By Dee Richard
There is an old Irish superstition that all things both good and bad happen in threes. It does seem to work out that way, for some odd reason. Witness the recent deaths in the past few weeks of three high-profile political types. They were Queens County Clerk Gloria D’Amico, Democrat; former state Assemblyman Tony Seminario, Democrat; and Republican State Committeewoman/District Leader Marge Adams. Marge had a long run — she was in her late 90s. May they all rest in peace. Say a prayer for them as they would for you.
What happened in Tucson was a tragedy, but let’s not get carried away and blame guns and high-capacity magazines. In New York state, high-capacity magazines are already illegal. As an individual, you can only buy a 10-round magazine — anything over that is restricted for law enforcement use.
Guns and magazines cannot kill people without the aid of a human being. They are inanimate objects and as such cannot take any action of any sort. Crazy people with psychological problems use guns for their ease of convenience, but people have been killing other people since the days of Cain and Abel and I am sure you are aware there were no guns with or without high-capacity magazines back then.
Let’s face it: If a person is determined to commit murder and mayhem, if you take away one method he will immediately resort to another. If a person gets into a vehicle and floors it into a crowd at a rally or demonstration and kills a number of people in the process, are you going to ban cars because they were used as a murder weapon?
Although I don’t know how, we have to find some sort of method to seek out these individuals and try to get them the help they obviously need. In retrospect, it becomes obvious that most of these people gave warning signs on numerous occasions — very few just instantaneously snapped and went on a rampage. We do not live in a perfect world, so there is no perfect solution. Their cry to ban guns is just a feel-good tactic — it is only your electeds and authorities’ way to make you feel like they are doing something to alleviate the problem. Just thinking about it, I’m getting depressed, so let’s change the subject.
On Sunday morning the JFK Democratic Club held its annual paid-up membership breakfast at the Kew Garden Hills Jewish Center. The breakfast consisted of Chinese food from Annie Chan’s Restaurant. It was pretty good. U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner performed the swearing-in ceremony of the board, officers and newly elected President Paul Hines.
Morty Povman really packed all the top Democrats in the area for the ceremony and brunch. Everyone who was in any way remotely connected with that district was there. It was a fun way to start the new political season. Thank you for inviting me.
I have heard both the Obama speeches and Cuomo speeches. It seems to me they are both on the right track. Their new, center-of-the-road position as well as practicing the age-old art of compromise seems to be having positive effects. The instant direct result was that Obama’s downward spiraling popularity percentages have started to rise. He now seems to understand what the vast majority of the public really wants. Cuomo also seems to understand what the public wants and why they elected him. He appears to be sincerely trying to correct the myriad of problems connected to dysfunctional Albany. The question is will Shelly Silver allow him to do it.
Shelly, you are not the governor — Andrew is. Why not try stepping out of his way and giving him a chance to do what he has promised to do?
The signs all show that both on a national and state level the electorate wants a return to rational, reasonable, responsible people in office to do the people’s work.
We voted for change both for president and governor. How about giving us what we voted for? It will be a refreshing change.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to hearing from you with information on people, parties and politics or gossip.
I like receiving your voice mails at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
Don’t forget to check out the Focus on Queens page.
Till next week, Dee.
