March for Our Lives, Los Angeles 2022

LA's March for Our Lives today filled 10-15 blocks.

Speakers before the march included survivors of mass shootings and people who had lost a parent or friend to gun violence.

Like the march in 2018, today's marches around the nation were student-led, and many of those doing the planning and speaking were high school students.

Four years ago, one month after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students led the first March for Our Lives.

After the Buffalo NY and Uvalde TX massacres, students organized another #MarchforOurLives.

Play a slide show of sights and signs from today's march in Los Angeles by clicking on this link:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LpWe57oweVpzKqBx5

Here are some of my favorite slogans on placards carried by today's marchers:

~~We are not anti-gun, we are pro-life.

~~GOP senators kill children.

~~GOP = Guns Over People, so don't vote GOP.

And of course, the central slogan from four years ago:

~~Protect Kids, Not Guns!

Kids' right to life--to staying alive--is more important than anybody's so-called right to own guns.

The men of 1783 never envisioned rifles that could shoot so fast with so much force and speed that a bullet could decapitate or pulverize a human being.

Ban assault rifles--no citizen has any right to carry this horrific weapon. Only soldiers in the US Armed Forces.

When the marchers go home, the streets of Los Angeles will still cry out against guns.

The benches at many bus stops carry messages about the number of persons killed daily in the US by guns.

Buy an Assault Rifle--No Problem

AR-15 rifles at a gun show in Loveland, CO, 2014 (NYT photo)

We are the only country in the world that says to psychos, extremists, and other haters, "You would like to buy an assault rifle?  Be my guest."

"You've been reported by friends, family, co-workers as a danger? No problem."

"We've been interviewing you as a potentially dangerous terrorist?  We can overlook that."

Thank you to Alan Feuer of the New York Times for this analysis of the status of the AR-15, used in Orlando, Florida last Saturday night to kill 49 people: 

The military-style weapon has also been the gun of choice in several other mass shootings: at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.; at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.; at a holiday party for county health workers in San Bernardino, Calif.; and at the campus of Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

But the National Rifle Association has taken to calling the AR-15 “America’s rifle.” Though the federal government does not keep track of exactly how many AR-15s are in circulation, experts estimate that there are easily several million in the nation’s rifle racks and gun safes — a huge number, given that the gun, along with other so-called assault weapons, was banned under federal law from 1994 to 2004.

See the full article at 
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/nyregion/ar-15-rifles-are-beloved-reviled-and-a-common-element-in-mass-shootings.html?_r=0

Our president has been trying to restrict purchase of assault rifles since 2012 when 20 children and 6 adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. 

The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (AWB 2013) was a bill introduced in the 113th United States Congress as S. 150 by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, on January 24, 2013, one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. It was defeated in the Senate on April 17, 2013 by a vote of 40 to 60.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_Weapons_Ban_of_2013

The assault weapons ban--proposed by Dianne Feinstein and supported by President Obama--was defeated in the US Senate in April, 2013, by a vote of 60 opposed, 40 in favor.

Guess which party most of the 60 opponents of "common sense gun control" belonged to?

I am heartsick about the shootings of 49 innocent people in the night club in Orlando.

I am sad to live in a country that hands firearms to anyone who has money and passes the simplest of "background checks."

Violence Prevention

Yes, the shooter last Friday in Santa Monica was unemployed, had a history of mental problems, and lacked the money and family organization to get medical help, as I had guessed. 

He went to Santa Monica High School (as two of my kids did, three years younger than my youngest) and then to Olympic High School, a continuation school for students who can't make it at SMHS.

The LA Times reports that four-year-old John Zawahri did have access to preschool but was an emotional wreck even by that time.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0611-santa-monica-shooting-20130611,0,1490078.story

"It was obvious to me that there was violence in the home," reported little John's pre-school teacher, and on at least one occasion his mother sought help when his father threatened them with a knife.  If only he could have spent 40 hours a week out of that home, in a quality pre-school, starting at age 2.

What steps can we take to prevent this type of violence?
--a ban on assault weapons,
--a boost in availability of Headstart-type programs,
--access to low-cost mental health care for those who need it.

There was another shooting in Santa Monica four days after this one.  Two young men were attacked by three others, probably gang-related; one youth is dead and the other in critical condition.

A Vigil for Peace and Healing in Response to Violence will be held on Saturday, June 16, in Santa Monica, starting at the site of Zawahri's shooting of his father and brother and then walking to sites of the other killings, all within an eight-block area.

On the following Thursday, June 20, there will be a town hall meeting on violence prevention.

The international angle to some of these shootings is notable.  Both Zawahri parents were immigrants from Lebanon.  Perhaps they had experienced violence there, as the Boston Marathon bombers' family had been refugees from problems in Kazakhstan.  Gang problems in southern California are also related to international gangs controlling distribution of cocaine and marijuana.  

It's a small world after all.  

We may feel unconnected to poverty and violence occurring elsewhere in the world, but we're in this together.

Sadness in Santa Monica

Two comments on the shootings today near my house in Santa Monica:

1) Another assault-weapon rampage.  With a knife or even a handgun, fewer people would have died.  

2) The address of the father and brother of the shooter (all three now dead) tells me so much.  It's half a block from the public elementary school my kids attended, Edison Language Academy.

This is the low-income neighborhood of Santa Monica, made up mostly of Latinos and a few African-Americans and others.

The shooter was probably unemployed and about the same age as my kids (26 to 31).  He probably had mental problems and did not have the money to get help--the medications, psychiatrists, therapists he obviously needed.

I'm feeling grieved for his mother and other family members, as well as for the others killed and their families, and for the persons wounded.  So many people have been touched by this tragedy.

For several years after a fatal stabbing at a teen party attended by one of my kids in 2001, I worked with others in a coalition for violence prevention in Santa Monica.  That group was later superseded by  LA Voice, part of the Pico National Network for neighborhood improvement:  http://www.lavoicepico.org/LA_Voice_PICO/Welcome.html

One of my friends in the violence prevention group died last November, and in her honor some friends began the Katherine K. McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention.  This May for the first time we awarded a scholarship to the graduating student at Santa Monica High School who had been the most active in preventing violence.

We did not prevent today's violence, but this kind of work is one step in the right direction.  Another step would be making preschool available to all children--a program President Obama mentioned in his inauguration speech last January.

Harriet Beecher Stowe said, "One step fairly taken in the right direction goes farther than any amount of agonized back-looking."

Let's take two steps in the right direction: BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS and MAKE PRESCHOOL EDUCATION AVAILABLE to all families that want it.

Another option is to send a donation to the Katherine K. McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention, care of SMHS Alumni Association, P. O. Box 5592, Santa Monica CA 90409-5592.

For details about the shooting, see this article and future updates in the Los Angeles Times:  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-5-killed-in-santa-monica-rampage-gunman-acted-alone-police-say-20130607,0,5835846.story