Mark Kelly, husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, last night released the following statement via Giffords’ spokesman:
On behalf of Gabby and our entire family, I want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the people of Arizona and this great nation for their unbelievable outpouring of support. Gabby was doing what she loved most — hearing from her constituents — when this tragedy occurred. Serving Southern Arizonans is her passion, and nothing makes her more proud than representing them in Congress.
Like all Americans, we mourn the loss of Judge John M. Roll, Christina Taylor Green, Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard and Gabe Zimmerman, a fine man and beloved member of Gabby’s team. We must never forget them, and our prayers are with their families. Our hearts go out to everyone injured yesterday; we hope and pray for their quick recovery. We also extend our thanks and appreciation to all of the first responders, medical personnel, law enforcement, and Arizona citizens who acted swiftly on Saturday and continue to assist our community through this tragedy. Many stories of heroism are emerging, and they are a source of strength for us during this difficult time. We are forever grateful.
Many of you have offered help. There is little that we can do but pray for those who are struggling. If you are inspired to make a positive gesture, consider two organizations that Gabby has long valued and supported: Tucson’s Community Food Bank and the American Red Cross.
Community Food Bank
3003 S Country Club Rd # 221
Tucson, AZ 85713-4084
(520) 622-0525American Red Cross, Southern Arizona Chapter
2916 East Broadway Boulevard
Tucson, AZ 85716
(520) 318-6740
This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.
How to get a semi-auto pistol and 75 rounds at age 22??
To Senators Kyl and McCain, and Representatives Flake, Franks, Gosar, Grijalva, Pastor, Quayle and Schweikert:
1. Please get together with Wayne Lapierre, Ted Nugent and all you other Republican-idiot sicko gun-nuts and go explain to Representative Giffords’s family and the families of all the others shot the other day why they don’t like gun control?
2. Please explain how any 22-year-old, even if it’s your son, can get his hands on a semi-automatic pistol and 75 bullets?
3. Please ditch your stupid Wild-West mentality and vote common sense for once!
To everyone else: I’ve included at the bottom all contact for all Arizona reps, taken directly from senate.gov, house.gov and their own sites. I’m also including Rep. Giffords so you can send her best wishes. But first, a few more paragraphs on gun control:
Charlton “From My Cold Dead Hands” Heston has been exactly that for a few years, yet no one wants to take him at his word. Long overdue is serious effort to curb the spread of guns into the warm, live hands of not only such nuts as shot up Columbine, Virginia Tech and countless post offices, but also Cheney.
Guns nuts always recite “Second Amendment!” but they extract only five words, “the right to bear arms”, out of context. It’s short enough even for them to memorize wholly: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Clearly they dislike that “well-regulated” part: I maintain that neither two Columbine students, nor one Va. Tech student, nor a post-office worker constitutes a militia, let alone regulated. OK, the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Westies and Yakuza are militias, but regulated? The Amendment’s context is a country’s army defending the country – against armed enemies, hence the law’s recognizing self-defense against a life threat. I consider this a gun’s sole legitimate use.
Gun nuts always chant “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Two brain cells say both premise and conclusion are wrong: guns should be regulated, not outlawed, and even if outlawed, the authorities too would have guns, like the police and soldiers gun nuts so ardently support. Even they should understand: another Wild West is repeating failed history. Yet they can’t wait seven days, they can’t do with one gun a month, and they refuse background checks while calling themselves law-abiding – what’s to hide? Their “convenience” argument is, quite simply, completely insane regarding instruments of death. They remind us that cars, purchased for convenience, kill too, but I remind them that getting a car involves a certain age, a written test, driving school, a road test, and regular renewal – imagine if that were true of guns! Actually, among well-regulated militias, it is: soldiers and officers continually train, practice and pass tests. Every gun owner should do the same: the right to bear arms necessitates the responsibility – unlike cars, guns kill by design.
We have technology that traces every gun and bullet and senses a gun’s proximity to its owner’s property. Robert Kennedy might say: too many gun tragedies – why? This technology isn’t used – why not? Most gun nuts are also pro-life, right? Jesus would like the Bible in one hand, but not the gun in the other. That these insane, selfish, illogical, hypocritical, anarchy-favoring, Republican-voting, conservative-thinking nuts both own and use instruments of death – frequently and legally! – should scare us all.
