Category Archives: Assault weapons

Jack F.K. Bungart: Pain — and anger — for my hometown, Highland Park

With permission, by Vallejo Times-Herald Editor, Jack F.K. Bungart, July 9, 2022

“Son take a good look around … This is your hometown.”
— Bruce Springsteen

My hometown is — early cliché alert — a part of me, as big a chunk of who I am and what I became as any DNA strand, any online genealogy search.

I left my hometown some 50 years ago, forced out, feet dragging — collateral damage to my dad’s burgeoning job status.

But my hometown never left me.

I go back every time a journalist’s salary allows and Wrigley Field beckons, always staying at the same hotel near the same hallowed grounds of my insanely blessed youth.

I am Highland Park, Illinois. I always will be.

Highland Park is my hometown.

Yes, that Highland Park.

There is something inherently shallow about making any news story, much less a tragedy like what took place on the Fourth of July, about yourself. Even a hint of it can smack of preening narcissism. A seasoned, highly trained professional doesn’t do that.

And neither do I.

At least not until my town, rolling in privilege and graced with the kind of classic Midwest charm that called out to the cameras of John Hughes, was torn asunder, right at the intersection of evil and tragic.

I can’t possibly imagine the soul-crushing anguish of those innocent parade-goers — from the lives lost to the ones left with wounded psyches as they grieve and attempt to make sense of the senseless.

But that was our Fourth of July Parade, the one I went to so many times, that this pile of filth in makeup desecrated. That was my street, Central Avenue, those bullet casings rattled off of. Right or wrong, it feels distinctly personal. Those were my people whose lives were ruined, on a classic American day, in what has, to our great national shame, become a uniquely American tradition.

Do the lost lives of my town matter more? More than, say, those beautiful souls in Uvalde, Texas — what was it, five minutes ago? They, too, were victims of a madman, another war-time killing machine, but with a historic level of law enforcement incompetence that would be darkly comedic if it wasn’t so sickeningly horrific.

Of course not. But there is a reason we brag about people from our old stomping grounds who made it big — I’m looking at you Rachel Brosnahan, source of my favorite TV character ever, Midge Maisel.

And there is a reason my jaw dropped, my heart sank and my gag reflex cranked into overdrive on the Fourth of July. That reason, that connection, that longtime love affair is why the crawl at the bottom of the screen on a holiday Monday was such a gut punch, as breathtaking as it was tear-inducing.

So no, this isn’t about me.

It’s about Irina and Kevin McCarthy, who saved their now-orphaned son with unimaginable courage and heroism, just down the street from where my U.S. Marine father started me on the path to manhood with a work ethic and strict allowance that never allowed for the spoiled brat-like behavior my opulent surroundings teased us all with.

It’s about Nicolas Toledo, who lost his life just a three-minute walk down the street from my childhood home, whose owners still kindly put up with my occasional, nostalgia-laced drop-ins.

It’s about Jacquelyn Sundheim, who had her life of laughter and generosity blown away just across the street from where I parked my bike so many times for yet another run on baseball cards.

It’s about Stephen Straus, killed just down the street from our iconic — at least it was for us — movie theater (as seen in “Risky Business”), where I fell in love for the first time. Her name was Ann-Margret, and suddenly girls weren’t so gross after all.

It’s about Katherine Goldstein, taken away just down the street from our supposedly “secret” passageway down the stairs next to the park and to the biggest body of water I could imagine — Lake Michigan.

It’s about Eduardo Uvaldo, mowed down blocks away from the bedroom where I would carefully set out my clothes at night for the next day’s trip to the greatest place on Earth — Wrigley Field.

It’s about Cooper Roberts, who deserved so much better from the grownups in Washington, D.C., and the authorities who missed the signs to stop a lunatic in their midst. No farther than a third baseman’s throw to first from where we religiously played baseball, all day, every day, until we couldn’t — and then cranking it back up when we could — a beautiful 8-year-old boy suffered bullet wounds that leave him unable to walk, much less run around the bases, today.

And finally, it’s about damn time … we do something — please, anything — about this mindless carnage. I was an 8-year-old boy when the New York Mets ripped my heart out in the summer of 1969. But I wasn’t shot by an assault-style rifle that nobody outside of the United States military has any business owning.

Most of us not named Marjorie Taylor-What’s Her Face — the wretchedly vile, prodigiously stupid conspiracy queen freak who all too predictably oozed out the poison of this possibly being a “false-flag operation” — know perfectly well what needs to be done.

A ban on all — every last one of them — assault-style, rapid-fire rifles, made specifically for wartime obliteration, to not just take out as many lives as quickly as possible, but to eviscerate the human body as efficiently as possible.

