Guest Editorial: I Lost My Son to Gun Violence. Please Vote Yes on Initiative 594.

thestranger.com ^ | 10/6/2014 | Richard Martinez

[rktman]

Just a few months ago, I was at work as an attorney and the proud father to Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, my only son. But after Chris was killed in the mass shooting in Santa Barbara on May 23, 2014, my work suddenly seemed unimportant. I resolved to honor Chris’s life and the lives of so many others who have been killed by preventable gun violence by taking action to address the heartbreaking cycle of gun violence in our communities—and to urge others to join me in the fight.

Washington State is on the brink of taking that kind of meaningful action. I was in Washington recently, where I had the chance to share with voters why I strongly support Initiative 594, the state ballot initiative that would close the loophole in Washington’s background check system.

[MrB]

I had no idea there was such a magazine...

I guess there’s a publication for all interests.

[Secret Agent Man]

waiting for hard evidence the shooting would not have occurred solely b/c this ‘loophole’ didn’t exist.......

why don’t they wish their loved ones would have been armed so they could have had a fighting chance against a criminal?

[ctdonath2]

With they’d quit confusing those who choose to harm others, with those who choose not to save to stop the former from doing so. Some people truly cannot tell the difference.

[rktman]

Sorry for your loss and thanks for being a logical, reasonable thinking person. I posted that I know/knew 3 people that were “lost” with guns. And one by CO poisoning with running car in closed garage. I knew another that used a concoction of pharma products to do himself in.

[DJ MacWoW]

Click The Pic To Donate

Support FR, Donate Monthly If You Can

[Blood of Tyrants]

Your pain and anguish do not trump the Bill of Rights.

[ctdonath2]

It addresses high-class (big money) Southern living, exemplified by lush landscaping and fine firearms.
There’s the occasional letter to the editor admonishing the “& Gun” component, to which the editor retorts the equivalent of “STFU” with the most pleasant Southern charm.

[rktman]

Lucky that my lazy damn guns aren’t eligible for EBT or assistance otherwise they’d be raking in a fortune.

[ctdonath2]

Still the largest mass murder in the USA used a gallon of gasoline and a match.

[blu]

Thank you.

[MrB]

the equivalent of “STFU” with the most pleasant Southern charm

---

“bless yur heart!”

[beelzepug]

“Yet another out of stater pleading with the citizens of WA to further infringe on their rights.”

I am so sick of these carpetbaggers coming into my state and telling us what’s best for us. Washington State has perfectly reasonable gun laws (well, you need to get a permit to carry concealed but its ‘shall issue’) and we don’t need any east coast liberal buttinskis messing things up. Nor do we need our own resident billionaires - Gates, Allen, and their ilk - who live in iron-gated estates with armed guards making our decisions for us.

I have “Yes on 591” and “No on 594” signs all over my fence. The gnarly old democrat who lives next door to me is probably hiding under her bed. For those of you who don’t live in WA, Initiative 591 keeps our old laws in tact and actually improves upon them.

[rktman]

My letter to the editor from this past Sunday with some of the posted comments after:

So now we have a conundrum when it comes to the matter of the universal background check initiative that is being pushed by out-of-state interests on to the citizens of Nevada.

Mark Robison, the Fact Checker for the RGJ and not one I would consider a conservative, apparently upset Professor Phillip Cook when quoting some of Professor Cook’s research. I was actually quite shocked at Mr. Robison’s fact check being more accurate than I would have expected. Professor Cook’s response is full of vagaries and “feelings” about the subject. Professor Cook’s response looks more like it was taken from the “Gun Violence Messaging guide.”

As far as I know, if one is selling a firearm, there is nothing to prevent them from going to an FFL and having a check run on the perspective buyer. So to Professor Cook and Mike Bloomberg, Mares (sic) Against Guns, Moms Demand Action, Mark and Gabby Giffords, Sarah Brady and their ilk, keep your money and your desires to further infringe on our rights in Nevada out of our state and we’ll stay out of your states and out of your rights.

Comments:

Mark Robison is not a conservative? So? He presents facts, and facts are neither liberal nor conservative. Nevada is the sixth highest state with gun related deaths, and many Nevadans would like that number to decrease with background checks on people that are trying to buy guns. Politics in America has ignored state borders for decades now, and the dark money ultra rich, ultra Libertarian are the biggest offenders. (I’m a gun owner by the way.)
Reply ·
· 4 · October 4 at 10:55am

Karen Benson · Top Commenter
Fear not Mr. Brandow the NRA is no slouch when it comes to pumping out of state money into campaigns they are spending millions. I welcome the out of state organization who sponsor legislation that stand up for victims of gun violence. For far too long the NRA has been the loudest voice, they have bullied and intimidated our Congress people into cowards, who are afraid of getting a bad rating from the NRA, well I hope they will now be afraid of getting bad ratings from advocates against gun violence.
Reply ·
· 1 · October 4 at 12:11pm

Frederick Bianchi · Top Commenter · SRJC
Karen, boo, hoo, hoo, in the end the NRA will win even if it takes court action. Gun haters like you are losers.
Reply ·
· October 4 at 3:30pm
Bruce Lerner · Top Commenter
Karen Benson mistakenly infers that the NRA (as well as national, state and local shooting sports clubs) favors gun violence, murder and mayhem. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Liberals and other gun-control nuts would have us believe that the inevitable disarming of its (honest) citizens will bring peace to the planet.

