“The news, for the past month, like so many others, has been filled with guns,” Arkadi Gerney writes over at newyorker.com. “There was the gun that the Tsarnaev brothers used in Cambridge, where they killed a cop—perhaps in an effort to get his gun. There were guns used elsewhere, too. In Akron, Ohio, four people were murdered, execution-style, in a basement of an apartment complex. The next weekend—” Yada, yada, yada. Take it from a gun blogger: there’s always gun news. To say that a particular time period is “filled with guns” is both true, misleading and revealing. After all . . .
Tens of millions of American gun owners spent the last month doing a whole bunch of non-gun stuff—working, playing, raising kids, paying the bills, going to church, doing the horizontal mambo, etc.—without shooting themselves or anyone else. But Gerney, the ex-head of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns (2006 – 2011), lives in a different world than you and me.
According to his blog post, Arkadi Gerney‘s journey into the heart of disarmament darkness began when he was eight, after his father died of colon cancer. Two years later, Gerney’s mother suffered a cataclysmic accident.
During this time, my mother got to know many doctors, among them an orthopedist named Peter Rizzo. He and my mother started dating in September, 1986. Peter was a father of three college-aged children. His first marriage ended in an annulment. He was a devout Catholic and, like my mother, he enjoyed enjoying—food, drink, and conversation. He was a kind, generous man with a great breadth and depth of friendships. And I hated him.
I hated him for the obvious reasons. I’d lost my father. I’d almost lost my mother. I wanted all my mother’s love and I feared that too much of it might be diverted to this man. I can clearly remember moments at night, trying to fall asleep under a big poster of Don Mattingly, when I wished Peter dead.
A few times that fall, I pleaded with my mother: Promise not to marry him, at least not for a year. But they were in love. By February, they had plans to marry—and then came the gun.
Notice that Gerney foreshadows the tragedy to follow by ascribing it to a physical object. He is, literally, objectifying what happens next.
Peter was the chairman of the medical board of the New York City Fire Department’s pension fund. He and two other doctors were responsible for assessing disability claims. On February 5, 1987, he was at a pension-board meeting when Peter McNamee, a retired firefighter with a deferred claim, came to the meeting with a gun.
Peter McNamee shot Peter in the head with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle. Peter was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he died the next day. There was a funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, with the full F.D.N.Y. treatment. Hundreds of firefighters. Bagpipes. Fire trucks. If you remember all those funerals after 9/11, you know what it looked like.
In the days and weeks that followed his death, my mother told me many times that she loved me and that it wasn’t my fault. My mother was fifty when Peter was murdered. She never remarried. She never even dated again.
Why would Gerney’s mother tell her son that her fiance’s murder wasn’t his fault? Of course it wasn’t his fault. As the father of a [nearly] ten-year-old, having parented three other children through that age, I’m thinking Gerney isn’t being honest.
The “I blamed myself” interpretation is most likely something Gerney picked-up in therapy. Given the intro to the story and the MAIG man’s line of work, I reckon Gerney doesn’t blame himself for the shooting. He blames the gun.
And how. Gerney’s anti-gun jihad is based entirely on the idea that fewer guns equals less crime. Less tragedy. Less heartbreak and sorrow. Which means no guns equals no tragedy. No heartbreak. No sorrow.
The idea that more guns equals less crime is beyond Gerney’s ken. It would force him to consider the possibility that his aspiring step-father—whom his mother worshipped—bore responsibility for his own defense, or lack thereof.
I believe people are genetically wired to see the world in a particular way. Gerney is one of those “black and white” kinda people. Just as his not-step-father was a “pure” victim, anyone who supports the right to keep and bear arms is a bad guy.
When you see the world in binary terms, you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. Why not? Greater good and all that.
In 2009, I led a gun-show investigation of illegal sales at gun shows, which involved so-called private sellers—people who maintain that they only occasionally sell guns. Under current federal law, these unlicensed private sellers can sell guns with no questions asked. Our 2009 investigation found that nineteen of thirty private sellers would sell guns even to buyers who said they “probably couldn’t pass a background check”—which would indicate to the seller that buyer was likely a felon or other prohibited buyer. (Closing this “private sale” loophole was the subject of the bill the Senate rejected in April.)
See what he did there? “Probably couldn’t pass a check.” Entrapment much? Not to mention the fact that Gerney’s infamous “investigation” was illegal (Gerney was an out-of-state buyer).
There’s both zealotry and irony here. By his own admission, Gerney didn’t tell the truth about his background when applying for his position with the Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
I never told anyone I worked with in Mayor Bloomberg’s office about the 1987 shooting of Peter Rizzo. It wasn’t a secret, exactly. People who’ve known me well for a long time know about it (though perhaps not the part about me wishing him dead).
I could have told the man who would become my boss, John Feinblatt, when I interviewed for the job. John is Mayor Bloomberg’s chief policy adviser and the original architect of the gun initiative. But bringing up the shooting when I interviewed didn’t seem right. I thought it would be cheap—exploitive, even.
And, honestly, I was interested in the job because it was an opportunity to play the lead role in helping to build a new national initiative, almost regardless of what that issue was. What happened to Peter Rizzo didn’t play a big role in my choice to do the job (or if it did, I didn’t quite realize it at the time).
That’s some screwed-up logic: the shooting that triggered my desire to promote civilian disarmament wasn’t important when I started working for America’s wealthiest gun grabber, and if it was I didn’t think so at the time. But it is now. I think.
