Women & Guns

From The Editor...

By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

Nearly 20 years ago, in a January 1990 commentary for Women & Guns, I wrote about a mass shooting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The shooting took place at the University of Montreal's Engineering School on Dec. 6, 1989, and the gunman, Mark Lepine, then 25, killed 13 women students, wounded another 11 and then took his own life.

As Lepine went through the school, he dismissed male students from the classrooms and shouted at the women, "You're just a bunch of feminists."

Canadian gun laws were different in 1989, but Lepine was in legal possession of the rifle he used, despite a history of behaviors which led to his being denied admission to the Canadian military. He had also been denied admission to the engineering school, allegedly because women and minorities quotas were filled first by law and the school's policy.

The story didn't get a lot of play in the United States-this was pre-Internet-and it also didn't fit with the notion of Canada as a non-violent, non-gun paradise popular then-and now-in the mainstream media.

Because I live so close to Canada, however, I was able to see a lot of that country's coverage of the crime, both on television news and in the newspapers.

I spent the time to dig through our archives (actually a loose leaf notebook) to find my story because of the shooting in suburban Pittsburgh, PA, on Aug. 4.

George Sodini, 48, walked into a LA Fitness in Collier Township and opened fire on women in an aerobic dance class. He killed three, wounded nine and committed suicide. There is no question that Sodini was targeting women-he left behind a blog detailing his plans, and even giving the date of Aug. 4 for his death. The writings also detailed an anti-social life, in which his failure to "meet" women loomed large. He went so far as to detail a plan to commit a similar crime-at the same gym-in January, saying on his blog that he "chickened out."

Reaction to the crime has been relatively muted-as has reaction to a couple of other "active shooter" incidents this year.

To be sure, the professional victimologists over at the Brady Center have been quick to wring their hands and there is some political fallout in Pennsylvania as a Senate race heats up. "Rep. Joe Sestak, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, cited the Collier shooting deaths in calling for a reinstatement of the federal ban on military style assault weapons," The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

It is difficult to assess why a story like the Collier shooting, isn't more in the media. After all, we have 24-hour news outlets on television and while the Internet has damaged local newspapers, it has also given rise to their online versions. There are dozens of other "news" sources on the Web as well-from obviously politically-slanted blogs of every leaning to more general news-roundup pages. Network television is awash in news magazine shows, many of which focus specifically on crime. And on any given Saturday afternoon you can spin the remote and find one of the many "Women in Jeopardy" movies-so prevalent a genre that it has it own name-on TV, with names like "Mother May I Sleep With Danger."

So what gives? The mainstream media is still anti-gun, it still lets people like the Rev. Chuck Currie "blame Bush and the NRA" for the gym shooting, allowing him to note, "Sodini, who took his own life, is clearly responsible for the violence that occurred but President Bush and the NRA also have blood on their hands for allowing people like Sodini to get their hands on dangerous weapons of mass destruction that have no legitimate place in our society. President Obama and Congress must do more to reinstate the assault weapons ban and enact other sensible gun control measures to protect Americans."

Is it possible that the general media is ashamed to admit that "sensible gun control measures" can't protect people? That these "sensible" measures even contribute to the killings?

The evidence from mass shootings in the pass 20 years clearly shows that the gunmen-however clinically deranged they may be-are cunning enough to use "sensible gun control" against innocent people. Most shootings of this type occur in "gun free" schools, posted shopping malls and similar venues.

Gunowners, most especially women, should continue to remind the media and their fellow citizens that criminals and the insane will forever use "sensible gun control" to their advantage.

Peggy Tartaro