Chula Vista City Councilman Mike Diaz appears to like parsing numbers.
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting Mayor Mary Salas asked for support in sending a symbolic resolution to Congress, urging them to pass legislation that would ban the sale of military-style assault weapons, stricter screening methods and support funding for mental health and substance abuse programs.
Diaz, a Republican, along with his Democrat colleague Jill Galvez, voted against the proposal. Diaz said that in examining the numbers associated with gun violence and deaths in this country, statistics don’t paint an accurate story. In one example he said the majority of homicides involving guns are gang-related.
Oh. Is the inference here that somehow a gangbanger’s life is inferior? Or that gangs will be gangs and they will kill each other regardless of available weaponry? What Diaz meant to say was unclear because he went on to question the role of pharmaceuticals in the role of mass shootings.
Given the retired fireman’s penchant — on this issue — for mulling over numbers, here are some more for him to dissect in an effort to avoid performing even the simplest act of doing something about gun violence.
2012. That was the year 20 6- and 7-year-olds were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Florida by a man with access to assault-style weapons.
Maybe Diaz will quibble with the use of the Gregorian calendar and point out that things may have been different under the Julian calendar.
78.6. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average life expectancy in the United States is slightly more than 78 years.
72. That’s the number of years the average first-grader at Sandy Hook in 2012 had left to live.
14. That’s how old numerous 7-year-old children at that school in 2012 would be today had they not been murdered by someone with access to an assault-style weapon.
In looking at these numbers maybe Diaz will point out that there is no telling if those boys and girls would have grown up to be gang members thus ending their time on this planet sooner than the average geriatric.
10. That’s roughly the number of elementary schools in Diaz’s district. It is where hundreds of children go every day and thousands of parents hope or pray nothing like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School happens in Chula Vista schools.
0. That’s the amount of responsibility I imagine Diaz would accept if that horrific nightmare came to life in this city, at a school in his district. After all, hey! he is just a councilman not a school district board member.
Zero is also the amount of effort it would have taken for Diaz to sign on to a letter that symbolizes a community’s values and desire to stop easy access to weapons that makes killing children so easy.
2020. That is the year Diaz will probably be re-elected because there are plenty of voters who share his values.
