight to prevent this from happening again have garnered worldwide attention. He is still coping with memory loss but is improving thanks to the dedication of his family, teachers and therapist.

Diego and his family now work hard to try to fight this phenomenon through an organization they started, called Bullet Free Sky.  Here is a link to their website:  http://bulletfreesky.com/spread_the_word.html.  They also have a Facebook page.

From that previous article:

“We are doing our best to educate people regarding the dangers of celebratory gunfire, a very irresponsible use of a firearm,” Sandy said, referring to Bullet Free Sky. “We have had booths at events leading to the New Year. We’re working on a public service advertisement to air on television and are planning on educating students in schools.” 

You can help their efforts by visiting the Bullet Free Sky website at www.bulletfreesky.com. There, you can find free posters, banners and flyers in both English and Spanish to download and display at businesses or anywhere they can be seen by the public. On the website, there are also t-shirts, wristbands and medallions for sale, with all of the money earned going back into the nonprofit organization and used to help fund current and future activities to help keep the skies over South Hillsborough and America bullet free. 

“You can help create awareness without even saying a word,” Sandy said of the t-shirts, wristbands and medallions. One person can make a big difference. One person may save a life.”

My friend, Joe Jaskolka, previously wrote a "survivor story" here at New Trajectory, describing how, at age 11, he was hit in the head by a celebratory shooting.  He still has the bullet in his head, and has endured 40 surgeries.  Now he and his father, Greg, work hard to prevent further celebratory shooting.  Here they are, featured in a Philadelphia news article on the topic (click to watch):

Another friend of mine, Henry Louis Adams, also works hard to reduce celebratory shootings, administers a Facebook page (Citizens Against Celebratory Gunfire and Senseless Gun Violence), and recently wrote an article on the topic:

Every year, the names of the injured and fallen will continue to grow, Celebratory Gunfire is increasingly even more a dangerous, irresponsible, and intrusive activity. Many victims were in their places of safety such as inside of their homes, churches, or simply watching fireworks from their own doorsteps on New Year’s Eve night when their lives were altered by a celebratory bullet. 

As our heart is still healing from one of the most gut wrenching gun massacres in U.S. history, let us remember the long fight ahead to a safer America. I believe that education is the key in combating celebratory gunfire. I have talked with lots of people over the years and so many people simply cannot understand how someone can be severely injured or killed during this activity. Even more shocking is that everyone that participates in this activity often will never know that they may have pulled the trigger that took the life of a innocent child or adult miles way.

It only takes one bullet to kill the party, as this Miami program against celebratory gunfire advertises.  If you or someone you know is thinking of shooting a gun in celebration, think again.  Every bullet comes down somewhere, and there may be people and property there.  Stick to fireworks.

ADDENDUM (12/31/12):  Check out the interesting comments on the article by Henry Louis Adams.  Also, here is a related article, also featuring Joe Jaskolka, with Philly police pleading with citizens not to shoot for New Year's Eve.

UPDATES (1/1/13):

HERE is dramatic audio of the shots fired over Atlanta at New Year's.

A 10-year old girl was shot and is in critical condition, by celebratory gunfire, in Pennsylvania.

Henry Louis Adams, cited in this blog post, shared on Facebook the sounds of Dekalb County, Georgia, at midnight on New Year's.  It sounded like a battleground.  Here is an article about the violence there this New Year's, with Henry featured in it.  Here is one article illustrating the danger, where two men were nearly hit by a bullet that, luckily, richocheted off a window crossbar instead of hitting them inside their apartment:

Another Dekalb County woman spent part of the evening in her husband's bulletproof gear.

HERE is another report, this one of an elderly lady in Los Angeles hit in the foot.

Five people were arrested in Saginaw, Michigan.  Read there for individual stories of victims.

A woman and an 8-year old boy were injured from celebratory gunfire in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the hand and the foot, respectively.

Survivor Story: Joseph B. Jaskolka

Today we have a survivor story from guest blogger Joseph B. Jaskolka.  Just after midnight on the morning of January 1, 1999, he was 11 years old when he suffered a gunshot wound from celebratory gunfire in Philadelphia, as he describes below. For years after, he had therapy five days a week.  He eventually helped with the original Million Mom March.  He is now 25 years old and still has the bullet in his head (as you can see in the x-ray).  Here is his survivor story....

What goes up, must come down. That’s the sad truth behind my situation!

