No Vacation For Shootings

Also one of the safest, and a gun-free zone

(Updated -- see below)

I took a little vacation from volunteering, including from gun violence prevention activities like this blog (though I did continue to read and share on social media) as well as any other sort of community work I do.

Facing down the specter of gun violence, reading so many articles about shootings, learning about victims, and meeting survivors all takes a toll on a person.  Instead, for a month, I focused almost completely on my family.

A week of that time was spent in southern California, taking the kids to Disneyland and Legoland and visiting with family down there.  I was thankful for Disneyland's policy against concealed handguns by visitors.  Despite the fact that over 40,000 people (sometimes up to twice that number) visit the park each and every day I was there, there were (gasp!) no incidents where someone had to defend themselves with a firearm in this gun-free zone.  No gangs jumped out at me from behind the yeti on the Matterhorn roller coaster; no drug fiends tried to rape us on the Tea Cup ride; no mass shooters went on a spree as we sailed through It's A Small World.  The worst I saw were some stressed parents with over-stimulated, tantruming kids.  Safety in the "Happiest Place On Earth" doesn't need gun-toting people afraid of their fellow man.  Of course, some gun guys purposely disobey.  They just can't keep their paranoia at home.  If they would stupidly take them into airport security (as over 1500 did last year, with a disturbing rise so far this year), they would take them anywhere.  Legoland, too, doesn't allow firearms.  Nope, didn't see anyone needing one there, either.

I was also thankful that California has such strong gun laws.  As has been shown many times, there is a strong inverse correlation between the strictness of gun laws and the number of shootings.  California is one of the states with the tightest gun regulations, and not coincidentally, is among the top ten safest states for number of per capita shootings.  Gun laws matter!  And California has now passed additional laws requiring long-gun buyers to earn safety certificates, banned conversion kits that can turn regular magazines into high-capacity magazines, locked storage of guns in homes where felons and other prohibited people live, extension of prohibition for gun purchase from six months to five years by people deemed to be violent, and a ban on lead-containing ammunition.

Sadly, the rate of gun deaths in the United States never takes a vacation.  During my stay in California, a mentally ill man, Aaron Alexis, who had a history of problems and had recently been reported as hearing voices and thinking people were microwaving his brain, was nonetheless legally able to purchase a firearm and go on a shooting spree in the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and injuring 4 before he was killed by law enforcement.  Sane voices understood that this was yet another example of how guns get into the wrong hands, and that action needs to be taken to keep it from happening yet again and again and again.  The NRA's response, predictably, is that there should have been more people with more guns.  No surprise there.  Ignorant and dangerous, it ignores the fact that America, despite having the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, also has the highest rate of shootings of any nation not at war (see a graph HERE).  If the NRA's self-serving line were true, we would be the safest country, not the worst.  The facts and the deaths of innocents are inconvenient to the NRA line that more guns make us safer.

And as I tried to vacation and keep my thoughts positive, the shootings just kept coming and coming, of children and co-workers and family members.  Some were mass shootings of four or more people.  One of those was at a pick-up basketball game in Chicago, where 13 people were shot and injured, including a 3-year old and two teens.  But most shootings were single-victim shootings, of all ages, in small towns and large cities.  A great many of these shootings would be national headlines in other countries.  Here, in blood-drenched America, they were lucky to make the front page of their local paper, and most people have already forgotten the name of the Navy Yard shooter, and likely haven't even heard about that Chicago shooting.  The Joe Nocera Gun Report continued to report on many of these shootings as they happen, cramming them together as best they can, too many to go into depth on any of them.

And so, it's time to get back to the cause of protecting our communities in my own small way.  This month, in addition to returning to blogging, I am serving on a county firearms safety committee, organizing an annual United Way donation drive, and taking part in other activities to help my town be a safer and more caring place to live.  We all have to work together to create a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.

UPDATE (10/11/13):  Updated, in text, regarding newly-passed laws in California.

