“We Sould All Be Angry”: Now Is The Time For Meaningful Gun Control
We should mourn, but we should be angry.
The horror in Newtown, Conn., should shake us out of the cowardice, the fear, the evasion and the opportunism that prevents our political system from acting to curb gun violence.
How often must we note that no other developed country has such massacres on a regular basis because no other comparable nation allows such easy access to guns? And on no subject other than ungodly episodes involving guns are those who respond logically by demanding solutions accused of “politicizing tragedy.”
It is time to insist that such craven propaganda will no longer be taken seriously. If Congress does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers and their very well-compensated apologists. A former high Obama administration official once made this comment to me: “If progressives are so worked up about how Washington is controlled by the banks and Wall Street, why aren’t they just as worked up by the power of the gun lobby?” It is a good question.
There was a different quality to President Obama’s response to this mass shooting, both initially and during his Sunday pilgrimage to offer comfort to the families of victims. I think I know why. It is not just that 20 young children were killed, although that would be enough.
For some months now, there have been rumblings from the administration that Obama has been unhappy with his own policy passivity in responding to the earlier mass shootings and was prepared in his second term to propose tough steps to deal with our national madness on firearms.
He spoke in Newtown in solidarity with the suffering, but pointed toward action. No, he said, we are not “doing enough to keep our children, all our children, safe.” He added: “We will have to change.”
And his initial statement Friday pointed to his exasperation. “We have been through this too many times,” he said, reciting our national litany of unspeakable events, and insisting that we will “have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”
“Regardless of the politics.” That is what it will take. This phrase comes easily to a president who just fought his last election, but he and the rest of us must change the politics of guns for those who will face the voters again. We cannot just be sad. We must be angry. We cannot just shake our heads. We must wield our votes and declare that curbing gun violence is one issue among many, but a paramount concern for our country.
And we will have to avoid the paralysis induced by those who cast every mass shooting as the work of one deranged individual and never ever the result of flawed policies. We must beware of those who invoke complexity not to further understanding but to encourage passivity and resignation.
Yes, every social problem and every act of violence have complicated roots. But we already know that it is far too easy to obtain guns in the United States and far too difficult to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. And we already know that weapons are available that should not even be sold.
What, minimally, might “meaningful action” look like? We should begin with: bans on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons; requiring background checks for all gun purchases; stricter laws to make sure that gun owners follow safety procedures; new steps to make it easier to trace guns used in crimes; and vastly ramped-up data collection and research on what works to prevent gun violence, both of which are regularly blocked by the gun lobby.
After mass shootings, it’s always said we must improve our mental-health system and the treatment of those who may be prone to violence. Of course we should. But this noble sentiment is too often part of a strategy to evade any action on guns themselves.
Not this time. Americans are not the only people in the world who confront mental-health problems. We are the only country that regularly experiences horrors of this sort. The difference, as the writer Garry Wills has said, is that the United States treats the gun as a secular god, immune to rational analysis and human intervention.
We must depose the false deity. We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, December 16, 2012
“With The Blessings Of Congress”: The NRA Is The Enabler Of Mass Murderers
New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler called for a “war” on the National Rifle Association in light of the mass shooting in Connecticut today in an interview with Salon, saying the gun lobby group is the “enabler of mass murderers.”
Nadler, a rare fierce advocate of gun control on Capitol Hill, said the shooting should be a wake-up call to our “crazy attitude to guns” and the power of the gun lobby. He noted that other modern industrialized countries like the U.K., Sweden and Germany witness fewer than 50 gun homicides every year, compared to the roughly 10,000 people killed here. The difference, he said, is that they have “rational gun control regimes,” while we can barely even discuss gun control thanks to the power of the gun lobby.
“Al-Qaida killed 3,000 people in the World Trade Center in 2001. The United States went to war because of that. Because of the NRA, we’ve lost 10,000 people last year unnecessarily. It’s time we went to war,” he said. “And you have to say the National Rifle Association is the enabler of mass murderers. And we’ve got to stomp on them instead of kowtowing to them.”
Nadler said he was cautiously hopeful about President Obama’s statement this afternoon that, “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”
“I presume he meant that he will take a leadership role in supporting reasonable gun control measures. I hope that’s the case,” Nadler said. “I can’t think of any other meaning … Either it’s empty rhetoric, or it means he’s going to support strong gun control legislation.”
Nadler, who put out a statement today saying “NOW” is the time to talk about gun control, said Americans should demand that their member of Congress “declare themselves” on these issues. He mentioned modest gun control reforms, such as a ban on assault weapons like the one used in the shooting today; a ban on high-capacity magazines that hold dozens of rounds; and microstamping bullets to help police identify homicide suspects.