Allowing these weapons into the general populace — much less the hands of confused, teenage zombies — makes for uniquely cruel, obscenely abhorrent public policy.

It’s the kind of disgrace that perhaps doesn’t happen in a country with a congress full of actual public servants, not gutless cowards, supplicant careerists, and eager NRA lapdogs who left their conscience at the House coat check.

And no, that’s not “playing politics.” It’s common sense for the common good. Doing the opposite, to keep your seat of power and your nice parking spot? That’s playing politics.

This simply did not have to happen. It sure as hell didn’t have to happen in my damn town, or any damn town, anywhere. Not on the Fourth of July.

Let’s all take it personally. The alternative — becoming numb to shooting after shooting — is unacceptable.

My precious hometown is a crime scene today, surrounded by yellow police tape and soul-crushing grief.

It could be your town next.


— Jack F.K. Bungart is the Editor of the Vallejo Times-Herald and the Vacaville Reporter.

Not in the news: Since Uvalde,11 mass shootings in U.S.

Uvalde family, ABC News, May 25, 2022

By Roger Straw, May 29, 2022 6:28 pm PT (NOTE: Today’s report was outdated less than 2 hours after it was posted.  As of 8pm, Gun Violence Archive is reporting 2 additional mass shootings: 7 injured in Henderson NV, and 6 injured in Phoenix AZ.  Totals now in 5 days since Uvalde: 13 mass shootings, 8 killed, 58 injured.)

EARLIER:  It goes on and on…. In the last 5 days, there have been another 11 mass shootings, 8 killed, 45 injured.  (Details below.)  All this since the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde TX, where 19 fourth graders were shot to death along with 2 teachers.

The most recent mass shooting reported today was in nearby Merced CA.  Two more were in my home state of Michigan.

We need sensible gun control NOW!  …including universal background checks and a strong assault weapons ban, at minimum.

Reference: Gun Violence Archive (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting)

Incident Date State City Or County Address # Killed # Injured
29-May-22 California Merced Cowden Ave 1 3
29-May-22 Michigan Detroit Littlefield St and Plymouth Rd 0 3
29-May-22 Oklahoma Taft 104 Elm St 1 7
29-May-22 Illinois Chicago 800 block of S Karlov Ave 0 5
28-May-22 Tennessee Chattanooga 100 block of Market St 0 6
28-May-22 Florida Malabar 2500 block of Billie Ln 0 4
28-May-22 California Fresno 2233 N 1st St 1 3
28-May-22 Colorado Colorado Springs 3800 block of E Pikes Pike Ave 1 3
27-May-22 Michigan Stanwood 10711 185th Ave 4 1
27-May-22 Alabama Anniston 1204 Front St 0 6
25-May-22 Pennsylvania Philadelphia 3500 block of Fairmount Ave 0 4
24-May-22 Texas Uvalde 715 Old Carrizo Rd 22 17
Uvalde kids, ABC News, May 27, 2022

Canada Orders Immediate Ban on Assault Weapons in Wake of Deadly Mass Shooting

PM Justin Trudeau said the government had been in the process of introducing the ban when its agenda was overturned by the pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada attending a news conference in Ottawa on Friday. Credit…Blair Gable/Reuters
New York Times, by Ian Austen, May 1, 2020

OTTAWA — Nearly two weeks after the deadliest mass shooting in Canada’s history, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday introduced an immediate ban on what he described as “military-style assault weapons.”

“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time,” Mr. Trudeau said. “There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”

The ban means that Canadians will no longer be able to own rifles like the AR-15, the military-style weapon used in several mass shootings in the United States including those in Newtown, Conn.; Orlando, Fla.; and Parkland, Fla.

By introducing the ban, Mr. Trudeau partly fulfills a gun control promise he made during last year’s federal elections. He said the government had been in the process of introducing an assault weapons ban when its agenda was overturned by the coronavirus pandemic.

In making the announcement, Mr. Trudeau noted several gun killings and repeatedly cited the shooting rampage in rural Nova Scotia that left 23 people dead, including the gunman.

The gunman’s arsenal included two models banned on Friday, said Bill Blair, the country’s public safety minister.

The killer did not have a firearms license and many of his guns and rifles had been smuggled into Canada from the United States, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, highlighting one difficulty Canada may face in enforcing the new measure. The U.S. federal government has not barred assault weapons since a previous ban expired in 2004.

The swift response by Mr. Trudeau to the killings in Nova Scotia stands in contrast to that of officials in the United States, where repeated efforts to renew the now-lapsed assault weapons ban have failed.