Turning Points: A Local Eugene Man Discusses His Mission to Stop Gun Violence

I was recently interviewed by University of Oregon Journalism student Olivia Brand.  Olivia had an assignment to pick a topic of public impact and interview people related to it, and chose Gun Control as her topic.  I applaud her taking on such an important and sometimes divisive topic. 

We met at the university library for the interview, then had a short photo shoot at the location of where a rally would be staged the following weekend (so, unfortunately, there weren't any people at the plaza during the photo shoot, though I was able to display some signs to passing traffic and talk to a few people walking by).

You can read the interview and see the photos, HERE.  There are also links there to her interaction with the pro-gun community.

Here is an excerpt from her write-up and blog post:

Although Odinson volunteered for other community programs, it was not until his first child was born that he became active with gun regulation organizations. Odinson wants no child to be exposed to the gun violence that he saw as a teenager. He now works to stop gun violence because he, “…want[s] a better world for my kids, than the one I grew up in.” Through his volunteering, Odinson leads marches, conducts vigils, and blogs in order to make people aware of the issues of gun violence.  His motivation to stop gun violence stems from his experiences and his feeling that, “… pro gun activists tend to think of guns as often as a symbol of justice, […] protecting the American way, but it ceases to become that when you’re at the wrong end of the barrel and you’re holding a dead teen’s head in your arms, and it becomes exactly what it [a gun] was designed to be, a lethal weapon, that unfortunately once again wound up in the wrong hands.”

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Remembering Guy Parsons, and National Suicide Prevention Week

This week is National Suicide Prevention Week.  It is a time for us to reflect on the tragedy of people who feel so desperate and depressed that they feel life isn't worth continuing.  Maybe they feel bullied.  Maybe they are chronically ill.  Maybe they have lost a loved one.  Whatever the cause, the end of their suffering, sadly, is the extension of pain to those who survive them.

According to the CDC, almost 57% of violent deaths in America are due to suicide.  Firearms are used in just over 50% of suicide attempts (71.7% in males, 46.4% in females).  More than 90% of attempts using firearms are successful, far exceeding the success rate by any other method.

From one source:

More than 90% of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34%. The success rate for drug overdose was 2%, the brief said, citing studies.

"Other methods are not as lethal," a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, Jon Vernick, said.

I have lost a friend to suicide.  When I was 15 years old I had a friend named Guy Parsons, who was a couple years younger than me.  I didn't think I had any pictures of him and me together.  Then, the other day, I was digging around for something in my attic and found an old Middle School yearbook.  There, in a group picture of the Science Club, Guy and I were both in the group.  Guy is the one with the red arrow.  I'm the one with the green arrow.

Guy Parsons, age 13

Guy was a rambunctious teen, always quick with a joke and very active.  We were in the same Boy Scout troop (his great uncle was our scout master), camping and running crazy in the woods.  But Guy was a bit awkward, socially.  He was overweight.  He was hyper.  He had problems fitting in.

Then one day, not long after that Science Club picture was taken, I learned he had gotten hold of his family's Colt .45 revolver.  His sister came home to discover him with a fatal, self-inflicted wound the head.  The gun had been bought for self-protection.  Obviously, his father failed to secure the gun or consider the consequences of having it in the house, and he didn't think about the possibility that his son might use it.

As we say at the Kid Shootings blog, "Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult."

I went to Guy's funeral and saw the overwhelming sadness in a room that was packed with the many people who loved him, many standing because there weren't enough seats in the largest room the funeral home had. 

Afterward, the name of Guy Parsons rarely came up around me.  People didn't want to think about who might be at fault, who might have missed the warning signs, or relive the sadness that it brought.  As far as I could tell, his family didn't realize Guy was suicidal.  The tragedy of suicides is extremely personal.  That's why you practically never see news reports on suicides, even though they outnumber murders or shootings of any sort. 

Unfortunately, the silence is itself deadly.  If we don't talk about the problem -- if we pretend it the danger doesn't exist -- the deadly cycle will continue.

But it doesn't have to be this way. 

