Jonathan Shazar: The problem with guns

On Dec. 7, 1993, the Long Island Rail Road's 5:33 p.m. Port Jefferson train pulled out of Pennsylvania Station in New York City.

The train left the city everyday, taking its passengers to their homes between New Hyde Park and Port Jefferson. Of the more than 700 trains that the LIRR runs each day, there was nothing special about the 5:33.

But of all the trains leaving New York that day, Colin Ferguson boarded the 5:33.

About a half hour into the ride, Colin Ferguson reached into his bag, pulled out a gun and unloaded it on the passengers.

By the time the train pulled up to the Merillon Avenue station in Garden City, six people were dead, and 19 others were wounded.

I was only 12, but I have vivid memories of that evening. My father took the LIRR to and from his office in the Financial District everyday. And from what we heard in early reports, he very well could have been on that train.

He wasn't, but that isn't the point. For hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders who relied on the service provided by the LIRR, the murderous rampage shattered our illusions of security. It sounds melodramatic, but Colin Ferguson's attack really had been an attack on all of us.

It might be hard to believe now that bursts of gun violence have become all but commonplace in the United States, but the Long Island Rail Road massacre actually caught people by surprise.

More important than the shock and fear it generated, though, is the positive action that the horror brought about.

Over a year later, a Long Island congressman voted to repeal the assault weapons ban. There was an uproar. People hadn't forgotten.

His ill-cast vote led a nurse, who had lost her husband and nearly lost her son in the nightmare on the 5:33, to challenge him in the next election. That nurse is now Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who won in a landslide, taking nearly 60 percent of the vote. What's more, the Democrat -- one of the nation's leading gun control advocates -- has held the heavily Republican seat ever since.

Over the last decade, people like McCarthy and James and Sara Brady have fought tirelessly for gun control to help prevent tragedies like those that befell their families. They have been thwarted at nearly every turn.

I had the opportunity to intern at McCarthy's office in Washington, D.C. this summer. I watched her plead with her colleagues on the House floor to leave eminently sensible gun control measures in place. I watched as her amendment was voted down by a large majority.

It's been over eight years since Dec. 7, 1993, and there have been no substantive steps toward curbing gun violence.

Eight years, and gun violence hasn't stopped.

If anything, fatal shootings have increased since the Long Island Rail Road massacre. Just this week, shootings in a New York City high school and a Virginia law school left three more dead. Yet, by continuing to refuse to do anything about it, we as a nation are ignoring the problem with gun violence.

I don't pretend to have all of the answers. But it's very clear to me that we are letting ourselves become desensitized to gun violence; we watch and shake our heads and then promptly forget that anything happened.

Another intern in McCarthy's office this summer told me that just because he lost his father to gun violence doesn't make him part of a special group touched by it. His point is that we are all affected by gun violence.

I was affected by it when I feared for my father in December 1993. Students across the country who live in fear of a Columbine-style massacre in their own schools are affected by it. The random nature of gun violence leaves no one untouched. Everyone who lives and works in America is affected by it.

This is a direct appeal to emotion, sure. But when dealing in terms of life and death, emotion isn't such a bad thing. Statistics often obscure the reality that people are dying. When you've lost a loved one to gun violence, statistics don't amount to much.

On the night she was first elected to Congress, Carolyn McCarthy said, "all we were out to do was make something good come out of a horrible situation."

So, why haven't we?

Jonathan Shazar is a junior History and Political Science major from Valley Stream, N.Y., amd editorial page editor-elect of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

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