Everybody, Must Get Armed...


"They'll stone you and then say you are brave.
They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned."
-Bob Dylan "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"


Humans have a remarkable capacity to forget pain.

I was seven or eight years old when I questioned my mother about giving birth. The details of the process were still pretty unclear in my pre sex-education mind. I knew that childbirth hurt and that the baby did not come willingly into this world but had to be pushed out of a small opening somewhere on Mom's body.

"Does it hurt to have a baby, Mom?" I asked.

"Yes, but you forget the pain, eventually," she reassured me.

My Mom gave birth to six children, all of them, except me, eight pounders plus, and she wasn't a big woman at all. I felt pretty good that she didn't resent me for causing her pain and that the memory of the pain lessened throughout the years. I also remember thinking that my Mom had a lot of courage to keep having kids and that maybe someone without as much courage as Mom, someone like me, might never forget the agony. As it turned out, the pain of child birth is awful, yet the miracle of birthing and caring for new life supersedes this consideration. Kids are worth the pain. Some things are not.

I don't know how people live with the pain after a loved one is killed. I don't support the death penalty, but I do understand why people want it. It satisfies the need to seek vengeance and it recognizes the aftermath of murder which is rage and fear. Unlike the natural pain associated with childbirth, or learning to ride a bike, skateboarding, football, rock climbing and so on, the pain caused by killing, for whatever reason, never seems to go away, except for those that die.

We can be in a suburban bank one afternoon, cashing a check and wind up shot with an AK47 armor piercing bullet and we can most likely die like these North Hollywood citizens and police did on March 1, 1997. Businesses and homes in the surrounding area were hit with gunfire and people died just walking from one room to the next. Starting on Monday, September 13, 2004, the Assault Weapons Ban will be lifted and the AK47s used in this robbery will go on sale, again. A shootout like this can happen again. It can happen in anyone's neighborhood. Survivors and families of dead loved ones can't forget the pain and loss.

We can be one of the students or a teacher going to lunch one day, and be hit by a "full metal jacket" bullet fired by a TEC9,that pierces your heart and then pierces the lung of the person behind you. Living in an upscale suburb like Columbine, Colorado will not guarantee protection from a killing spree and a smoking hole in your chest. Starting on Monday, September 13, 2004, it can happen again. It can happen in anyone's neighborhood. Survivors and families of dead loved ones still can't forget the pain and loss.

The only people who have forgotten the pain and loss are the NRA and the gun manufacturers and dealers who are celebrating a stunning victory in its war against this ban. Our elected officials in Congress did not even bother to debate the issue for fear of becoming a lobbying target of the NRA-ILA like those on their "hit list."

While neglecting to debate this important public health and safety issue, Congress did debate and decide to fund SB 2634, the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, a suicide prevention measure which would fund $82 million for suicide prevention programs. It's a component of the President's mental health committee recommendation that advocates mandatory mental health screenings in grade schools. I hope it will also fund grief counselors, just in case someone gets their hands on another TEC 9 and decides to kill a few students or suburbanites while exercising their "right to bear arms."