Most members are scared to get on board, he acknowledged. “The usual suspects introduce the usual legislation. They get a number of co-sponsors and most people stay away from it because of the politics,” he sighed.
“It only takes political courage because the NRA makes people toe the line against the majority view of the country. It’s time the majority stood up and said enough already. And the majority should have a motive because any of us could be a victim tomorrow,” he said. Indeed, Americans strongly support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and slightly favor stricter gun laws.
“I would hope that these more frequent mass murders would change that politics,” he added. “This is so heartbreaking, and so terrible that this kind of thing happens. And happens routinely now. I think the next time it happens it isn’t even going to be as a big a headline as it used to be. It’s becoming routine.”
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, December 14, 2012
“The Weaponization Of Our Culture”: Ten Arguments Gun Advocates Make And Why They’re Wrong
There has been yet another mass shooting, something that now seems to occur on a monthly basis. Every time another tragedy like this occurs, gun advocates make the same arguments about why we can’t possibly do anything to restrict the weaponization of our culture. Here’s a guide to what they’ll be saying in the coming days:
1. Now isn’t the time to talk about guns.
We’re going to hear this over and over, and not just from gun advocates; Jay Carney said it to White House reporters today. But if we’re not going to talk about it now, when are we going to talk about it? After Sandy hit the East Coast, no one said, “Now isn’t the time to talk about disaster preparedness; best leave that until it doesn’t seem so urgent.” When there’s a terrorist attack, no one says, “Now isn’t the time to talk about terrorism.” Nowl is exactly the time.
2. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Maybe, but people with guns kill many, many more people than they would if they didn’t have guns, and guns designed to kill as many people as possible. We don’t know if the murderer in Newtown was suffering from a suicidal depression, but many mass shooters in the past were. And guess what? People suffer from suicidal depression everywhere in the world. People get angry and upset everywhere in the world. But there aren’t mass shootings every few weeks in England or Costa Rica or Japan, and the reason is that people in those places who have these impulses don’t have an easy way to access lethal weapons and unlimited ammunition. But if you want to kill large numbers of people and you happen to be an American, you’ll find it easy to do.
3. If only everybody around was armed, an ordinary civilian could take out a mass killer before he got too far.
If that were true, then how come it never happens? The truth is that in a chaotic situation, even highly trained police officers often kill bystanders. The idea that some accountant who spent a few hours at the range would suddenly turn into Jason Bourne and take out the killer without doing more harm than good has no basis in reality.
4. We don’t need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have.
The people who say this are the same ones who fight to make sure that existing laws are as weak and ineffectual as possible. Our current gun laws are riddled with loopholes and allow people to amass enormous arsenals of military-style weapons with virtually no restrictions.
5. Criminals will always find a way to get guns no matter what measures we take, so what’s the point?
The question isn’t whether we could snap our fingers and make every gun disappear. It’s whether we can make it harder for criminals to get guns, and harder for an unbalanced person with murderous intent to kill so many people. The goal is to reduce violence as much as possible. There’s no other problem for which we’d say if we can’t solve it completely and forever we shouldn’t even try.
6. The Constitution says I have a right to own guns.
Yes it does, but for some reason gun advocates think that the right to bear arms is the only constitutional right that is virtually without limit. You have the right to practice your religion, but not if your religion involves human sacrifice. You have the right to free speech, but you can still be prosecuted for incitement or conspiracy, and you can be sued for libel. Every right is subject to limitation when it begins to threaten others, and the Supreme Court has affirmed that even though there is an individual right to gun ownership, the government can put reasonable restrictions on that right.
And we all know that if this shooter turns out to have a Muslim name, plenty of Americans, including plenty of gun owners, will be more than happy to give up all kinds of rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Have the government read my email? Have my cell phone company turn over my call records? Check which books I’m taking out of the library? Make me take my shoes off before getting on a plane, just because some idiot tried to blow up his sneakers? Sure, do what you’ve got to do. But don’t make it harder to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition, because if we couldn’t do that we’d no longer be free.
7. Widespread gun ownership is a guarantee against tyranny.
If that had anything to do with contemporary life, then mature democracies would be constantly overthrown by despots. But they aren’t. We shouldn’t write laws based on the fantasies of conspiracy theorists.
8. Guns are a part of American culture.
Indeed they are, but so are a lot of things, and that tells us nothing about whether they’re good or bad and how we want to treat them going forward. Slavery was a part of American culture for a couple of hundred years, but eventually we decided it had to go.
