Recently Utah’s republican governor, Gary Herbert, authorized a state forest official to impose gun rules on public lands because many fires this year, and in previous years, were started by target shooting and other gunfire in the ultra-dry and easy to burn west. Political pundits on the right have used this as an example of unfair gun control.
The governor’s decision was taken as a threat to the 2nd amendment by Fox’s jesters who reported on this announcement by consulting a gun rights expert instead of a wild land fire expert, “Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Sports Shooting Council, said that perhaps 5 percent of the wildfires in the state have been caused by target shooters this year” and added, “I don’t know how much of a problem it really is.” While pouting that some would be unable to celebrate Independence Day by shooting off guns patriotically, “Many people use these times to show patriotism as well as support for the Second Amendment.”
Ironically, earlier this month The Nature Conservancy and Field & Stream both reported that a bipartisan poll reflected that actually, conservation is patriotic.
In several published article on this subject, including the Associated Press article and Fox’s tale of woe, Mr Aposhian said his group will conduct tests to determine if the steel-jacketed bullet theory is true. If there are limits, “we want to make sure it is not knee-jerk legislation to ban guns or ammunition,” he said. “If it turns out the problem is with a few types of rounds, we will not be an apologist for them.”
Aposhian’s implication – that the fact that steel-jacketed bullets can start fires is just a theory is absurd. Yesterday afternoon Jennifer Jones, Public Affairs Specialist for the National Interagency Fire Center, confirmed that some fires were in fact started by gunfire in the same email that she had already provided to the associated press on this subject. Ms. Jones also kindly explained to me that when officials use FIRESTAT to report their findings on the cause of wildfires, the only place that a person could record that a gun had caused the fire was under the “comments” category of an “other” heading. Knowing this, a member of her staff conducted a search for key words in the comments section for the words Target or Shoot and came up with a match for 13 records in 2012 and 28 in 2011. When searching for Target and Shoot together 5 records came up in 2012 and 13 in 2011.
When asked if she believed, in her expertise, that a fire could be started by a gun she recalled that “in 1995 a huge fire near Boise was started by an off-duty policeman who was working on target practice.” I pushed her a little, and pointed out that this could be a political ploy by some group or another to restrict gun use and asked again if she was sure that guns were capable of starting a forest fire. “Oh yes, absolutely” she replied, adding, “you wouldn’t believe what could start a fire when it’s dry enough.”
Ms. Jones’ opinion matches that of other fire officials who report it isn’t just a theory that guns can start fires, in Arizona prosecutors allege that five friends at a camp out and bachelor party set off a fire on May 12 when one loaded an incendiary shell, which burns rapidly and causes fires, into a shotgun and pulled the trigger.
My mother, Tammie Wilson, worked on many Washington State fires before retiring due to disability. She agrees that fires are easy to start in the right conditions, “on one fire I went to in Washington State the cause was found to be a grasshopper that had presumably jumped on an electric fence, jumped off on fire, and lit up a patch of grass.”
She also pointed out that a person’s right to fire their gun ends at the risk to our public lands. Knowing that I write mostly political articles she took time to say that “this ought not be a political issue.”
I remember the haggard look on my mother’s face when she would come from a fire that was particularly destructive or worse – one that took a young firefighter’s life. I saw that look as she began to dispense the wise answer to my questions about the possibility of political games regarding guns and fire that I am about to pass on to you, “There are no politics on a fire line – the job at hand is simply to stop the fire and do what we can to ensure another doesn’t start.”
My mom is a former agent of the great and wise Smokey Bear and I must admit that I believe her. The fact is that humans start 80% of forest fires and it’s our responsibility to do what we can to lesson that number, at all costs. If this means hanging up our guns till the rains come, so be it. Guns are tools – not toys. We use them to procure meat, to protect our families and to wage war. Their purpose is not to play target games or show patriotism. A true patriot protects the public lands we all enjoy. Let’s remember that in spite of Fox’s fast and furious plot to get your crazy republican uncle all worked up about his gun rights in time for the 2012 election
Some people are offended by the idea that there is some kind of "War on Women" going on here in the United States. Of course, Republicans suggest that in spite of the fact that there have been nearly a thousand anti-women bills introduced nationwide since March 2011, the "real" War on Women is, as John McCain puts it, nothing more than a ruse to, "distract citizens from real issues that really matter" or perhaps, "give talking heads something to sputter about when they appear on cable television."
