I am a prisoner of
Richard Martinez’s haunting words at the brief press conference last Saturday where
he poured out his heart about the senseless death of his son Chris who was
murdered last Friday in Santa Barbara, California. I cannot escape his emotional words. Choking with grief, consumed
with rage, he passionately asked why his son had to die for nothing. Christopher
Martinez and five others killed by a gun obsessed, volatile and deranged
classmate, were all students at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. Chris was 20 years old.
At the press
conference his father said, “Chris was a really great kid. Ask anyone who knew
him. His death has left our family lost and broken. Why did Chris die? Chris
died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about
gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live? When will this insanity stop?
When will enough people say, ‘Stop this madness!’ Too many have died. We should
say to ourselves, ‘Not one more!’”
It is obvious in
watching the press conference that Mr. Martinez loved his son. You can spot
great parents. They carry an aura of reverence for their children, and all
children. When they speak of their son or daughter they display an eager
affection that is palpable. They are seized with a love they cannot contain.
This was clearly
evident in Richard Martinez. His fury, the agony in his words, the crushing
weight of the loss of his son, was felt in everything he said. Only someone
possessed of immense love reacts with such ferocious sorrow.
Mass shootings with
multiple deaths are happening in this country with monotonous frequency. The
slaughter so far has no effect on us as a people. Gun enthusiasts, the National
Rifle Association, greedy conscienceless politicians, and angry fanatics
consumed with violence, have their way in all of this. Their push for more guns
knows no limits. Now they freely carry them into restaurants. And we as a
people allow it. As voters, as supporters of these insane gun laws, or, no gun
laws at all, we perpetuate these beastly killings. As voters who continue to
keep or put into office hapless, corrupt, stingy, ignorant, narcissistic
self-indulgent politicians who cater to the gun industry, who lick the boots of
the NRA, who pad their pockets with gun lobbyist kickbacks and campaign money, who
worship at the altar of violence and call it freedom, we are responsible for
the deaths of these bright young people.
I am so tired of
hearing about protecting the Second Amendment to the Constitution. What a bunch
of nonsense. When will intelligent people put an end to this blather by
supporting politicians who fight for laws that responsibly regulate the
ownership and use of firearms?
Back in 1991,
former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a staunch conservative, was asked about the
NRA’s massive efforts to oppose gun laws because of Second Amendment rights.
Burger said, “That argument has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces
of fraud—I repeat, fraud—on the American public by special interest groups that
I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
I hope Chris
Martinez’s pointless and violent murder, along with the other students shot and
killed last Friday, will not be just sighed at, yawned over, and forgotten by an
apathetic public unmoved by this outrage.
The love of
country, love of family, love of human life demands that we find ways to stop
this and make necessary changes in gun laws, mental health resources, and
police training before we lose another child, young adult, or other human life
to mindless mass violence.
© 2014 Timothy Moody
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