Mike
Site Co-Founder
imported post
If this commentary by NY Daily News' Michael Daly is not the outrage of the week, I don't know what is - first Daly falsely claims an "automatic" pistol was bought in Virginia (probably at a local Safeway grocery store I guess) and used to kill an NYC police officer; second, Daly brays that the "[n]early two-thirds of Americans say they believe the Constitution guarantees each person the right to own a gun, according to a poll released [last] Sunday," see http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/16/guns.poll, are "morally responsible" for the NYC police officer's death.
Daly's commentary is at http://tinyurl.com/2y59j9:
SNIP
"Virginia held a day of mourning for its victims but remained as indifferent as the other states that are major sources of the illegal guns flooding into New York. In July, a .45-caliber automatic from Virginia was used to shoot Officer Russel Timoshenko of the 71st Precinct in Brooklyn. . . . Those morally responsible include people who speak of gun rights but who really stand for gun wrongs. The blood spilled beneath the name of Nathan Hale is on their hands, no matter what they try to say about the Founding Fathers."
--
http://tinyurl.com/2y59j9
Regret for one more life lost to guns
Tuesday, December 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
Two bulletshad ricocheted off a brick pillar, leaving coin-sized impact marks that still looked fresh Monday. One crater was about head high, the other waist level.
A third bullet had gone a few inches wider and continued down the block to where bits of crime scene tape tied to trees and a lamp post still fluttered in the icy wind, looking like yellow ribbons outside a deployed soldier's home.
The tape had been used to seal off the stretch of pavement where that third bullet had struck a profoundly innocent bystander, a student nurse named Carol Simon. She was hit in the torso; a pool of vomit in her building's vestibule marked where she had collapsed.
The twin hedges that flank the front walkway twinkled with white Christmas lights. The windows above were decorated with a Santa and candy canes and a wreath. The building's name was inscribed in big block letters above the entrance: NATHAN HALE COURT.
The original owner must have figured on giving the building an extra bit of class by naming it after the great patriot.
Hale was hanged after the Battle of Long Island - whose major engagement took place a few blocks away in the vicinity of Prospect Park. He uttered those famous last words, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
He gave that one life so we can enjoy the freedoms in the Constitution. Folks who say they are for "gun rights" contend that the Second Amendment imparts the unfettered right to bear arms.
The syntax of the Founding Fathers in this regard is unfortunately imprecise. Their intent was to guarantee the populace maintains a "well-regulated militia" - in modern terms, the National Guard.
They could not possibly have intended for the country to be flooded by millions of handguns of no military value that kill thousands of innocents every year.
Two centuries, 31 years, two months and 23 days after Nathan Hale was hanged, we had some other last words, these uttered on a cell phone by Carol Simon, whose one life was stolen. "I got a bullet. I got to call 911."
Simon apparently collapsed before she could make that call. Neighbors summoned help, but she was beyond saving. She had left her 9-year-old son in the family car at the corner while she went back to get a purse. He is said to have heard the shots - and they will no doubt reverberate through his one life.
The boy was with relativesMonday morning as seven candles flickered at a makeshift shrine in the vestibule where his mother died. Somebody had added a white teddy bear like one I saw set among the candles at another makeshift shrine, this one at the Virginia Tech campus after a gunman killed 32 innocents.
I hoped sight of that shrine would cause the country to say enough is enough. Unfortunately, my hope proved unreasonable.
Virginia held a day of mourning for its victims but remained as indifferent as the other states that are major sources of the illegal guns flooding into New York.
In July, a .45-caliber automatic from Virginia was used to shoot Officer Russel Timoshenko of the 71st Precinct in Brooklyn. He struggled mightily, but lost his one life at Kings County Hospital.
Officers from that precinct rushed to a report of shots fired at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and found Simon dying in her doorway. She worked regularly with the trauma team at Brookdale University Hospital, which made her kin in the struggle to preserve life.
The police set out after everyone criminally responsible for the latest outrage. Those morally responsible include people who speak of gun rights but who really stand for gun wrongs.