In February GOP legislators tried to deny women equal protection under the law regarding health insurance packages awarded to employees of religious institutions as part of a wage/benefit plan. The GOP re-framed the debate to make it sound like taxpayers were paying for the slutty desires of college coeds, and tried to paint the issue as a morally ambiguous religious issue instead of what it was, a clear violation of the rights of women.
When I saw that panel of mostly religious men lined up to testify about this issue, and read about the fact that Sandra Fluke was denied the chance to speak out for me and women like me, I was enraged. Like many women in America, I was called to action.
This weekend the was the culmination of many women choosing to act, choosing to stand up for each other, choosing to fight back in this, very real, War on Women. Nationwide, thousands of women gathered to participate in We Are Women events. Every state had activities. Some states gathered thousands of participants. Different states had different events. Here in Cheyenne, Wyoming we held a silent protest. In Oregon and several other states there were also performances by groups known as The Raging Grannies. Sacramento's protest was home to a group, RTSV who raffled off $500 college scholarships in drawings dubbed, “Rush Limbaugh thinks I’m a slut,” one of which was won by UC Davis junior linguistics major Rachael Delehanty.
All day, on Sunday, I was hypnotized by the response of American women. I visited all 50 We Are Women state Facebook pages, I laughed at the creative and witty protest signs, the various Raging Granny performances and the snarky look of a Missouri woman dressed as a miffed Lady Liberty. In my head, I could not help but hear the echo of Mrs. Banks on Mary Poppins, as she sang "Our daughters daughters will adore us, as they sing in grateful chorus: Well done Sister Suffragette!"
It wasn't until I came to the Colorado page that I stopped feeling nothing but immense pride and started to feel that fiery anger in the pit of my being that smolders when I see women being mistreated. In spite of the fact that the group had a fabulous turn out of more than 2,000 participants in their well planned, well received event, the local press simply isn't picking up the story.
According to the press release, ignored by the local press such as the Denver Post and Fox 31 News Denver, there were at least 12 democratic legislators in attendance at the event, including: House Representatives- Crisanta Duran, Lois Court,
Su Ryden,
Jonathan Singer,
Beth McCann,
Rhonda Fields,
Joe Miklosi,
State Senators- Morgan Carroll,
Gail Schwartz,
Betty Boyd,
Linda Newell,
Pat Steadman,
Brandon Shaffer,
and Former Legislator, Dianna Primavera. Many candidates for the 2012 race were present as well, including: Dave Anderson, Joe Miklosi,
Armando Valdez,
Mike Foote,
JM Fay,
Tracy Kraft Tharp,
Paul Rosenthal, Lorna Idol,
Jonathan Singer,
Pier Cohen, and Mary Parker. Every politician in attendance, with the exception of two Independents, were Democrats. No Republicans legislators or candidates bothered to show.
The woman who organized this grassroots event, Meg Fossinger, "was thrilled with the diversity of the speakers who were there. The
roster included everyone from award-winning national poet Susi Q, to
NAACP's Rosemary Harris Lytle, to some amazing politicians like
Representative Joe Miklosi and Senator Brandon Schaffer, who are
challenging incumbents who do not support women's rights. It was an
incredibly inspiring day for women in Colorado." In reading of the days events, and the efforts of the group, I was most impressed by one line, in the bottom of the press release, "Your time, your money, and
your opinions, matter."
That's what this is really about isn't it? The desperate cry of our nation's women to simply matter. All we want is to have our time, our health, our opinions, our voices, our efforts, matter. So long as the women of our nation think that they don't matter, this War on Women is real and worth fighting. Anyone who'd tell you otherwise is the enemy. The men and women of Colorado, who participated this last Saturday deserve recognition, and if the conservative media of Colorado won't offer it, I sure as heck will. Thank you. Thank you, all who participated, for standing up for women like me.
The GOP can't say the War on Women doesn't exist, while drafting nearly a thousand anti-woman laws in a year's time. American Women are too smart to be distracted by GOP smoke and mirrors, we have mobilized. We are not about to stand idle while our rights to our own bodies become second priority to The GOP's God. We are not about to sit quietly while our rights are chipped away, a thousand bills at a time. The fact is that we women matter. The GOP might like to pretend that they can alienate us and our ovaries over a few old white guys' rosaries, but the fact is that they can't. We are the 51%. We all know the truth - Behind every great nation stands its women.