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is an excellent source to learn about suicide prevention and warning signs.  There are many risk factors.  Here is what they say about warning signs:

Warning signs of suicide include:

• Observable signs of serious depression:
  Unrelenting low mood
  Pessimism
  Hopelessness
  Desperation
  Anxiety, psychic pain and inner tension
  Withdrawal
  Sleep problems
• Increased alcohol and/or other drug use
• Recent impulsiveness and taking unnecessary risks
• Threatening suicide or expressing a strong wish to die
• Making a plan:
  Giving away prized possessions
  Sudden or impulsive purchase of a firearm
  Obtaining other means of killing oneself such as poisons or medications
• Unexpected rage or anger

If you know anyone who is suicidal or severely depressed, there are steps you can take.  Here are some of them:

• Take any threat of suicide seriously, no matter how "jokingly" or briefly it is presented. 
• Be willing to listen to them, at any time. 
• Be a friend and a shoulder to cry on.  Be there for them.  Try to stay optimistic, for their sake.
• Find your local suicide hotline and give it to them to post by the phone. 
• Don't leave them alone if the threat is imminent.
• Urge them to seek psychological help.
• Urge them to remove any weapons or unnecessary and dangerous medicines from their home.
• Alert other close friends and family to be there as well.

Some of these steps may seem imposing in some manner, and may require you to go the extra mile, but those small sacrifices are better than losing a friend or family member, and they will thank you later.

We can all work together to reduce suicides in America.  Let's make a new trajectory for our community away from gun violence.

RELATED:  HERE is a link to the "Stop Teenage Suicide" Facebook page.

ADDENDUM (9/17/12):  HERE is an informative fact sheet for youth suicide.

Survivor Story: The Shooting I Was In

I was in a shooting in the summer of 1990.  Luckily, I wasn't injured.  Today is the anniversary.

It was June 1 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and I was 18 years old, looking forward to entering college.  It had been an eventful summer already, with the robbery of my home a couple months earlier.  I had worked with a sheriff's detective to identify the three teens who had kicked in my door and robbed the place while I and my family were away, and I helped identify their motive (they pawned our things to pay off a drug debt to a biker called "Concrete").  I had also had a job working nights as a custodian at a local health club.  I was healthy, happy, and had a lot to look forward to.  With all that had already happened, I figured I had another couple months or so to relax and enjoy the warm summer nights of Arkansas before hitting the books in college.

I was getting ready to go to my night job that night when I got a call from my best friend, Jason.  He told me that a mutual friend, Ryan, was at the mall and was about to get jumped by some bullies.  He implored me to go and get Ryan and get him out of there, since I had a car and he did not.  I reluctantly agreed, since the mall was on my way to work.

It was getting dark when I got to the mall.  I looked everywhere, and over an hour later was about to leave when I finally found Ryan at the south entrance.  I told him my "mission" and tried to get him out, but he refused to leave until he had watched something that was happening just outside the entrance, in the parking lot.  Annoyed, I followed him and found a large group of teens clustered around a car.  Night had fallen, and everything was bathed in the yellow light from the parking lot poles.

A large boy, whom I later found out was an 18-year old named John Raper, was standing by the passenger side of a Mercedes talking to a boy inside the car, and I couldn't hear what was being said.  The boy inside was a slim 16-year old named Mark Haynes, as I later learned, more commonly called "Skater Mark."  He was clearly intimidated by the larger kid.  The large group of teens circled around them were expecting a fight.  I had never met either boy, nor particularly cared about them;  I just wanted to get Ryan and get out in time to get to work.  Much later, I learned that John and Mark had a feud over a girlfriend.  I also learned later that Mark had been drinking.

The argument between the boys became more hostile, and they raised their voices.  Not only was Mark visibly intimidated by John, but he no doubt felt he had to do something now that he was being scrutinized by a growing crowd of peers.  Mark suddenly threw open the door to the car and jumped out.  A shoving match began.  Mark was obviously frightened, but John didn't appear the least bit concerned.  He crossed his muscle-bound arms and smirked at the smaller boy.

That's when Skater Mark pulled out a black semi-auto handgun.  Everyone screamed, and the crowd pulled away.  Some kids ran.  I and another boy crouched behind another car.  A newspaper article later said the gun was a .9mm.