The blood spilled beneath the name of Nathan Hale is on their hands, no matter what they try to say about the Founding Fathers.
mdaly@nydailynews.com
If this commentary by NY Daily News' Michael Daly is not the outrage of the week, I don't know what is - first Daly falsely claims an "automatic" pistol was bought in Virginia (probably at a local Safeway grocery store I guess) and used to kill an NYC police officer; second, Daly brays that the "[n]early two-thirds of Americans say they believe the Constitution guarantees each person the right to own a gun, according to a poll released [last] Sunday," see http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/16/guns.poll, are "morally responsible" for the NYC police officer's death.
Daly's commentary is at http://tinyurl.com/2y59j9:
SNIP
"Virginia held a day of mourning for its victims but remained as indifferent as the other states that are major sources of the illegal guns flooding into New York. In July, a .45-caliber automatic from Virginia was used to shoot Officer Russel Timoshenko of the 71st Precinct in Brooklyn. . . . Those morally responsible include people who speak of gun rights but who really stand for gun wrongs. The blood spilled beneath the name of Nathan Hale is on their hands, no matter what they try to say about the Founding Fathers."
--
http://tinyurl.com/2y59j9
Regret for one more life lost to guns
Tuesday, December 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
Two bulletshad ricocheted off a brick pillar, leaving coin-sized impact marks that still looked fresh Monday. One crater was about head high, the other waist level.
A third bullet had gone a few inches wider and continued down the block to where bits of crime scene tape tied to trees and a lamp post still fluttered in the icy wind, looking like yellow ribbons outside a deployed soldier's home.
The tape had been used to seal off the stretch of pavement where that third bullet had struck a profoundly innocent bystander, a student nurse named Carol Simon. She was hit in the torso; a pool of vomit in her building's vestibule marked where she had collapsed.
The twin hedges that flank the front walkway twinkled with white Christmas lights. The windows above were decorated with a Santa and candy canes and a wreath. The building's name was inscribed in big block letters above the entrance: NATHAN HALE COURT.
The original owner must have figured on giving the building an extra bit of class by naming it after the great patriot.
Hale was hanged after the Battle of Long Island - whose major engagement took place a few blocks away in the vicinity of Prospect Park. He uttered those famous last words, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
He gave that one life so we can enjoy the freedoms in the Constitution. Folks who say they are for "gun rights" contend that the Second Amendment imparts the unfettered right to bear arms.
The syntax of the Founding Fathers in this regard is unfortunately imprecise. Their intent was to guarantee the populace maintains a "well-regulated militia" - in modern terms, the National Guard.
They could not possibly have intended for the country to be flooded by millions of handguns of no military value that kill thousands of innocents every year.
Two centuries, 31 years, two months and 23 days after Nathan Hale was hanged, we had some other last words, these uttered on a cell phone by Carol Simon, whose one life was stolen. "I got a bullet. I got to call 911."
Simon apparently collapsed before she could make that call. Neighbors summoned help, but she was beyond saving. She had left her 9-year-old son in the family car at the corner while she went back to get a purse. He is said to have heard the shots - and they will no doubt reverberate through his one life.
The boy was with relativesMonday morning as seven candles flickered at a makeshift shrine in the vestibule where his mother died. Somebody had added a white teddy bear like one I saw set among the candles at another makeshift shrine, this one at the Virginia Tech campus after a gunman killed 32 innocents.
I hoped sight of that shrine would cause the country to say enough is enough. Unfortunately, my hope proved unreasonable.
Virginia held a day of mourning for its victims but remained as indifferent as the other states that are major sources of the illegal guns flooding into New York.
In July, a .45-caliber automatic from Virginia was used to shoot Officer Russel Timoshenko of the 71st Precinct in Brooklyn. He struggled mightily, but lost his one life at Kings County Hospital.
Officers from that precinct rushed to a report of shots fired at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and found Simon dying in her doorway. She worked regularly with the trauma team at Brookdale University Hospital, which made her kin in the struggle to preserve life.
The police set out after everyone criminally responsible for the latest outrage. Those morally responsible include people who speak of gun rights but who really stand for gun wrongs.
The blood spilled beneath the name of Nathan Hale is on their hands, no matter what they try to say about the Founding Fathers.
mdaly@nydailynews.com
