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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPowerful testimony of Sandy Hook parent on ODonnell show.
A Sandy Hook parent gives testimony the Senate should have heardToday, another Sandy Hook parent advocated for stricter gun laws on behalf of his murdered child. David Wheeler, father of victim Ben Wheeler, spoke Wednesday at the last of four public hearings by the Connecticut legislatures Bipartisan Task Force on Violence and Public Safety. In his testimony, Wheeler called for a comprehensive system of identifying and monitoring individuals in mental distress.
In Wednesdays Rewrite segment, MSNBCs Lawrence ODonnell lamented that no one from Newtown, Connecticut, testified at todays Senate hearing, which would never have occurred were it not for the massacre of 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.
ODonnell ceded much of the show to play Wheelers testimony, which he said the Senate Judiciary Committee should have heard today.
Speaking in front of a 52-member task force, Wheeler decried the inability of agencies to share relevant information about at-risk individuals personal histories, mental states, and proximity to firearms. He also advocated a ban on military-style assault weapons, saying they belong in an armory under lock and key, and for annual registration of personal firearms.
Finally, Wheeler invoked Thomas Jeffersons inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence. I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase was an accident, he said. I do not think the order of those important words was haphazard or casual. The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life.
video> http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/#50648121
moondust
(20,006 posts)K/R
renate
(13,776 posts)I try to be a live-and-let-live (no pun intended) person when it comes to differing opinions, but I don't know how anybody could disagree with that man and still sleep at night.
And then to end that segment with a picture of that little 6-year-old boy and the words
Benjamin Andrew Wheeler
2006-2012
http://www.phillyburbs.com/obituaries/courier_times/benjamin-andrew-wheeler/article_f19a4556-f13f-517f-ad96-ea6d68c2eca7.html
I watched live and watched again
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)The dad who testified the other day; the parents who sat down with Rachel...I don't know where they get their strength and grace.
I also don't know why this issue is so difficult to reach any kind of consensus on, let alone solve. If 20 dead first-graders aren't enough to wake this country up, then I really don't care to know what will.
Mr. Wheeler is absolutely correct: Your right to own a weapon does not override my child's right to his life.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Brilliant last line.