"I've got a gun, motherfucker!" Mark screamed at John, "and I'm not afraid to use it!"

John acted nonchalant, not raising a hand at Mark, but not backing down either.

"These are real bullets, motherfucker!" Mark screamed, wanting to scare John and seeming to fail.  He ejected the clip to show John, then slammed it back in the gun.  "I'm going to fucking shoot you!"

John's demeanor didn't change.  If he said anything at all, I don't remember it.

Then Mark raised the weapon and fired a shot into John's forehead.

I was only about six feet away.

The next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion.  John's head flew back.  His hat went flying.  His body fell backward against the side of the Mercedes and then slid down and slumped to the pavement in a sitting position.

Everyone screamed and scattered.  I and the other boy crouched lower and watched as Mark got back into the passenger side of the Mercedes.

I told the boy next to me to help me remember the Mercedes license plate number, thinking that Mark would speed away.  Instead, Mark jumped back out of the car and started off away from the mall, staggering, dazed and seeming to make a run for it.

I and some other kids ran over to John.  He wasn't moving and wasn't breathing.  I pressed my fingers to his neck, trying to read for a pulse and desperately trying to remember my Boy Scout first aid training.  He was clammy, and I couldn't feel a pulse no matter how I tried.  "I think he's dead," I said to a girl next to me.  There was a bullet hole in his forehead.  Strangely, I don't remember there being much blood at that time.

I looked up, and Skater Mark was now half-way across the huge mall parking lot.  I blurted, "We've got to catch him!"  I ran to my Bronco, which was parked nearby, and drove off after him, not really thinking about what I would do when I got to him.  It was a foolish thing to do, but I was young.  There is no way I would support someone doing such a dangerous thing now.

Seeing me, he started running, and dashed across the busy five-lane highway next to the mall. 

I didn't see exactly where he went, but managed to get across the traffic in my vehicle.  I flashed my lights at some bushes on the property of a church, and he darted out again, this time running back across the highway, back toward the mall.

Again, I managed to get across the traffic and found the boy next to a car full of teens, likely trying to get them to give him a ride.  This time I drove back across the parking lot, back to the scene of the shooting, where I saw that the police had arrived.

The scene of the shooting had perhaps two hundred people around it now, mainly teens, with police and an ambulance.  I stopped my car and ran to what I thought was a police officer, but turned out to be mall security, and tried to tell him where I had last seen the shooter.  The man was a moron and refused to listen to me.  Annoyed, I looked around for an authority to talk to, when suddenly everyone yelled and pointed.  "There he is!" they shouted.

Skater Mark had returned to the scene of the shooting and tried to blend into the crowd.  The police quickly caught him and put him in the back of a cruiser.

I spent the next half hour or so at the scene, comforting a couple of other witnesses and watching in horror as paramedics tried in vain to resuscitate the victim, who was now lying in a pool of blood.  Then they loaded John on an ambulance and drove off.  He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

It was during this time that I discovered the 14-year old younger brother of my friend Jason, named Jeff, in the crowd.  He, too, had witnessed everything.

I gave my information as a witness to a police officer, and he asked me to take Jeff and go to the police station to be interviewed, which I did.  I waited at the station all night long with a couple dozen other teens, including Jeff and Ryan.  There had been another fatal shooting that night, which was gang-related, which delayed the police investigators.  We waited and waited, with local ministers coming to help comfort some of the kids. Finally, around maybe 3 AM, I was the last of the witnesses to be interviewed by the two weary detectives.  I identified the shooter from a photo lineup and gave my account of what happened.  I agreed to be a witness at the trial, if subpoenaed, and was released just before dawn.

During the interview, I finally learned some details about the shooting, like the victim's and shooter's full names, the reason for the argument, and the caliber of the gun. 

I also learned that the gun had jammed and was found in the Mercedes.  No one knew who Mark had tried to shoot the second time.  John, again?  Himself?  A witness?  Me?? 