An x-ray of Joseph B. Jaskolka and the bullet still lodged in his head

Hello, my name is Joseph B. Jaskolka, and I am a gun-violence survivor. Back on New Year’s Eve 1998~into~New Year’s morning of January 1^st, 1999, I changed the trend of gun-violence victims that give-up their struggle to exist. What makes my story “unique” is that I was just 11 years old at the time of my shooting (which is often considered a relative death sentence by my Doctor’s and Nurses’ at that time period.)

I was your typical athletic, video game playing, outdoors type child that loved playing with my neighborhood crew (friends) and sports with my classmates. In my school, I loved to play sports, mainly football and basketball. Then, the buck stops there…

It was New Year’s Eve of 1998, and as a tradition set by my late Grandfather, everyone would travel from all-over on the east coast and try with all their power to attend that traditional family gathering. By going to that party, I was afforded the opportunity to talk with distant cousins who didn’t live close-by.

As the clock struck midnight, and as normal people do in our “civilized” nation, my parents rang in the New Year by banging on pots and pans.  I had no idea that people would be firing their guns into the midnight sky, but that is the often painful re-occurrence that people partake in doing. It’s an over 300 year-old tradition dating back to colonial days when William Penn helped to establish the city of Philadelphia, or the city of brotherly love, and sisterly affection?!

A couple cousins and I were heading to go see one of the local Mummer’s string bands warm-up, or as they're most famously called by my two parents, The New Year shooters.  I thought that title was pretty odd at the time, now I have more common-sense!

Being the son of a Vietnam veteran (father) and a Navy brat (mother) I never really was ever taught to “admire” firecrackers/works.  My dad always taught me that they were dangerous, and also saying, “If you want fireworks, go in the service.” Which before my shooting I was preparing myself for.

Against popular belief, I wasn’t walking to see the fireworks at Penn’s Landing in Center-city Philadelphia, I was enjoying the family-festivities in my Grandmother’s split-level row-house in South Philadelphia. Here come the irony…

I got maybe a half-block away from my Grandmother’s home before a “Celebratory bullet" pierced my skull. Better yet, when my cousin Jeff ran back in the house to report to an adult to call 911, “Joe’s just lying on the ground, everyone must have thought I was joking”, but a child with a bullet-hole in the top of his cranium, when my parents (and aunts, uncles, and fellow cousins) were all trying to figure out what happened to me, crazy scenarios started to be heard.

When police searched the rooftops in a few block radius a day later, they found over 700 spent bullets!

When everyone at the party figured out my condition, they along with the medical staff at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) must have all figured I was dead.  You know you’re a dead man when the hospital has a priest sitting with your parents in the Emergency Room to wait for bad news.

Because the city was basically broke at that time, they only had enough funds to pay for ambulances for crowd control in Center-city, so with my family's frantic 911 call, all the city could afford was to send me a fire truck to a shooting scene in South Philadelphia.  Even better yet, the dispatcher next sent us a police wagon!

So, they loaded me in the wagon and off we went to Jefferson Hospital, my first hospital, then after that I was flown to CHOP where doctors and nurses there saved my life.

Fast-forward to the present state of our country...  I can’t understand where the argument exists between whether gun-violence is an urban problem or a residential one.  The way I will always see it, it’s a bleak and scary American issue. Both of our presidential “Hopefuls” are remaining silent on the issue because they both think gun-control is a losing issue among voters, but funny thing is they’re both not losing a thing by remaining silent, just the American people keep losing their lives.

34 PEOPLE PER DAY ARE LOST TO GUN-VIOLENCE, 8 OF THOSE 34 ARE CHILDREN!!!

ADDENDUM (from Baldr):  If you wish to combat celebratory gunfire, I urge you to visit and support the Bullet Free Sky website and Facebook page, which was formed by the family of 12-year old Diego Duran after he was also shot by celebratory gunfire.  You can also visit and support the "Citizens Against Celebratory Gunfire and Senseless Gun Violence" Facebook page.  Bullets don't know when to stop.

"Celebratory Gunfire" Kills -- Keep Your Guns Inside This Fourth Of July

Wednesday is our nation's birthday, Independence Day, when we celebrate the birth of Democracy, the founding our nation, and the rule of laws made by men to protect our freedoms.

It is a time for families to come together and enjoy each other's company, grill some hot dogs, and shoot of some colorful fireworks.  Some of my best memories are of Fourth of July get-togethers.

But it's also a good time to reflect on a bit of old wisdom:  with increased freedom comes increased responsibility.  Not everyone is responsible enough for those freedoms. 

You are free to drink if you are of legal age, but the Fourth of July is a time of increased drinking and driving.  Because people are not always responsible, there are laws against it, and increased police patrols. 

