I did a thing. Yes, I did. The thing I did I probably shouldn't have done given past experiences debating with gun nuts, but I did that thing anyway. What was that thing? The thing I did was I posted a tweet on Twitter awhile back in which I said:
That tweet was a retweet of, and response to, K-12 School Shooting Database (David Riedman), a researcher on school gun violence I have an awful lot of respect for. The reason I retweeted his tweet was because he mentioned school shootings in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s compared to school shootings today. Because the Columbine massacre took place in the 90s, I thought I'd throw in my two cents in support of what he was putting forward.
Enter the gun nut:
That is the newest in a long and idiotic line of AR style weapons defender's defenses I've seen so far.
"The AR isn't some magical weapon." That's what he said.
It was meant as an insult directed at those advocating for gun safety reform.
It was taken by me as a laughable condescending disingenuous attempt to dismiss gun violence trauma personal experiences, not only by my daughter and me, but also by anyone and everyone directly impacted by gun violence of any kind.
I honestly don't know why gun nuts invariably go to some condescending disingenuous remarks as soon as they see something that doesn't necessarily agree with their perception of AR style weaponry. I even referenced another blog post I'd written quite awhile ago on My Thoughts on 'Civilian' Weaponry in which I shared a few details of the injuries my daughter suffered during the Columbine massacre and tried to explain why, if AR style weapons had been used at Columbine, my daughter's injuries likely would have been fatal. It appears those details weren't enough.
So, before anyone reads any further, be forewarned that some folks will find what I'm about to say a bit disturbing because I'm going to describe, in graphic detail, why, exactly, an AR style weapon firing high-velocity rounds would likely have killed my daughter during the Columbine massacre. I haven't done this before. In fact, it's still emotional and raw for me. I try to imagine how emotional, raw, and physically damaging it is/was to my daughter.
That being said, here goes:
The weapon used to shoot my daughter was a Hi-Point 995 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle. She was shot two times.
One of her lungs was nicked by a bullet from the Hi-Point 995 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle. Her lung collapsed. During her hospital stay, her lung collapsed multiple times. Chest tubes had to be inserted and re-inserted multiple times to drain bloody discharge. Watching how painful this procedure was (no anesthesia) broke my heart and almost broke my own resolve to be strong for her. But, good news is her lung did not blow up from a 'blast effect' caused by cavitation or fragmentation of the bullet like a high velocity round from an AR style weapon would have done. If it had, she wouldn't have made it to the hospital alive.
Her vena cava vein was nicked by a bullet from the Hi-Point 995 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle. The cut in her vena cava vein allowed blood to flow into and fill her chest cavity. The reason I know this is because the ER doctor told me they opened her chest by cutting from the top of her sternum to her naval and from just under her breast on one side of her chest to just under her other breast on the other side of her chest. They then pried her chest open to basically try to determine her cause of death, basically a 'cadaver' procedure, because they thought she was dead. He also told me my daughter really should not have survived this procedure. His word for this procedure? "Radical". When they detected a very faint heartbeat, they rushed her into OR at which time a trauma surgeon took over. Over the course of the surgery to repair her vena cava vein, she had what amounts to a whole body blood transfusion. The OR surgeon also implanted a vena cava filter to break up any blood clots that might flow back to her heart which would have killed her. He told me he had to clamp her aorta in order to do this surgery. He also told me every once in awhile, he unclamped her aorta to give her brain a 'drink'. He cautioned me about the possibility of brain damage from lack of blood flow. But, once again, her vena cava vein was not severed because of a 'blast effect' caused by cavitation or fragmentation of the bullet like a high velocity round from an AR style weapon would have done. If it had, she wouldn't have made it to the hospital alive.
Her liver was damaged by a bullet from the Hi-Point 995 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle. Doctors assured me her liver, if she lived (they placed her survival chances at less than 25%), could regenerate. When I think what happened to her liver, I think of Brett Cross whose son Uziyah (Uzi) was killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX when a bullet from an AR style weapon left a gaping void where his stomach should have been. Once again, her liver was significantly damaged but was not destroyed because of a 'blast effect' caused by cavitation or fragmentation of the bullet like a high velocity round from an AR style weapon would have done. If it had, she wouldn't have made it to the hospital alive.
Finally, her spinal column was damaged by a bullet from the Hi-Point 995 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle. The bullet entered her spinal column and spiraled downward until it stopped near the T-12 vertebra. In the process, the bullet damaged what spinal cord experts told me they euphemistically call the 'horse's tail'. The medical term for this is 'cauda equina' for it's resemblance to a horse's tail. Her spinal cord was bruised and caused paralysis from the waist down. Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie was murdered in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre, described his daughter's fatal injury as having her spinal column shattered by a bullet fired from an AR-15. She died instantly. My daughter survived. Her spinal cord was not destroyed because of a 'blast effect' caused by cavitation or fragmentation of the bullet like a high velocity round from an AR style weapon would have done. If it had, she wouldn't have made it to the hospital alive.
I could go on to describe more of what happened to my daughter in the ER, OR, CCU, MTU, and spinal cord rehab in Craig Hospital, all of which lasted four months, but won't. Those are things I lived with my daughter all day every day for those four months and beyond. They still stir feelings and emotions decades later that I'm still uncomfortable talking about.
So, when gun nuts tell me things like "the AR isn't some magical weapon", all I can say is I know that. I know that because AR style weapons don't work magic on anyone. No, they don't. Exactly the opposite in fact. And that's the whole point behind advocating that these kind of weapons simply do not belong in civilian hands in our society.
My two cents.
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