Ahead of yesterday’s town hall meeting with President Barack Obama on the topic of gun violence, retired astronaut Mark Kelly and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords talked with some Arizona reporters.
Thinking about the years that have passed since Tucson’s 2011 mass shooting, Kelly said “it’s kind of unbelievable to think that five years have gone by. Five years is a long time and in some ways, in seems like a long time.”
Gabby echoed: “Long time.”
“And in other ways,” Kelly continued, “it feels like was yesterday.”
“Yesterday,” Gabby said.
Kelly talked about what the couple is up to these days. Gabby had quite a year; she broke her femur training for her El Tour de Tucson appearance, but still managed to complete the 40-mile stretch she set out to do. And in the year ahead, she hopes to dust off her old French horn and start horseback riding again. Kelly is working with former Biospherians Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum on World View Enterprises, which hopes to use high-altitude balloons to take passengers on high-altitude balloon rides to the edge of space. Kelly hopes to pilot a test run later this year.
Both Giffords and Kelly have been traveling a lot in conjunction with their work with Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun-safety organization they founded in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 young kids and six adults dead.
Kelly said the group is now looking at what kind of campaigning it will do in the 2016 election cycle.
They are both supportive of the “really significant” executive actions that President Barack Obama announced earlier this week.
“It’s very satisfying to see all of this come together after working on this issue for such a long time,” Kelly said. “Sixty percent of gun sales are done with background checks, 40 percent aren’t. Of those 60 percent, in a 10-year period, we stopped about 2 million felons from buying firearms. How many weren’t stopped by the 40 percent loophole that exists? Probably a lot. So hopefully we’ll capture a lot more of those gun sales that should have never taken place.”
He added that critics of the president who say he is overreaching his authority are “grasping at straws.”
When it comes to expanding the definition of who should be considered a gun dealer (and thus be required to conduct a background check), Obama has the power “to direct the ATF with regards to who is in the business of selling firearms,” Kelly said. “It’s not any kind of new requirement. The requirement already exists that if you are in the business of selling guns, you are required to have a license and you are required to do background checks. So this isn’t some new thing. It was legislated in the early 1990s.”
Kelly finds it easy to brush off the criticism that comes their way from more vocal gun advocates.
“A lot of that criticism … is in the weeds of the Internet,” Kelly said. “When you go on Main Street or even in the conservative media, people are always respectful and open to other opinions and ideas. I’ve had very positive debates about this issue all across the spectrum. When somebody makes a comment on a blog about me, there’s about a zero percent chance—or a very low percent chance—that I’m going to read it. It’s not worth me spending my time on that. But the bottom line is: No matter what the criticism is, and how nasty and biting it might be, it really doesn’t matter. Because what we are doing—and what our organization is doing—is saving people’s lives, and those people include little kids. So if Gabby and I have to get beat up in the newspaper or maybe on radio somewhere or on TV, it’s insignificant.”
You can watch highlights from last night’s town hall meeting on gun violence here.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2016.
I am totally pleased with Mark and Gabby bringing the issue of guns in the wrong hands being something we should do all we can do to prevent from happening. The problem I do have is Mark always boasting that he and Gabby are gun owners and how much they enjoy their guns. We need to end American’s love affair with guns and maybe some day, we won’t have to walk around in fear that everyone is armed.
If everyone was armed, then the playing field would be leveled as their would be no “weak” for the strong to prey on. America doesn’t have a “love affair” with guns; many have the desire to protect themselves and their families from criminal predators. I’m sorry that you fear that others are armed, Logical Thinker. However, your fear does not convince me that law-abiding citizens need to roll over and become low-hanging fruit just to appease your illogical phobia.
And exactly what did this farce accomplish? Even His Royal Highness himself admitted that his new laws wouldn’t have stopped any of the past mass shootings. Symbolism over substance, liberalism at it’s finest.
Last night a radical Islamist shot a Philly police officer with a gun stolen from the police. Homeland security had let him go to Egypt and Saudi Arabia two years ago. He had been arrested in 2012 for making terrorist threats but was never taken to trial.
Shouldn’t we be passing laws for protection FROM our government? They appear to be the problem.
LOGICALHA,If everyone was armed we’d have constant gun battles.
Logical Thinker – Based on your “logic”, that would be happening now. Do you think that all the current gun owners are sitting around waiting for 100% gun ownership before starting “constant gun battles”? There are enough armed people right now for that to happen. But, guess what? It isn’t happening. Know why? Because not everyone is as stupid and violent as your paranoia has you convinced they are. Some people just appreciate the right to defend themselves.
hmm no gun battles since what happened logical thinker?