You are free to shoot off fireworks, but some fireworks are dangerous.  Every year people are injured or killed by them, and they can start fires.  So, here in Oregon at least, there are limits to what fireworks you can buy and set off (no bottle rockets or Roman candles, for instance).  Over at the Common Gunsense blog, the author, Japete, points out that, in Minnesota, you have to show your ID and have your driver's license scanned in order to buy even the simplest of fireworks, but you don't even need that much to buy a gun in a private purchase.

So there were 2 deaths from fireworks in 2009 and 8800 injuries in the U.S. I remind my readers that firearms take the lives of 30,000 Americans every year ( including 8 children a day) and another 70,000 injuries costing the country billions of dollars. And yet, I needed to produce my driver's license to buy 2 boxes of "Pop Its" today! There is widespread recognition that fireworks and firecrackers can be and are dangerous. Guns? Not so much. I should say that most people understand the dangers of guns but the NRA and its' minions won't allow any common sense laws to pass to prevent deaths and injuries. I also remind my readers that private sellers of firearms are supposed to ask for a driver's license but many do not.  In hidden camera video after hidden camera video, we have the proof that many people buy guns without producing one piece of identification. Here is just one of the latest exposés about how easy it is to buy guns, no questions asked. It's easier to buy a gun than it is to buy fireworks. And fireworks cause a very small number of deaths and injuries to Americans in a given year. Where is common sense?

And if you are a law-abiding adult, you are free to purchase and own a gun in your home, but you cannot willy-nilly fire it in public.  And yet, every year, there are injuries and deaths from "celebratory gunfire."  For some reason, some people aren't satisfied by simply whooping and hollering, or even exploding fireworks.  Instead, they find it necessary to fire off bullets into the night sky.  It makes a loud and fantastic boom, right?  What are the chances that the bullets are actually going to fall on someone?

Don't say that to the parents of this 7-year old, who was hit in the abdomen by celebratory gunfire this New Year's.  Or this 14-year old who was injured.  Or this 12-year old who was shot in the head and put in a coma.  The list goes on....

The 12-year old, Diego Duran, was in a coma for a month and is now recuperating.  He and his family have started an initiative, called "Bullet Free Sky" to try to reduce celebratory gunfire.  Their webpage: http://bulletfreesky.com/ .   Their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/BulletFreeSky.

Here is a good article about the dangers of celebratory gunfire.  As the Author, Henry Louis Adams, writes:

Every year countless numbers of people are either killed or injured due to this senseless activity. It has been two years since Marquel Peters was struck in the head by a celebratory bullet while sitting in a Georgia church on New Year’s Eve. Also, Sergio Martinez at age 34 was struck in the head with a celebratory bullet while inside of his family’s home. The paramedics found him lying on the kitchen floor. Diego Duran, a 12-year-old Florida boy, was sitting in his front yard watching the fireworks in January of 2012 when he was struck by a celebratory bullet.

Diego sustained life threatening injuries, but survived and is still struggling from the effects of that shooting today. Joseph B. Jaskolka shares the moment he came in contact with celebratory Gunfire. He says: "I was struck in the head at about 12:05am, January 1st , 1999, in South Philadelphia. I was at a family party, I was almost immediately struck in the head after I took a few steps down Fernon Street. The bullet entered the top of my head, then fell down and now is resting on my brain stem. I was an athletic pre-teen who is now a hemiplegic man (I only have the use of my left sided extremities). By the way, I was just 11 years old at the time."

When I think of celebratory gunfire, images of third-world nations come to mind, like of Saddam Hussein shooting off a rifle at his public events.  But, as I have posted before, we are worse for shootings than most third-world nations, including many of those who are at war.

I urge you to spread the word to your community about this danger.  Here is a good pledge to take part in, Marquel's Pledge, to stop celebratory shootings.   Take part in a virtual event the Say NO to "Celebratory Gunfire" Facebook event.  Join the Citizens Against Celebratory Gunfire and Senseless Gun Violence Facebook group.

Enjoy your Fourth of July festivities.  Have fun with friends and families and fireworks.  But please be safe.

And for those of you who have guns at home, don't make your gun part of the festivities, for safety's sake. It's illegal, after all.

ADDENDUM: A related article, with some historical information on "celebratory gunfire."

ADDENDUM:  An interesting comment about this issue,by Peg Thon, from a related posting (click to zoom):

UPDATE (7/5/12):  Added information on Bullet Free Sky.

.