You need only look to those cities, states, and countries with the strictest gun prohibitions to discover that government corruption and violent crime (with and without guns) increases when honest citizens cannot defend themselves.

Karen Benson wrote “I welcome the out of state organization who sponsor legislation that stand up for victims of gun violence.” Courts have already determined that police (and government generally) has no legal obligation to “protect and serve” an individual, only citizens in general.

It is not the gun, the knife, the sledgehammer, the car, that kills; it is the criminal. This is a simple concept.
Reply ·
· 21 hours ago
Vince Coyle · Top Commenter · CSU Sacramento
Frederick Bianchi Your new picture with your Ted Nugent T-shirt and cradling your favorite weapon clearly indicates some deep seated psychological issues that might lead a more reasonable individual to believe you might just be the type of person that should not be allowed anywhere near lethal weapons intended to kill whatever is in front of them.
Reply ·
· 18 hours ago
Bruce Lerner · Top Commenter
Vince Coyle Nicely done, Vince. No rational argument. Go directly to name-calling.
Reply ·
· 14 hours ago
Chaz Window · Top Commenter
You wasted your time Lerner,nobody cares what you think.
Reply ·
· 14 hours ago
Karen Benson · Top Commenter
Bruce Lerner Ok Bruce if it is the criminal or those with mental problems are the issue then why don’t we require background checks on all sales? Right now if they can’t buy a gun in a store all they have to do is buy it online from a private seller. Why do you object to background checks on all sales. There is a reason why the US rates the highest in gun violence of any civilized or industrial nation. Could it be we also have the most guns too? And please Bruce spare me your rant about knives, sledgehammers, cars that is irrelevant we are talking about guns.
Reply ·
· 14 hours ago
Steve Clark · Top Commenter
The problem with your “statistics” is threefold. First, you use old, debunked citings such as the “40% of all guns are sold without a background check”. That little factoid has been proven wrong so many times, it’s very close to the flat earth theory. The sampling group was too small to be representative and the poll itself was taken BEFORE the current instant background check system went into effect! Quite a conundrum, no?

Second, you choose “sources” that are either wholly biased, i.e. the Brady Campaign, MDA, MAIG, CSGV, etc., so they have zero credibility. When you’re not citing one of those sources, you use Op/Ed articles as fact. You’re as bad as those who use the NRA or NSSF or GOA as their sole pro-gun sources.

Third, the statistics you cite generally don’t properly parse the data. In other words, they lump suicide into gun crime, or criminal-on-criminal shootings, both instances which have been agreed to by both sides of the issue as completely immune to any kind of background check and registry system that could ever be put into place. Furthermore, the statistics don’t take into consideration concentrations of crime in places like Chicago, Los Angeles, and other urban centers that skew the statistics for the entire country. Granted, New Town was something else, but there were laws already in place that should have prevented that tragedy. If those laws were skirted, then it’s obvious any new laws would be just as ineffective. As a matter of fact, when Connecticut instituted their mandatory registration in response to New Town, the vast majority of “law-abiding” citizens refused to comply.

Essentially, what you are left with is an incredibly small number of instances where “universal” checks will have any effect. And to top it off, with a conservatively estimated 350 million firearms already legally purchased and in possession of law-abiding citizens, the horse is already out of the barn. Because of this enormous number, the Constitutional burden that would be necessary to do what you want is insurmountable. The only true solution to gun violence in this country is a paradigm shift in both basic human values and supportive social policy that reintegrates the intrinsic value of human life into the American psyche as a whole. Without that, you’re just advocating policy based on hysteria, and we already had that during the McCarthy era.

So, you can see that the didiots are still firmly in place in the Reno NV area. Some good guys too apparently.

[Gay State Conservative]

I want a firearm for one simple reason.ONE REASON! And that’s because leftists like this clown,as well as the leftists running the Rat Party,don’t want me to have one.

[bestintxas]

I chose not to read this article, but if it contains anything than an expansion of gun-carrying privileges to protect citizens, then it is nothing but garbage.

[dinodino]

Isn’t that the truth? Lazy guns, lying around doing nothing all day...

[from occupied ga]

Response to "Richard Martinez"

Sorry for the loss of your son, BUT your loss doesn't give you the right to demand that my rights be trampled to distract you from your sorrow. In fact it's fools like you who made the 2nd amendment necessary in 1791, and equally necessary today.

I'm sorry you've decided to be a cowardly whiner, who rather than blaming the CRIMINAL, blames an inanimate object. Suppose I hit you over the head with a rock. Is it the rock's fault? Suppose I stabbed you. would it be the knife's fault? No obviously not, but morons like you blame the gun. Oh, and by sticking your nose into the arena of gun control, you don't get a free pass simply because you son was killed. You are a fool and anyone who agrees with you is also a fool.

[longtermmemmory]

where is the guest editorial with “I used my gun to save my family, vote NO.”

This publisher must be smoking too much weed.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I remember this guy. Immediately after the shooting, he hit the stump spewing his anti-Second Amendment BS. He started his 15 minutes almost immediately. Barry’s state run “media” loved him.

[zeugma]

I lost my youngest daughter in a car accident. Let’s ban cars.