I think it’s safe to say that Gerney’s inner life is a maelstrom of unexamined conflict and repressed emotions. But that’s what you get whenever you scratch the surface of a person who wants to deny someone else their natural, human, civil and Constitutional right to armed self-defense.
Nigel and Fergal kept the beaches of southwest Devonshire free of the toughs and rogues that preyed upon the summer throngs in less fortunate resorts on the coast…
Chicago mobsters riding past the real estate they own.
Never have I had this problem with my M1 Garand. Go ahead kids, keep playing with your little black plastic rifles.
two take aways for me:
1) he walked in on mom and peter hitting it from the back while holding a scotch on ice and a marlboro in his mouth so there are some pyscho-sexual issues there
2) Firemen are evil because they use guns to kill.
Bike lane? We don’t need no stinking bike lane.
I am a big fan of appendix carry ( 5’10” 170 lbs). I was using a cheap uncle mikes for a while but just switched to a peach state concealment mini me kydex and I love it. Only way I’ve found to carry where I don’t have to reconsider my clothing choice before walking out the door.
Amazon quickly revamped their gun delivery system from earlier days, employing boxes for easier stackability
ditto on 4 o’clock.
Seems like if you grab your crotch in a Walmart, they’re going to look. Just saying. It ain’t a gonna be cell phone there. Everybody know that….
I can’t think of anything funny to say but I’ve already zip tied my Mosin Nagent to my road bike. I can’t believe I never thought of this before!
Failing to realize they’ve lost, even the drug warriors have gone crunchy.
“Hello, I’m Agent Fast and this is Agent Furious. Does this road lead to Mexico?”
Winner!
These must be the evil NRA gun pedalers we’ve been hearing about.
Now there is your winner right there!
This dude has deep seated issues that he needs to address before he fulfills his paranoid fear of going out and committing a murder
the first ever urban assault vehicle thats 100% green
While little appreciated today, what we now call “prepping” actually began in post World War I Britain where so-called “Prep Blokes” came to realize that both a supply of arms and a bugout vehicle would be needed in case of Zeppelin attacks from the dreaded Hun and the chaos that would surely follow.
Wow. Just – wow.
these type of holsters are good for carry when you have two shirts on so the gun does not rub the skin but all in all I love AIWB carry. I can grab my junk and be close to my gun at the same time
Like the other commenters said, this is just classed up Mexican carry. For the same reasons I wouldn’t pocket carry I wouldn’t use this. What if you have to quicky re-holster your gun? You can’t.
“But accidents happen to”
I love this line, like em or hate em, nutnfancy did a vid on dangerous things that was pretty spot on. Accidents can and do happen with a plethora of things that children have access to… sigh.
I thought YOU brought the ammo!
DHS unable to purchase additional MRAP vehicles due to sequester.
Magpul’s new product development suffers after Colorado legalizes pot.
I have been through this issue in the 80’s and the 90′. All hail the FBI (*******). I see no real use of replacing the 45ACP with 40S&W
They see me rollin’
They hatin’
Patrollin’
And tryin. to catch me ridin. dirty.
When I was 14 years old I shot my brother in the eye with a high powered slingshot and he spent three days in the hospital, if we would have had guns I can guarantee we wouldn’t have been shooting at each other.
I have seen this on a Colt and a Bushmaster during our SWAT academy
Sure the grabbers got our store, we’re selling on the road now though, Randy
Been using one of these with my G19 for several months and have never had an issue. I’ll sometimes have to re-adjust when sitting down but mostly the gun just rides up along my stomach. I could see how if you have a few extra pounds this may be an issue, but for me once I tried appendix carry with this holster I haven’t used anything else. I even managed to shovel a foot of snow off my driveway this past winter wearing it and it was perfectly comfortable. Different set-ups work for different people I guess…
“As a law enforcement officer I find that most laws have a purpose and a place. But whatever my opinion of a law may be, I have a duty to uphold those laws without question. That means laws on the books are enforced and carry corresponding charges and penalties.”
Holy Smokes Batman!!!
Sorry, but “I was just following orders…” doesn’t work.
If you were ordered to round up all the Muslims in your community, and put them on a train, would you carry out that order because it was the law?
If you were ordered to go door-to-door to round up all African Americans, would you follow that order because it was now the law to deport all African Americans strip them of their citizenship and ship them back to Africa?
You have a badge, and the force of the state behind you backing you up. If you’re under the impression that you have “a duty to uphold those laws without question” then turn in your badge and gun now.
At what point would you say: “No sir, I will not follow this order to enforce this law. If you don’t like it, shoot me now.”
Unthinking officers of the state like you are the reason that the twentieth century is drenched in the blood of millions upon countless millions of innocents.
Can’t fault the kid; kids aren’t known for being the most dependable problem solvers anyway.
What scares me is that Cap’n Joe probably thinks it really is a good idea, just like how he wishes they would invent 24-hour crash helmets that don’t chafe his ears so much, and special graham crackers that don’t make such a mess when he rams them into his stupid retard face.
It is just SOOOO difficult to stuff the genie back into the bottle once it escapes.
The fact that it turned out to be a “black on black” shooting is certainly no reason to back off of anything. You guys are the ones who supply the criminals with their guns. You, who favor lax gun laws, are ultimately responsible.