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AARP: Why Would You Kill Your Own Members?
by Angel Shamaya
Director, KeepAndBearArms.com
Reprint permissions explained below.
To: AARP Executive Director, Horace Deets
601 E St. NW
Washington, DC 20049
Phone: 1-800-424-3410
http://www.aarp.org
Copies to:
members@aarp.org
mmletters@aarp.org
bulletin@aarp.org
Dear Director Deets,
Before you begin to read this heartful letter, I am respectfully letting
you know that it is published on the internet at a prominent location
and has already been read by tens of thousands of Americans--many of
them your own members. I wanted you to know that up front, and I will
publish every word of your thoughtful reply and distribute it widely in
the same manner with which I have carefully made certain this letter was
read.
Sir, I applaud you for championing the distinguished and all-too-often
shortchanged members of our society through your work with AARP. Many
good things have come from AARP over the years; many lives have been
positively affected by the tireless work of the people leading your
organization. The senior citizen community in America deserves undying
respect and devotion, but sadly they are often met with quite the
opposite. Yours is a noble mission--and one of great merit on many
levels. I sincerely thank you with all my heart.
But somehow, somewhere, someone holding the reigns in your fine
organization has dropped the ball in what I can only describe as
criminal, and I am writing you today to reach you with information of
which you must be wholly unaware. Please hear me out, sir; please take
painstaking care to understand what I have to say to you. Many lives
depend on your choices, as you know, and a choice your organization has
made could cost the lives of a great many of the people I know in my
heart you seek to serve.
So you will understand what I have at stake in this conversation, I
submit to you the attached image. Though this may look to you like "just
some other old lady member," to me, this is the REAL Angel. My
grandmother saved my life several times over; she is the life-saving
apple of my eye. This picture was taken for her church membership
directory in 1995, and she's 50 times more beautiful in person. Even
though her time is not long on this earth, I would jump in front of a
freight train or take on a mountain lion barehanded to save her life.
And I now come to find out that a position you've taken with your
organization could lead to my dear Grandma's early death, sir, and I
take that very seriously.
As you may have guessed by my title, I am writing to you today about
your policy on guns. These self-defense devices have taken center stage
in a politically-motivated battle, and some of your positions--while
surely well-intended--are poor choices, indeed. Grant me the time to
elaborate, and I believe you will see exactly why what I say is true.
In your Public Policy Agenda 2000, Chapter 12, Pages, 19-22, you take a
couple of positions that, if followed through in the form of
legislation, would ultimately get a lot of your members killed. Even
without legislation, if your own precious members take your promotion
against firearms as valid, good elderly people will die.
AARP ON WAITING PERIODS
Your publication states:
"Congress should eliminate the 1998 expiration date for the Brady
bill’s five-day waiting period and should leave in place the assault
Brady bill’s five-day waiting period..."
Mr. Deets, I understand your organization's desire to play a role in
curbing violence, and I respect the essence of your reason for being so
inclined to take such a position, but you need to take a good look at
the reality of the situation regarding mandatory waiting periods for the
purchase of firearms:
First, as in the case of the LA riots, waiting periods hamper the
ability of lawful people under siege to procure the very self-defense
devices the criminals already possess and are actively using against
them. Furthermore, forcing a woman who is being stalked by a gun-toting
estranged ex-husband to wait several days to be able to defend her own
life against his gun not only infringes on her right to life, many cases
precisely as described above have gotten innocent women killed--even
after police were put on notice that the women's lives were being
threatened.
Second, criminals who purchase guns illegally on the street do not
have any waiting periods at all. For a clear example, I was approached
in my own city by a man selling fully automatic machine guns illegally--
immediately deliverable--for a sum 1/5 of the price of a legally-
purchased weapon. Lawful citizens whose states allow the ownership of
such a weapon have a process that takes 4 to 8 months or longer to get a
weapon that I could have had in 5 minutes, for an 80% discount. Waiting
periods do not hamper criminals; they get their guns on the black
market.
Third, when someone realizes a need for a gun and seeks to purchase
it for a reason of clear and present danger, making them wait can be and
often has been a death sentence. While they wait for the means to
protect their precious lives, they are beaten, raped and even slain, all
in the name of "common sense gun control." Is this what you want for the
elders of our society, sir? Is this what my grandmother gets in return
for faithfully paying her dues for so many years?
