Taking Aim at gun tragedies. Brooklyn Borough president to honor teen advocate.

[Speedway]

At 18, Kristine Arroyo already knows how to stand up to the powerful National Rifle Association - and tomorrow night, she'll stand up and be honored at Borough President Marty Markowitz's State of the Borough address.

Arroyo, of Carroll Gardens, went to Albany last year with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence to lobby legislators to tighten gun laws and get firearms off city streets.

For her, the issue was personal - just weeks before, her 17-year-old friend Tay was shot to death when an argument among a group of teens got out of hand and someone pulled out a gun.

"It hurt me really bad," she said. "It was something senseless. ... He was young, and he was smart. He was really, really smart. He was just in [the wrong] place at the wrong time. "This is why we need to get guns off of the street," she said.

Members of the NRA were also in Albany to lobby legislators. As they passed in the Capitol hallways, the pro-gun advocates remarked that Arroyo and her fellow city high school students "need an education" on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

She was stung by the comments - and addressing a rally later, Arroyo noticed a dozen NRA members had stopped by to watch.

"I basically just ripped up my speech and spoke from the heart," she said.

She asked the teens to stand up if they knew someone who had been shot to death. Almost everyone in the crowd of 250 stood up.

"I want everybody here to look," Arroyo said. "We don't need to be educated."

Arroyo, a senior at City-As-School who will attend John Jay College next year and hopes to become a criminal psychologist, insisted she's not against guns altogether - her father is in the military, and she has no problem with hunting.

But she's pushing for restrictions like putting an expiration date on gun permits and cracking down on gun dealers who don't do adequate background checks - and she'll be back in Albany this spring to lobby legislators again.

She was surprised to get the invitation to Markowitz's address tomorrow night. "I was really excited. I jumped out of my chair," she said.

Also getting the nod from the borough president:



Megan Kerrigan, of Marine Park, who co-founded Operation Fairy Dust to donate 2,500 prom dresses to city high school students.


Hakeem Bennett, 13, a Flatbush special education student who won a national essay contest to become the star of a new comic "The Kid Who Saved Superman," and his teacher Matthew Brown, the "real-life hero" he wrote about.


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Ok, so some teens ILLEGALLY possess guns and shoot at eachother, and she thinks tighter laws will prevent this?

 

[Bill Nance]

Ok, so some teens ILLEGALLY possess guns and shoot at each other, and she thinks tighter laws will prevent this?

She's a 17-y/o kid who had a tragedy occur in her presence. she wants to blame something/do something and so she focuses on the implement because it's obvious and all her hoplophobe mentors congratulate her on the misplaced focus.

I would be happy to meet with her and educate her, and not in an unkind way. I don't expect great logic or social policy to come out of the brain of a 17-y/o kid.

The question she needs to ask is what kind of culture/upbringing produces a teenager that illegally obtains and carries a firearm and then uses it to settle an argument over words . The answer is in her own backyard, but seeing that means taking responsibility for your own actions and your own community instead of blaming outside forces that are wholly unrelated to the incident. -Not something that happens a lot in Brooklyn.

The inner city minority communities in this country are broken from the core. Horribly, tragically broken. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the solutions all have to come FROM THAT COMMUNITY, not imposed from some well-meaning outsiders. the only thing the rest of us can do is stop feeding the beast, which means a revamp of social programs that stops rewarding sloth and irresponsible sex/birth-control and starts working at providing real jobs in the community and expecting that people go work at them.

I don't know how, because it's not the case in more rural communities that have similarly very high welfare rates, but somehow the welfare state has produced problems worse than the ones they sought to fix in the inner city. It's a really complex problem and there aren't any easy answers. I don't even care about the the money. It's a pittance compared to other areas of govt. spending (like less than 1%). But I DO care about a result that's worse than what was there before the "solution."

 

[vlad]

As they passed in the Capitol hallways, the pro-gun advocates remarked that Arroyo and her fellow city high school students "need an education" on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

That was a particularly stupid response. Why not ask her why she thinks that disarming LAWFUL gun owners would have prevented that tragedy? Or ask her to explain how once all LAWFUL firearms had been removed how she envisions disarming all the illegal gun toting 17-yo like the one who killed her friend. Also point out that 17 yo can't buy, own, or carry handguns and the NY city will not issue carry permits unless you can show need Jeweler and guard are the only ground for issuing to civies. Calling someone ignorant doesn't do much to start a dialogue, same with all the words "free loaders" use to silence dissension, racist, bigot and selfish spring to mind.