“Logical Thinker” suggests America needs to end its “love affair with guns.” I wonder what “Logical Thinker” thinks about America’s love affair with the liberty America was founded to preserver and protect? The liberty, for example, to be secure from some government thug demanding to see your papers, as they do in communist and fascist nations, but not here. Oh…wait…background checks. Isn’t that exactly what background checks do? Violate our 4th Amendment right to be secure from some damned government thug interrogating us and demanding a search to prove we meet government approval? Violate our 5th Amendment right to Due Process in a Court of law before our rights can be taken from us? Violate our 10th Amendment right to be secure from some damned government thug exercising a power not delegated to government in the first place? Our rights are already being destroyed by doofuses who think our right to keep and bear arms is a “love affair with guns.” It is not. It is a love affair with liberty, that will last about five seconds after we allow the doofuses to win. Be careful what you wish for.
“Logical Thinker” says “LOGICALHA,If everyone was armed we’d have constant gun battles..”
Not very logical a thinker, are you, LT? Your premise appears to be that everyone is not currently armed, right? That alone shows you have no clue what you are talking about. Poor little terror-stricken cry babies are always whining that if people exercise the rights they actually have, with or without government permission, that the result will be a bloodbath. But it never happens, does it? Or perhaps it does, but only where the cry babies hang up signs prohibiting guns, like they think the criminal maniacs care. Maybe you should take a course in logic, Logical Thinker.
Perhaps “logical thinker” can explain as to why Gabby and Mark have Glocks with high capacity magazines? mark illegally attempted to purchase two firearms, a .45 ACP and an AR15, and was caught, yet being a modern useless “celebrity” (remember he also lied about being in firefights as an Air Force Ace) no charges were filed as had the situation been reversed and an “average” Joe attempted the same we’d be under that jail. The problem is these two are major HYPOCRIOTES who feel they are above the law, as is Diane Feinstein who thinks military vets are not capable of being responsible firearms owners (if that’s the case Mark Kelly would also be barred) while she has a CCW and carried a snub nosed .357 in her purse. Why do liberals feel that if firearms are banned criminals, street thugs and gangbangers will turn theirs in? Stupidity at it’s highest.
Attack the messenger not the message eh markus_jim? A tactic mastered by El Rushbo.
Sadly, it works more often than not.
Look up “gun fails” to see what would happen if every one was packing all the time. The NRA is just a bunch of scaredy cats that need guns to prop up their sagging masculinity.
Obama’s state of the union address will focus on gun control. Mr.Obama, will most likely not mention the rape incident in N.Y.involving five black males who were armed and dangerous
.”Police said on Saturday the men took turns raping the 18-year-old woman at the playground operated by the New York City Parks Department in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn just after 9 p.m. on Thursday. One man pointed a gun at the father and told him to leave, police said.After the father left, the men each assaulted the woman, police said. They fled when her father returned a short while later, accompanied by two officers. “
New York has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S. However, criminals seem to have a hard time abiding by the rules. Note, the father of the victim was abiding by the rules, he had no means of protecting his daughter. He is in fact a law abiding citizen. If he would have access to a weapon at that moment, I assure you, he would have given those five thugs a run for their money.
Obama, and his daughters will never know what the young lady and her father experienced in New York, they have the luxury of “Secret Service Agents”, armed and ready to defend them at all costs.
Obviously, the Gov’t is not about to hire millions of agents to give us the same type of protection as the Obama’s,
If given the alternative, we can either flee from our assailant’s and leave our loved ones behind and hope and pray we can find an officer to come to their aid or we can do the duty of a father and defend them at all costs, just like our president does.
Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t become a statistic, fight for the right to defend you’re loved ones.
Good God we sent him in to space?
The definition of insanity is doing the samething over and over again and expecting different results. King obamanation may have expanded them but it is the same background check that doesn’t work. Their both insane.
Can you feel the clamps tightening around our civil liberties every year?
Our calls are recorded, are data is mined and stored, our cellphone calls are intercepted with spoof StingRay technology without warrants by local, state and federal agencies, civilian drones must now be registered, red light cameras never turn off and record 24 hours a day, the Federal Government continuously slips provisions into bills to remove online anonymity. It is ILLEGAL to create any software to encrypt your conversations or information without the government possessing a key/backdoor in advance.
I don’t trust a single thing the government wants, why would I? Today, the Do No Fly List means an American citizen can’t own a gun, tomorrow, a credit report below 700?
If Obama and our current government wants any type of legislation I can absolutely guarantee it is not for the benefit of the average American.
Myybe Nitzel should work for the “De Ranged.
So far I have 8 dislikes on my post. Why ? I don’t understand how anyone could possibly be so naive. I could almost place a wager, that none of my critics, have ever faced a life threatening situation involving one of the members of their household. Well, I have. I know what it’s like. However, I stood my ground and defended my daughter. I was armed with a ‘357 magnum Python’ as I ran out of my house, after I heard my daughter, crying and screaming out for help. There were two men ‘color is irreverent’ trying to drag her out of her vehicle. I thank God, I didn’t have to shoot anyone that night. My weapon said, all there was to say, both men fled and were later apprehend by police. I learned my lesson, I always carry my weapon with me at all times, I never, ever, plan to use it, but I’d rather have in my possession and never have to use it, then not have it on me and wished I would have.;