GRIEF OF GUNS
Moms wracked by pain
Ah, shoot! Bernie way off target in this fight
There was a fine, small victory the other day for families of the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary, who continue to wage a noble fight against Remington Arms, the company that manufactures the Bushmaster AR-15, the semiautomatic weapon that made the killing so easy for Adam Lanza on Dec. 14, 2012.
Barbara Bellis, a superior court judge in Connecticut, denied a motion from Remington to dismiss a lawsuit filed by some of the Sandy Hook families, basically saying that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shamefully written into law in 2005 by George W. Bush and providing a force field around gun manufacturers, does not automatically protect Remington.
The basis of the lawsuit is this: That Remington is criminally negligent for making a gun that should only ever be used by the law or by the military available to Adam Lanza’s gun-loving mother or any other cockeyed member of the public.
It is worth pointing out again, as Matthew Kauffman did in the Hartford Courant newspaper, that Remington’s ad copy for the Bushmaster includes lines such as these: “the uncompromising choice when you demand a rifle as mission-adaptable as you are.”
And this, for a gun that the gun companies continue to insist is just a fun, fast-firing sport weapon: “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.”
Well, 20 elementary school children and six adults certainly were that day in December, less than two weeks before Christmas, when Adam Lanza came walking through the door with his own Bushmaster and opened fire, showing just how mission-adaptable he was. Of course, the idea that a gun like this should be sold to civilians by Remington or anybody else is as insane as Lanza was.
Judge Bellis pointed out in her ruling that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act may ultimately offer legal protection to gun companies like Remington Arms. It’s clear, just in the language that she used, what a steep hill the families of Sandy Hook face. But the families honorably fight on, even as Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to defend his vote for the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act — sounding like some kind of sergeant at arms for gun manufacturers — by saying that he doesn’t think some poor gun shop owner should be held criminally responsible if a legal gun he sells ends up killing innocent people.
It is a phony position from Sanders, a political head fake, and he knows it. This isn't about some guy selling hunting rifles back in Brattleboro or Rutland. This is about the gun manufacturers.
When Sanders, who acts like he’s the only honest guy in politics, comes to New York and wants votes, he acts more Brooklyn than the Brooklyn Bridge. But when he wants to defend a vote for a gun law that provides gun manufacturers with immunity that any other big company would kill to have, he’s just an aw-shucks senator from a rural state like Vermont.
“This is unique in the sense that it’s the only industry that has any kind of immunity, and that really is just an extension of the gun lobby’s pull on Congress," Joshua Koskoff, the lawyer for the nine Sandy Hook families who have brought the lawsuit against Remington, said before a hearing back in February.
Nothing that happens with this lawsuit, one that might grind through the court system for years, brings back those 20 children, or the principal of the school, or five other brave adults. This is still a fight for justice, and against the unprecedented protection given to these gun companies, because of a strong-arm campaign by the National Rifle Association at the time.
It is worth remembering when Bernie Sanders stands up now and still has the big nerve to defend his vote for that kind of protection, he is also standing with Bush and Remington and the NRA, even as he yammers on about a position he took against assault weapons when he wasn't running for President, just running for Congress in Vermont 30 years ago.
So the families of the victims of Sandy Hook, the real political heroes here, do fight on. They do that even knowing there has been no meaningful gun control legislation passed — we protect gun companies in America, not victims of gun crime — in response to the slaughter of children in Connecticut nearly four years ago. They do this even as the candidates from the Republican Party continue to shame the original intent of the Second Amendment, just because it sounds good, and loud, and tough.
It was a small victory last week, in what may ultimately be a doomed war. But at a time when these political crowds continue to cheer complete and utter nonsense, this was something important to cheer, and honor, even as too many politicians in this country are the ones continuing to bow down to guns, automatic and otherwise.
They’re not after some little gun shop owner, Bernie. They’re after the big boys. THE RELATIVES OF men killed in street violence and in clashes with the police gathered Saturday in shared grief and anger.
In politically tinged panel discussions in Brooklyn and Queens, the women — burdened with similar stories — laid bare the impact a criminal justice system in need of reform has on African-American families.
The heartbroken women, dubbed “Mothers of the Movement” by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which organized the events, evoked the unimaginable: facing the loss of their children while trying to carry on.
Roughly 100 people packed the Mount Ararat Church in East New York, Brooklyn, to listen to the mothers of Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.
At both events, the crowds were overwhelmingly African-American.
“So many positive people helped me in my struggle,” said Gwen Carr, the mother of Garner, who died on Staten Island after being put in a chokehold by police in 2014. “So I was able to get up and turn my mourning into a movement, to turn my sorrow into a strategy, my bitterness became my battle for justice. I stand here today and I’ll tell you: It’s not an easy thing. It’s not easy at all.”
Clinton has met with the women in the past. They have traveled to primary states to speak on her behalf and shared their belief Saturday that the former secretary of state should win the Democratic nomination.
The candidate, meanwhile, was in California for a weekend of big-dollar fund-raisers with actor George Clooney, with some donors agreeing to raise or donate six-figure sums.
In Queens, at the Community Church of Christ, Nicole Paultre-Bell, who was Sean Bell’s fiancée, spoke about the current climate surrounding criminal justice reform and her faith in Clinton. Sean Bell was shot to death by police outside a club in Queens on the night of his bachelor party in 2006.
“Each and every time someone loses their life and no one’s held accountable, another man, another brother, another sister, another son, we’re only opening the
door for the next one to happen,” PaultreBell said.
“We’re not going to stop until we can see real changes made,” she added. “We think Secretary Clinton’s going to do it. We’ll wait and see.”
Clinton has increasingly attacked Democratic rival Bernie Sanders over his vote for a 2005 law that grants gun sellers broad immunity from liability lawsuits.
Sanders has repeatedly said his rationale was to protect mom-and-pop gun shop owners in rural Vermont.
In a conversation with the Daily News Editorial Board this month, the Vermont senator said he didn’t believe victims of gun violence should be able to sue firearms manufacturers or dealers for misuse of legally sold products.
Sanders told The News he believes there should be an exception when gun companies or sellers “should know that guns are going into the hands of wrong people.”
The women who spoke Saturday disagreed and said the issues surrounding gun violence are bigger than a bill.
Sybrina Fulton, the mother of 17-yearold Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, said, “This is about human rights. Not only about civil rights, but this is about human rights.
“We have to do everything we can to change that narrative. That’s why it’s so important that you vote,” she told the crowd in Brooklyn, “because that’s your voice. We don’t have another voice. You can do all the marches you want. You can do all the petitions that you want. What’s important is your vote.”