9. The American people don’t want more gun control.
The truth is that when public opinion polls have asked Americans about specific measures, the public is in favor of a much more restrictive gun regime than we have now. Significant majorities would like to see the assault weapons ban reinstated, mandatory licensing and training for all gun owners, significant waiting periods for purchases, and host of other restrictions (there are more details here). In many cases, gun owners themselves support more restrictions than we currently have.
10. Having movie theaters and schools full of kids periodically shot up is just a price we should be willing to pay if it means I get to play with guns and pretend I’m Wyatt Earp.
OK, that’s actually an argument gun advocates don’t make. But it’s the truth that lies beneath all their other arguments. All that we suffer because of the proliferation of guns—these horrifying tragedies, the 30,000 Americans who are killed every year with guns—for gun advocates, it’s unfortunate, but it’s a price they’re willing to pay. If only they’d have the guts to say it.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, December 13, 2012
“The Perpetually Untimely Conversation”: The Second Amendment And The Fantasy Of Revolution
Even though the National Rifle Association and its supporters believe that there is never any good time to have a national conversation about gun policy in the United States, the latest example in a too-long string of mass murders has indeed prompted calls for exactly such a dialogue. These conversations proceed along the same lines every single time one of these incidents occurs. On one side are the people who think it should be at least somewhat harder, if not illegal, to own assault rifles and 100-round clips. These people tend to think that at the very least, we need to make sure that random individuals are not able to buy these kinds of weapons anonymously and with no background check, so at the very least we can make sure that violent criminals aren’t stocking up on a full arsenal.
The arguers on the other side of this perpetually untimely conversation say that conversely, the problem isn’t too many guns, but not enough guns. That if only there had been more people with loaded guns who felt like they could be heroes in a loud, dark theater among the screaming, the tear gas, and the rapid fire of 71 shots from a semiautomatic weapon, that the shooter could have been neutralized. Whether or not the people who claim this have ever been in a dark theater filled with tear gas and terrified innocent victims attempting to avoid the storm of bullets from a shooter who could be anywhere is immaterial: It is a theoretical possibility to live out a heroic fantasy, and so we must keep the dream alive.
But even more than that, they argue, the Second Amendment is not about the rights of hunters, or those who wish to have weapons to defend their persons and property against intruders—again, things for which an AK47 might not be the best choice. Indeed, the Amendment should specifically protect the right to own assault rifles because the original intention is to allow citizens to resist the military of an attempted takeover by a tyrannical federal government—the precise fear of which has for some reason risen significantly since Barack Obama was elected as president. But more on that later.
This brings up a question: Has anyone actually thought through the realities of staging a domestic insurgency against the armed forces of the United States?
Ignoring for a moment the paradoxical reality that the people who so fervently believe that they need assault rifles to protect themselves against our own military are so often the same people arguing that we should continue to spend more money on that same military than all other countries spend on theirs combined, the first conclusion anyone would come to is that a successful domestic insurgency would need far more than than an assault rifle. When the Second Amendment was written in the late 18th century, the main weapons of war consisted of muskets and flintlock pistols. There are two very worthwhile things to note about this period in weaponry: First, it would have been very difficult for any individual to walk into a crowded theater and commit a massacre with one of these weapons, mainly because by the time the shooter had managed to reload the weapon, everyone could have already run out of the theater, or even escaped at a leisurely stroll after pulling the assailant’s knickerbockers over his wig. But secondly, a group of ordinary citizens, so armed and with the proper training, could pose a significant threat to an invading army, which would be comparably armed.
These days? Things are obviously somewhat different. This will become especially obvious should one find themselves face-to-face with an M1A1 Abrams tank with a Predator drone hovering above raining down hellfire missiles from the sky. One doesn’t need field tests or a war games simulation to realize that even military-grade infantry weapons won’t be very effective against that type of technological terror. If we’re serious about enabling citizens to resist a tyrannical takeover by our nation’s armed forces, it’s immediately clear that we would need to start talking about legalizing far more than just guns. Any well-armed insurgency will need rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles; beyond that, we should be talking about making it legal for pilots to retrofit any aircraft they own with whatever caliber of cannon their planes will support.
But previous history has taught us that perhaps the most effective insurgency weapon is the Improvised Explosive Device. If we are serious about defending American liberty against our own military, it’s clear that we need our patriotic bomb-makers to have the freedoms they need to defend our country. As long as our government is monitoring and regulating purchases of fertilizers and other nitrates that could be used to make the explosives we need for self-defense, it’s quite clear we can’t have the freedoms we deserve to defend ourselves against tyranny. And while we’re at it, our nation’s sovereign citizens shouldn’t be bound by United Nations treaties on self-defense items like chemical and biological weapons. The fear of anthrax or sarin gas might be the only thing that keeps our own tyrannical military from attempting to overwhelm our hard-earned freedoms. And while it’s doubtful that any individual would have the wherewithal to build or acquire their own suitcase nuke, that person should certainly be free to do so: It’s the ultimate in self-defense, is it not? The sum of all fears?