Weeks passed.  Unlike the other witnesses, I wasn't plagued by nightmares, nor afraid of the scene of the shooting.  Maybe it was because I didn't know the shooter or the victim, or maybe it was because this wasn't my first encounter with gun violence (a friend had committed suicide three years before), but I was able to get past the trauma.  I was subpoenaed, as expected, but didn't have to go.  Skater Mark pleaded guilty, and I got to go to my college freshman pre-orientation instead.

I quickly immersed myself into college life and put my traumatic summer behind me.  Because of this, I'm sorry to say, I never learned what Mark's sentence was.  Since I wasn't family of the victim or the shooter, I wasn't allowed information from this juvenile case, even now. 

The shooting was just one in my town that year, a town overrun with gang violence, so the community quickly grew numb to what had happened.  The blood was cleaned up.  The blurb in the newspaper was forgotten (click on the photo to read it).  The only remnants left were the traumatic memories of the witnesses and the shattered lives and families of two teen boys, one dead, the other in prison.

What lessons can be learned from this event?  Where did the gun come from?  The shooter had been drinking.  Where did he get his alcohol?  Why did he feel it necessary to carry a gun?  If he knew a fight was coming, why did he go to the mall?  In our gun-crazy society, was he bolstered into using a gun by the popular image of a powerful, gun-wielding underdog?  Why didn't he just leave the fight?  Why did he feel it necessary to pull the gun?  Of course, these questions may never be answered. 

Mark bares the responsibility for his actions, but the mistakes made by others that night don't need to be repeated.  Wherever the gun came from, it clearly wasn't locked up away from this young shooter.  Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult -- a careless one, in this case.  Alcohol likely dimmed Mark's senses and increased his risky behavior, so another adult enabled that aspect as well.  And if anyone else knew that Mark had a gun that night, they failed to alert authorities to it.  They are responsible in their own way, too.  And lastly, why didn't John back off, instead of continuing to intimidate Mark?  Was he drunk, too?  Didn't he realize his peril?  He had risky behavior of his own, in bullying Mark at the start and continuing to egg him on, even after the gun was drawn.  There was a time in America when a fight like this would have been handled with fists, and no one would have had to die.  Why is it so easy for children to get their hands on guns?  And why do they feel it necessary, all too often, to use a gun to solve their problems?

Now I'm a father.  I work hard now to try and prevent shootings like the one I was in, prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who shouldn't have them, and encourage commonsense gun regulation through education and legislation.  If we do it right, my children will never need to witness what I did.   

It's time to make a new trajectory for our nation, away from gun violence.

UPDATE (9/10/16):  Here is another eyewitness account of that shooting, by David Hill, who was age 13 at the time: http://tinyletter.com/davidhill/letters/the-devil-you-know 

I'm A Great Uncle -- for the Fifth Time!

I’m happy to report that one of my nieces has just given birth to a healthy 8 ½ pound baby girl, named Addison.  Both are doing well after a C-section.

This makes me a great uncle for the fifth time!  This is my niece’s third child, and her brother fathered his second back in February.   I’m currently at her home in Washington state watching her other kids, and my own, while she’s recovering.  Her mom, my sister, will be relieving me in a couple days.  It’ll be great to see my sister again.

Makes me feel a bit old.  By the time I was born, all my great uncles and great aunts were in their 60’s to 70’s.  But then my niece and nephew wasted no time in starting families.

With all the sadness that marks the topic of this blog, I’m always happy to celebrate the wonderful news of new life joining us.  Happy birthday, Addison!  Let’s hope for a more peaceful future for you, free from gun violence.

I'm A Great Uncle Again!

Being committed to reducing gun violence here at New Trajectory, so much of the postings are devoted to issues of injuries and fatalities.

So today I'm happy to interject a moment of life and happiness:  Yesterday I became a great uncle again.  This is my fourth great niece or nephew.  My nephew in Louisiana has just had his second child, a boy, born healthy.  His name is Aiden. 

Soon that number will go to five when my niece in Washington state has her third child around Labor Day.

Here's to our children and the hope for a more peaceful future!