One mother's pain

I've known Carma Jackson for several years. She was the first president of the Second Amendment Sisters, she started Armed Females of America, and she has been a tireless fighter for our freedoms. She is also a mother who lost the most precious thing any parent can lose...

...her son.

Not only did Carma lose her son to an act of senseless violence perpetuated by a cold-blooded killer with a gun, but instead of becoming a whining, sniveling, shriveled shell of a human being, who blames inanimate objects for her pain and attempts to kill one of our most important, fundamental freedoms in an effort to kill her own pain, she became an activist and a vital force in the battle to retain and restore our Second Amendment rights.

I don't think a lot of people know Carma's story. She and her husband Dennis have been a critical team in the Second Amendment battle. And when I hear heartbroken mothers, who have lost their children, advocate gun control as a way to somehow mitigate their children's deaths, I think of Carma and her story...

I remember it vividly. On New Years Eve 1991, my precious 12-year-old son, Joey, perpetually loving, smiling Joey, the light of my life and an endless source of happiness, was murdered. Someone deliberately took away my son’s chance to even begin to experience life. Someone who had received society’s message that human life held little or no value in the eyes of the law.

Over the years, I have learned to mentally numb the incomprehensible pain of the loss with the sure and certain knowledge that one glorious day in heaven I will once again hold my beautiful son in my arms. But what is so hard to accept, in fact, what is impossible to understand, is the lack of remorse by his killer and the complete lack of action and compassion by the Criminal Justice System.

I think of Carma and wonder why every other mother who has lost a child to endless violence doesn't stand up for the rights of victims everywhere instead of trying to create more victims in our society by making us vulnerable to armed, violent criminals.

I for one am sick and tired of the lies, emotional manipulations, and half-truths from gun control advocates. We want everyone to understand that firearm owners are on the same side as the Million Mom Marchers and that we are here because we too want our homes, our families, and our communities to be safe and protected. Firearm owners are not stubbornly insisting that their rights be preserved at the expense of others. Rather, we stubbornly stand for our right, as well as your right to defend ourselves against violent criminals.

I would like to ask each one of them why they support laws that empower the criminal and makes victims of our children. I would like to ask them why, if gun control works, do we have more crime today in big cities with tougher gun prohibitions? I would ask them, why did we have less crime 35 years ago, when there were practically no gun control laws in this country? I would ask them, why do they not place most of their emphasis on locking up the repeat violent offenders who continue to victimize us? I ask them now, why aren’t you addressing these real issues instead of telling us to give up our right to defend our loved ones and ourselves?