But let’s conclude back in the real world. If the types who advocate for the Second Amendment as defense against tyranny were serious about their motivations, they would very quickly realize the inconsistency of having their arguments apply to guns alone, and seek to expand its scope to apply to weapons that actually had a hope of doing the duty for which they believe the Constitution provides. But those who say they dream of rebellion do no such thing, meaning that they either haven’t thought through the consequences of their ideology, or that it is a cover for a motivation that dares not speak its name in polite circles, even if right-wing radio shock jock Neal Boortz did:
And I’ll tell you what it’s gonna take. You people, you are – you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city. And let their — let their mommas — let their mommas say, “He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd.” And then lock her ass up.
Now that Barack Obama is the president, it’s simply that the people who fantasize about “standing their ground” against minorities and the people who fantasize about defending themselves against an intrusive government just happen to have even more interests in common.
By: Dante Atkins, Daily Kos, July 29, 2012
“Political Stockholm Syndrome”: Rationalizing Gutlessness On Guns
Talk about power: The gun lobby barely had to say a word before the media sent advocates of saner gun regulation shuffling off in defeat.
In a political version of Stockholm syndrome, even those who claim to disagree with the National Rifle Association’s absolutist permissiveness on firearms lulled themselves into accepting the status quo by reciting a script of gutless resignation dictated by the merchants of death.
It’s a script built on half-truths and myths. For example, polls showing declining support for gun control in the abstract were widely cited, while polls showing broad backing for carefully tailored laws were largely ignored.
Arguments that gun regulation won’t accomplish anything were justified with citations of academic studies that offer mixed or inconclusive verdicts. In the wake of last week’s killings in Colorado, these studies were deployed to hide the elephant in the room: Our country is the scene of more gun deaths than any other wealthy nation in the world. And it isn’t even close.
A study last year in the Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care analyzed gun death statistics for 2003 from the World Health Organization Mortality Database. It found that 80 percent of all firearms deaths in 23 industrialized countries occurred in the United States. For women, the figure rose to 86 percent; for children age 14 and under, to 87 percent. Can anyone seriously claim that our comparatively lax gun laws had nothing to do with these blood-drenched data?
Some of the evasions are couched in compassion. We are told that the real answer to mass slaughter lies not in better gun statutes but in more attentiveness to those afflicted with psychological problems.
Yes, we need better treatment for the mentally distressed. But while we build a better system of care for mental illness — and, by the way, nobody talks concretely about how to create and pay for such a system — isn’t the more direct solution to ban automatic weapons and oversize magazines so that when someone does go off the rails, it won’t be possible for him to shoot off close to 100 rounds in 100 seconds? And why shouldn’t we make it harder for such a person to buy the instruments of slaughter online?
Regulations, it is said, just won’t work. Bad people will get guns somehow. But if that were true, why did the assault-weapons ban work? If regulation is futile, why do we bother to regulate safety in so many other ways? We manage to prevent needless deaths through rules on refrigerators, automobiles and children’s toys, yet politics blocks us from keeping up to date on the regulation of firearms, whose very purpose is to kill.
We’re told that no laws will end all human tragedies. That’s true. And if the standard for a useful law is that it must put an end to all tragedies and solve all problems, there is no point in passing any laws at all.
Those of us who believe in sensible steps to regulate weapons are supposed to bow before this catalogue of despair and shut up. Most liberal politicians are doing just that. It does not seem to occur to them that the general idea of gun control is bound to recede in the polls when so many advocates of popular regulations give up on making their case.
Bad arguments prevail when they go unanswered. That, by the way, is why it’s not enough for advocates of a sensible course on guns to think their job is over if they write one impassioned column or make one strong statement after a mass killing — and then move on to the latest campaign flap.
The polls still show considerable support for practical measures to curb gun violence. For example: a 2011 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 63 percent of Americans favor a ban on high-capacity magazines; just as many supported an assault-weapons ban. The same year, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 83 percent supported financing a system in which people treated for mental illness would be reported to a federal gun registry database to prevent them from buying guns; 71 percent favored this for those treated for drug abuse.
Such numbers should give heart to those who seek solutions to gun violence. Yet so many progressive donors have given up on financing the cause of gun safety. And although President Obama took an important step forward in a New Orleans speech Wednesday night, so many progressive politicians sit back and assume that the gun lobby will win again.
There is a word for this: surrender.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, July 25, 2012
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