 

[SecondAmdFirst]

Obama is starting them young!!! It is obvious she doesn't understand HOW that gun got into the hand that shot her friend. Nobody wants to admit that we need better policing, the actual carrying out of sentances (not pleas to little time) and very severe penalties for trafficing in illegal firearms. It is easier to have a knee-jerk reaction and just push for more legislation so the politician can get that photo op with the little girl and say they're tough on crime. Liberals always want to cast the blame on someone else.

 

[OnTheRoad]

For her, the issue was personal - just weeks before, her 17-year-old friend Tay was shot to death when an argument among a group of teens got out of hand and someone pulled out a gun.

I fail to see how the NRA bears any responsibility whatsoever for this tragedy. I can however see where this young lady's community and peers bear some responsibility for the tragedy. Maybe it's time to stop deflecting and face the real problem: Guns aren't violent, people are.

Yeah I know. Preaching to the choir.

 

[vlad]

It is obvious she doesn't understand HOW that gun got into the hand that shot her friend.

Exactly. Making her think about it and giving her the impression that you understand where she is coming from (even if she is off base) is better than calling her ignorant and giving the liberal great spin doctor material.

 

[SecondAmdFirst]

I fail to see how the NRA bears any responsibility whatsoever for this tragedy. I can however see where this young lady's community and peers bear some responsibility for the tragedy. Maybe it's time to stop deflecting and face the real problem: Guns aren't violent, people are.

Yeah I know. Preaching to the choir.

It's easier to blame the inanimate object than to admit your neighboors are a bunch of violent criminals. It's classic deflection and very common with liberals.

 

[ScottS]

As they passed in the Capitol hallways, the pro-gun advocates remarked that Arroyo and her fellow city high school students "need an education" on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

That was a particularly stupid response. Why not ask her why she thinks that disarming LAWFUL gun owners would have prevented that tragedy? Or ask her to explain how once all LAWFUL firearms had been removed how she envisions disarming all the illegal gun toting 17-yo like the one who killed her friend. Also point out that 17 yo can't buy, own, or carry handguns and the NY city will not issue carry permits unless you can show need Jeweler and guard are the only ground for issuing to civies. Calling someone ignorant doesn't do much to start a dialogue, same with all the words "free loaders" use to silence dissension, racist, bigot and selfish spring to mind.

In fairness, we have no way of knowing what was actually said by the pro-gun advocates, if anything. The whole thing smacks of a manufactured "incident" to give the story more pathos.

 

[Bill Nance]

That was a particularly stupid response. Why not ask her why she thinks that disarming LAWFUL gun owners would have prevented that tragedy? Or ask her to explain how once all LAWFUL firearms had been removed how she envisions disarming all the illegal gun toting 17-yo like the one who killed her friend. Also point out that 17 yo can't buy, own, or carry handguns and the NY city will not issue carry permits unless you can show need Jeweler and guard are the only ground for issuing to civies. Calling someone ignorant doesn't do much to start a dialogue, same with all the words "free loaders" use to silence dissension, racist, bigot and selfish spring to mind.

+1

It's a very valid point and I agree the comment was stupid (If it was made). Given the strength of emotions surrounding this I don't find it unlikely that some idiot would have said such a thing. And if a reporter was present, it was even dumber because the speaker presented the reporter with a conflict with a "poor, starry-eyed good kid" vs. the "evil, powerful gun lobbyists." -The reporter doesn't even have to be anti-gun to make this a decent human interest piece. (Not what I would have written, but I sure as Hell would have reported it).

I swear to God, gun-owners and RKBA advocates do more harm to the cause with their own mouths most days than Sarah Brady could possibly hope to.

Wouldn't it have been great if the NRA types would have taken the time to sit down and talk to her about the issue rather than slam her with an off-hand "she's an ignorant fool," type of thing? Count one more life-time enemy of gun rights thanks to some jackass at the statehouse who's supposedly representing our interests.