*** ARIZONA REPS’ CONTACT INFORMATION ***
General on-line contact form (some reps don’t have their own!):
writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
— SENATORS —
Kyl, Jon – (R – AZ) Class I
Web Form: kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm
WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFICE
730 Hart Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4521
Fax: (202) 224-2207
PHOENIX OFFICE
2200 East Camelback, Suite 120
Phoenix, Arizona 85016-3455
Phone: (602) 840-1891
Fax: (602) 957-6838
TUCSON OFFICE
6840 North Oracle Road, Suite 150
Tucson, Arizona 85704
Phone: (520) 575-8633
Fax: (520) 797-3232
—
McCain, John – (R – AZ) Class III
Web Form: mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAct…
Washington Office:
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: (202) 224-2235
Fax: (202) 228-2862
Phoenix Office:
5353 North 16th Street
Suite 105
Phoenix, AZ
Main: (602) 952-2410
Fax: (602) 952-8702
Prescott Office:
122 North Cortez Street
Suite 108
Prescott, AZ 86301
Main: (928) 445-0833
Fax: (928) 445-8594
Tempe Office:
4703 South Lakeshore Drive
Suite 1
Tempe, AZ 85282
Main: (480) 897-6289
Fax: (480) 897-8389
Tucson Office:
407 West Congress Street
Suite 103
Tucson, AZ 85701
Main: (520) 670-6334
Fax: (520) 670-6637
— REPRESENTATIVES —
Giffords, Gabrielle, Arizona, 8th
Washington, DC Office
The Honorable Gabrielle Giffords
U.S. House of Representatives
1030 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2542
Fax: (202) 225-0378
Cochise County District Office
The Honorable Gabrielle Giffords
77 Calle Portal, Suite B-160
Sierra Vista, AZ 85635
Phone: (520) 459-3115
Fax: (520) 459-5419
Washington, DC Office
The Honorable Gabrielle Giffords
U.S. House of Representatives
1030 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2542
Fax: (202) 225-0378
—
Flake, Jeff, Arizona, 6th
(use general web form above)
Washington, D.C. Office
240 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-2635
(202) 226-4386 fax
District Office
1640 South Stapley
Suite 215
Mesa, Arizona 85204
(480) 833-0092
(480) 833-6314 fax
—
Franks, Trent, Arizona, 2nd
Web form: franks.house.gov/contacts/new
Washington Office
2435 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-4576
Fax: 202-225-6328
District Office
7121 West Bell Road
Suite 200
Glendale, AZ 85308
Phone: 623-776-7911
Fax: 623-776-7832
—
Gosar, Paul R., Arizona, 1st
Web form: gosar.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Washington, DC
504 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2315
Fax: (202) 226-9739
Casa Grande
211 North Florence St., Suite 3
Casa Grande, AZ 85222
Phone: (520) 836-3226
Fax: (520) 836-8417
—
Grijalva, Raul, Arizona, 7th
Web form: grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=49&…
DC Office:
1511 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
ph (202) 225-2435
fax (202) 225-1541
TUCSON Office:
738 N 5th Ave. Suite 110
Tucson, AZ 85705
ph (520) 622-6788
fax (520) 622-0198
SOMERTON Office:
201 Bingham Ave. Suite 2
P.O. Box 4105
Somerton AZ 85350
ph (928) 343-7933
fax (928) 343-7949
—
Pastor, Ed, Arizona, 4th
Web form: forms.house.gov/pastor/webforms/issue_subs…
Washington Office
2465 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-4065
District Office
411 North Central Avenue
Suite 150
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 256-0551
—
Quayle, Ben, Arizona, 3rd
Web form: quayle.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Washington, DC
1419 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3361
Fax: (202) 225-3462
Phoenix
2400 E Arizona Biltmore Circle, Suite 1290
Phoenix, AZ 85016-2109
Phone: (602) 263-5300
Fax: (602) 248-7733
—
Schweikert, David, Arizona, 5th
Web form: schweikert.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Washington, DC
1205 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2190
Scottsdale
10603 N. Hayden Road, Ste. 108
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Phone: (480) 946-2411
Wait, you’re surprised a 22 year old is considered an adult? The legal age for buying a pistol is 21, three years after you’re considered a legal adult for all intents and purposes. That’s like asking “HOW could that 22 year old POSSIBLY have gotten a hold of alcohol?????”
The more I read your post the more confused I get. Representative Gifford herself is one of those “idiot sicko gun-nuts,” being an ardent supporter of 2nd Amendments rights and a purported gun owner. She even filed an Amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court supporting individual gun rights in the 2008 Heller vs DC court case .
Second you seem to have missed the part I was just talking about, where the Supreme Court voted that the 2nd Amendment is in fact an individual right, and the “militia” in question refers to the citizenry. “Regulated” in flowery 18th century language, oddly, had a different common meaning than now! It’s clear, from the word’s usage in many historical writings from the Founders, that “regulated” refers to discipline or training amongst troops. See the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendm…
The Columbine shooters obtained guns illegally via a straw purchase. They did not buy the guns themselves. The VT shooter should have been prohibited from purchasing a gun under existing law at the time, but slipped through the cracks due to the failure of law enforcement to properly update the NICS database.
Attempting to equate drivers licenses to guns fails here because a drivers license is not a permit to own a car so much as it is to operate one on public roadways, compared to a gun which is mostly used on private property. The closest equivalent for a gun would actually be a Concealed Carry License, which of course I’m sure you’re against even though the process for obtaining it and the privileges it confers is basically what you describe when you say “drivers license.” Also much like current gun law, you don’t actually need a drivers license to operate a car on private property.
You also seem to believe that gun purchases don’t require a minimum age, which as stated earlier is not true. You must be 18 to buy rifles and shotguns, or 21 for handguns. In comparison to cars again I don’t believe there is actually a legal age to title and therefore own a car. To buy a car you also don’t have to pass federal background checks, conducted via the FBIs National Instant Background Check system, which have been mandatory since 1998. One gun per month laws and waiting period have also had no applicable effect on crime when enacted at the state level, and it wouldn’t have stopped this shooting, VT, or Columbine as the guns were obtained far in advance as part of elaborate plans. Do you seriously think that what amounts to minor inconvenience will stop assassins, gang members, cartels, etc? Who buys a gun THE DAY they’re executing their murder plot? As for using police and military to justify constant civilian training, they don’t do it for safety’s sake because they forget the whopping three or so controls on their guns. They do it so they can be sure they know how to kill other people in the line of their duties. Why would you want that taught if you’re so concerned about gun violence rates?
Then you denigrate into outrageous hyperbole about every gun owner being a Bible-thumping neocon and you’ve officially lost me. As you were earlier ignorant of Grifford’s pro-gun ideology, I’m not surprised you’re unaware of the amount of 2nd Amendment support amongst Blue Dog Democrats.
Most of your outrage seems to be grounded in ignorance or the same type of polemics I’d expect out of a rightwing radical like Glenn Beck, sorry.