A makeshift memorial for Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Heidi Stevenson, who was killed in the shooting in Nova Scotia. Credit…Tim Krochak/Reuters

The Canadian government has drawn up a list of about 1,500 gun models covered by the new ban. It estimates that about 100,000 such semiautomatic rifles are now legally owned by Canadians.

Mr. Trudeau said the government will introduce legislation to buy back the rifles, another part of his campaign promise, at a future date. Until then, owners have been given two years to keep their rifles although they can no longer use them, trade them or sell them except to buyers outside Canada with a permit. Gun shops can return any of the weapons they now have in stock to manufacturers.

While handguns and automatic weapons are tightly restricted in Canada, most rifles and shotguns have been more loosely regulated. The previous Conservative government shut down a registry for such weapons that had been set up after a man gunned down 14 young women and injured 13 others in 1989 at the École Polytechnique engineering school in Montreal.

That database was beset by technical problems and was deeply unpopular in rural areas. Mr. Trudeau has resisted calls from gun control groups to revive it.

Mr. Trudeau said on Friday that his planned legislation will also include a measure that will allow cities to ban handguns within their boundaries, another of his campaign pledges.

Andrew Scheer, the leader of the Conservative Party, repeated his longstanding opposition to any ban and buyback of military-style weapons, noting that many mass killers, including Gabriel Wortman in Nova Scotia, and other criminals use illegal firearms brought in from the United States.

“It’s easy but lazy government to ask the people who follow all the rules to follow more rules,” Mr. Scheer told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He also criticized Mr. Trudeau for introducing the measure through a cabinet order while Parliament is not meeting in normal sessions because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Wendy Cukier, the president of the Coalition for Gun Control, said that most mass shootings in Canada have involved legally owned rifles and said there’s evidence that the availability of military-style weapons may make such killings more likely.

“Most mass shooters are law abiding until they are not,” she said.

What motivated the 13.5-hour killing spree in Nova Scotia by Mr. Wortman, a denture fitter, remains unknown. It started in the tiny summer community of Portapique when Mr. Wortman assaulted his partner and tied her up. She escaped and he began shooting people inside and outside of their homes while he also set fire to several buildings, including some of his own properties.

After the police arrived shortly before midnight on April 18, they found two replica Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruisers registered to Mr. Wortman on fire and located a third at his full-time residence in Halifax. That led the police to believe, they said, that he may have committed suicide and was in one of the burning buildings.

But after hiding in the woods all night, Mr. Wortman’s partner told police that he was traveling in a fourth replica police car that did not have license plates. Investigators subsequently discovered that he had eluded them by driving through a farm field and then hiding in another town where he resumed his killing spree in the morning.

He was eventually shot and killed after pulling into a gas station while driving a car belonging to one of the victims.

Ms. Cukier acknowledged that the government will have to continually update its list to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the ban by modifying current models and reintroducing them as new weapons. Her group, she said, will recommend that future legislation focus more on a system in which gunmakers must get approval to sell specific weapons rather than on steps to ban the weapons.

And while her group generally takes stances that oppose those of the Conservatives, she agreed that more must be done about smuggled weapons.

“There are a lot of things that have to happen,” she said. “Most Canadians don’t know the extent to which our laws have been eroded.”

Alan Drummond, who has long pushed for more gun controls through the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, praised Mr. Trudeau and members of his cabinet for their unequivocal statements about the need to ban assault weapons.

“What struck me was the absolute clarity and conviction,” he said.

Texas Lawmaker Issues Death Threat to Beto O’Rourke After Debate Pledge to Take Away Assault-Style Weapons

Slate, by Elliot Hannon, Sept 13, 2019

Beto O’Rourke was uniquely outspoken in his calls for gun control during Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Houston. The former Texas congressman, whose hometown of El Paso recently was the victim of a mass shooting at a Walmart, was asked if he’d take away assault-style weapons that are often used in mass shootings. “Hell yes,” O’Rourke responded. “We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore.”

It seemed inevitable that O’Rourke’s call to ban ownership of military-style weapons would rile up the guns=distilled liberty true believers online, but it was, perhaps predictably, an elected Republican official—from the state of Texas no less—who led the way over the cliff. Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain tweeted a not-so-thinly veiled threat at the presidential contender, tweeting, “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis,” calling O’Rourke, whose nickname is Beto, by his first and middle names.

The O’Rourke campaign said it reported the 34-year-old state representative’s tweet to the FBI. Twitter took down the tweet, saying it had violated its terms of service. “It violates our rules for threats of violence,” a company spokesperson said late Thursday night. “You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people.”

Cain, however, was unrepentant, tweeting “You’re a child Robert Francis.”