Two Sides to This Debate
By Dan Murphy
Westchester residents, community groups and religious organizations joined together last week to remember lives lost and reignite the fight against gun violence. One rally was held at the First Baptist Church of White Plains for an interfaith county-wide vigil to remember recent victims of gun violence resulting from the mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton, Brownsville and Gilroy, as well as the lives that are taken every day from gun violence, especially in marginalized communities.
Local youth activist and event organizer Kelly Marx, 19, of White Plains: “We must gather again to solemnly pay respects to all the individuals whose lives were taken while also recommitting to the fight against gun violence. We must turn our anger and sadness into action. Gun violence is intersectional and it affects all communities. Let’s all come together.”
The speakers at this event include survivors, faith leaders, youth activists, individuals from marginalized communities and elected officials.
“While thoughts and prayers are not enough to stop these atrocities from happening, it is imperative that we unite as a community to honor the lives of the victims,” said Erin Fuller Brian, Las Vegas shooting survivor and Westchester resident. “My hope is that by coming together during this dark time we will send a message to our nation’s leaders that we will no longer allow this kind of horrific violence to define our country and we refuse to let them continue. We are fed up and fired up. Today we pray, but tomorrow we fight for common-sense gun safety legislation.”
Event co-sponsors included Westchester Moms Demand Action, Westchester Brady United Against Gun Violence, Indivisible Westchester, NYCD16-Indivisible, Indivisible Pleasantville, Up2Us, Team ENOUGH New York and March For Our Lives Lower Hudson Valley
Westchester Congressman Eliot Engel renewed the call from democrats in Washington for greater gun control and commented on the Westchester rally against gun violence.
“Last evening, the Westchester community came together in a beautiful showing of solidarity for the victims of this weekend’s awful gun violence,” he said. “I was proud to join them and to remind the president and Moscow Mitch that we won’t stand a moment longer for their inaction. They work for the American people, not the NRA, and the American people want sensible gun control.
“The actions we need to take are obvious and have been staring the GOP in the face for years. We need expanded background checks. We need to ban assault weapons. We need to ban high capacity magazines. We need to ban armor-piercing ammunition. Video games and social media aren’t to blame for these shootings. And couching our national gun violence epidemic as a ‘mental health issue’ is just another way to avoid addressing the problem, while appeasing fanatics in the NRA.
“In order to move forward the president must also take stock in his own behavior, and how his words stoke the flames,” continued Engel. “You cannot say we need to condemn hatred and racism while simultaneously stoking hatred and racism for political gain. The American people aren’t stupid.”
Here in Westchester, and across the country, there remains two sides to the issue of guns and the Second Amendment. We print the following letter to the editor because all views should be respected.
Laws Don’t Stop Murderers; Armed Citizens Do
When emotions drive action instead of principle, truth and logic, disastrous decisions are made. Most of us have taught our kids to stop, calm down, and think. Say the same to the politicians and talking heads (indistinguishable these days – they echo the same talking points with no substance, no research and no evidence.)
The sixth commandment, “Thou shalt do no murder,” was carved in stone thousands of years before an ecomarxist decided to murder people 600 miles away from where he lived. He chose one of the few places in Texas that was a “gun free zone” otherwise known as easy prey, completely defenseless innocent people. Had one or two people in the parking lot been carrying a gun, he would have been stopped before he got in the store – as an off-duty firefight just stopped someone in Springfield, Mo., today.
Raising the age to buy a gun to 21 did nothing, since the majority of multiple murderers are 21 or older – including the beast from Dallas.
Don’t be deceived, the political vultures endeavoring to score political points, win office and impose their already long prepared disarmament of innocent citizens agenda over the bodies of innocent men, women and children who aren’t even buried yet can never be trusted. The only thing that stops an evil man with a gun or knife is a good man with a gun – and they know it. Not one of them is giving up their armed guards. Certainly if they were telling the truth, they would.
Just today another evil man had two hours to kill four people and wound two more with a knife. Had one of those people had a gun, most of them would have lived. Some years ago, another psycho killed 85 people at the Happyland Social Club in the Bronx – with a match and half a gallon of gas. Three thousand people died on 9/11 (and hundreds more on the rescue team since) because a handful of Islamonazis had box cutters and/or picture wire.
Evil murderers don’t obey laws. Evil murderers will make a weapon out of anything. Ecomarxist Dallas boy did not kill all those people at once – he shot them one by one until someone with a gun got there to stop him. We need more citizens armed to stop these scorpions, not deceptive, hyperventilating, totalitarian politicians stripping the decent of a means of defense. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Center, an expert in this area, documents that about half of the multiple murderers were having psychiatric or psychological care and were not flagged. Red Flag laws will only give the totalitarians and vindictive another way to swat people they disagree with.
More decent citizens need to get trained and be prepared to protect themselves, their families and their neighbors.
The problem is a culture that shoves even the mention of God into dark corners and glorifies and enriches thugs who preach and rap about killing and rape. The problem is a culture that so disrespects human life that legislators (just prior to giving themselves a 61 percent raise) celebrate and have the Empire State Building lit to celebrate authorizing up-to-birth and after abortion. The demomarxist taxocrats are all about power and money for themselves. They have no real care for innocent lives; they simply manipulate people who are too emotional to think clearly and analyze solutions measure against data and history.
Thomas Jefferson proposed that all federal laws be allowed to sit for three months so people could take time to think, research, go back to work at real jobs and then come back to pass or dump legal proposals after sober reflection and analysis. Don’t let manipulative politicians make the innocent defenseless by making useless laws worse.
What will help is not releasing murderers and rapists back out into society, executing multiple murderers (zero recidivism there) and securing all aspects of the border so drug and sex traffickers, MS13 and the criminals who have murdered and raped thousands of Americans can’t get in. Someone who breaks into your house is a home invader. Squatting there doesn’t make him family or a guest. Decent people will obey our laws and come by the legal process; we take in over a million legal immigrants every year, mostly from countries south of our border. (It is almost impossible to immigrate here from Europe, thanks to Ted Kennedy.)
Learn how to shoot. The county has an excellent outdoor range at Blue Mountain with range officers that can teach you. There is also the Paladin Center in Putnam County. Also, read “Dangerous Instincts, Use an FBI Profiler’s Tactics to Avoid Unsafe Situations.” An armed and well-trained citizenry saves lives. Police aren’t stationed at shopping centers and grocery stores, and the beasts usually chose places where there are no cops. Your safety is your responsibility.
But most of all, return to God. Yes, he does protect people, but you have to know what is available and how to believe to receive it – which involves thinking and preparation. Instead of venting because you lost an election, teach kids how to control their thinking, to think in terms of helping their neighbors, being kind. Evil starts with evil thoughts, which are harbored and fester into violence. Thoughts precede actions. Use my house, my rules to clean up the mental atmosphere by barring violent rap and video games. Teach kids how to control their emotions and their mouths and how to communicate respectfully to resolve problems. Tell them “no” frequently so they learn how to wait patiently and think. Teach them to be thankful for what they have and not covet what someone else has or is endeavoring to sell.
Bring the love of God back into popular culture.
Judith A.
Yonkers