In your same report on the above-mentioned pages, you state:
"...the fear of crime affects many older persons' behavior and
national surveys show that many older persons protect themselves by not
leaving their homes..."
You are correct in your assessment. Many elderly people, my own sweet
Grandma included, sit in their homes in fear. In their minds, going
outside the fortresses their homes have become is risky business; these
beautiful human beings who've done their time in the workforce and at
the helms of families cower behind locked doors and pray nobody comes
barging in to do them harm. The cream of our societal crop lives, far
too often, in fear. You got that right.
In the cases of members of your own organization being threatened with
bodily injury or death by someone who means to commit a violent crime
against them, asking these esteemed members of our society to wait five
days to defend against a criminal who is coming back tonight, armed and
ready to kill, is not only poor judgment, it is a move against life
itself and in direct violation of the stated mission of AARP.
Criminals do not wait five days to plunder. In the town where my
precious grandmother lives, an 89-year-old woman was raped, brutally
beaten, and murdered--then relieved of her gold fillings with pliers.
The cause of death was: "run over with her own car several times."
Asking an 89-year-old woman to wait 5 days to defend herself against a
29 year old "man" is wrong, sir. Can you see please take an honest, hard
look at that and respond? I beseech you for a humane answer, and one
that comes from your heart.
AARP SAYS: "HANDGUNS POSE A THREAT TO CITIZENS OF ALL AGES..."
Your report goes on to say:
"Handguns continue to pose a serious threat to citizens of all ages.
In 1995, 11,283 people were killed with handguns. At least $1 Billion is
spent annually on medical costs associated with treating shooting
victims."
There are some facts not mentioned in your report that I believe you do
not even know. If you did, you would about face immediately and cease
the detrimental slander campaign against self-defense devices. Perhaps
these facts will assist you in making a more informed platform from
which to support our age-wisened citizens:
First, more people use guns to defend themselves against criminals
than are shot, each year. According to the Department of Justice, "On
average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to
defend themselves or their property. Three-fourths of the victims who
used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth,
during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft." Bear in
mind that these are only the reported cases. According to all available
resources on the issue of firearms used in self-defense, the lowest
suggested number of self-defense cases involving firearms numbers over
300,000, and the highest is over 2,000,000. Most of the time firearms
are used for self-defense there is no shot fired. Why would you
slanderize and demonize the device that lets those 83,000+ people use to
save their own tender lives? Is this how you wish to be known?
Second, the numbers of people reported as "killed with a handgun"
include the people shot by police officers in the line of duty. These
numbers also include gang members shooting other gang members AND the
self-defense shootings, as well. In most cases, the people shot by
police are behaving in a criminal manner and have earned their bullet
wounds, and the same is true in self-defense shootings. Adding the gang-
on-gang shootings to the equation is also quite a stretch. Although it
is sad indeed that gang violence exists, expecting the PROVEN 83,000
average annual REPORTED cases of self-defense to buy into "guns pose a
threat to citizens of all ages" is irresponsible at best, and
dangerously misleading at a glance. Guns, sir, pose a threat to
criminals, and this is a GOOD thing.
Third, since you mentioned the horrendous number of $1 Billion in
handgun-related medical costs with a number of 11,283 deaths thrown in,
do some quick calculations in your head as to how much higher that
number would be if the other 83,000 people who successfully defend their
lives with firearms were to end up in the hospital or morgue. But this
conversation isn't about money, sir, it is about LIVES--and how many we
can save.
Taking guns away from people by scaring them into disarming so they
pose no threat to criminals will get innocent MISLED people killed.
Reporting partial facts to your members and the citizenry at large could
cause your trusting members to simply disarm, making them easy targets
to rape, rob, beat, stab, shoot, suffocate, and kill. How many deaths
and other violent atrocities do you wish to have on your hands each year
so you can fly the politically-correct but morally-bankrupt flag of
"guns are bad"? Do you care about your members who use firearms to
defend their lives each year? What say you, sir? I ask you as a grandson
for a response, because I would like to keep my belief that you care
about your members' lives and safety with all the sincerity I see in
your own materials.
CRIME PREVENTION AND REDUCED RISK OF VICTIMIZATION
I must also commend you for hitting one nail so squarely on the head it
sunk all the way in with a thud. In this same report, you say:
"States should encourage and sponsor community crime prevention
programs to inform older adults how...[they] can reduce...the risk of
victimization."
Bravo, AARP! I am so PLEASED to hear you at least give honorable mention
to the empowerment of our elderly, special, important, paved-the-way-
for-us citizens!! You are SO RIGHT! We need to do everything we can to
empower our senior citizens to be so risky to victimize that criminals
will not even CONSIDER approaching them in the commission of a crime! I
am with you ALL THE WAY. The only difference in our platforms as
organizations is that you would like them to do it without guns, and we
need to get rid of that insane notion while it's still just a virus--
before it becomes a full blown disease! Hear me out, and I'll let you
get back to your busy day, please:
First, the handgun is the cheapest, lightest, easiest-to-use, most
convenient, most concealable, most cost-efficient method of self-defense
that a one-day-training can provide. A senior citizen who is wheelchair-
bound and only has use of one hand is defensible, all by him or herself,
with a handgun! Two criminals with knives and clubs are in TROUBLE if
they try to harm one of our grandmothers or grandfathers when he or she
is armed and properly trained!
Second, the sense of empowerment that comes when one of our dear,
older American brothers or sisters finally takes their lives into the
realm of UNVICTIMIZABLE is profound. As self-preservation is a natural
(God-given) instinct and an inalienable right under the United States
Constitution, when you provide the only means an individual can use to
assure their life preservation if faced with an armed criminal, the
sense of peace, safety, and well-being afforded them is worthy beyond
measure. Pride, self-respect, and dignity are returned and preserved.
Mobility, freedom of movement and all that comes with these freedoms are
so valuable to someone who has all the time in the world. Fear washes
away into a freedom that, in many cases, disappeared long ago.
Third, the only alternatives to being armed and trained are to be
victimized or to hermit away and live in fear. Without a handgun,
meeting a tough, large, muscular criminal on the streets, what chance
does a frail old woman have? Next to none, and you know it. Let's also
face the fact that senior citizens are not the criminals. By and large,
people who meet your age requirements for membership are the most lawful
people as an age group in America today. If you can tell me just ONE
good reason why these lawful, peaceable, tax-paying, paid-their-dues,
fought-in-wars-to-defend-liberty citizens should give up the one tool
that could give them the needed edge should they, God forbid, meet up
with a violent criminal bent on doing them harm I WILL BE SHOCKED; there
is not ONE good reason why ANY senior citizen should be WITHOUT a
HANDGUN! It is time for a massive campaign to raise awareness of the
safe and effective use of these helpful devices in our unified
commitment to preserve the remaining years of our elders.
Your entire organization, in my opinion, seems to have taken a "the
government will take care of us" stance. Though I will not address the
many other ways your service to the community of elders in our society
could improve, I will speak to this issue in three sentences and then
close:
The government (including all police forces) cannot protect each citizen
in our society, or even each member of your organization, and you know
this to be true; self-defense is up to each "self." The right of the
people, old and young, to keep and bear arms is an individual, God-
given, Constitution-recognized right--a right to Life Itself. Any
infringement upon any human being's right to life is a shameful,
disgraceful act of violence, and this includes any support of the
infringement of this precious, sacred, life-saving right. (See attached
cartoon.)
Reshaping the AARP's stance on the self-defense devices being
systematically demonized in our media today will take a courageous leap
forward on the part of yourself and many other people, and I trust in my
heart you have that courage within you, or you would not have so many
people's lives in your care. Please, Brother Deets, choose wisely. I'm
asking you to do some deep soul-searching on this Lifesized issue, for
all of our grandmothers and grandfathers, and I am asking you to do so
for your own soul.
Respectfully, and in full sobriety,
Angel Shamaya
American Defender of My Elders with All of My Heart
--
Libertarianism: The "insane" ( according to the majority of people )
philosophy that it's wrong to initiate force against others, and that
slavery and involuntary servitude are wrong as part of that.
Amendment XIII.
1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
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