Gun Control -- If Not Now, When?

This week, the U.S. Senate began its hearings on gun control.  

what eye thynk:    There are lots of sides to this issue and everyone has an opinion, but the NRA’s complaint is by far the weakest argument against gun control that I can imagine.

On the first day of the Senate hearings, Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA voiced his organization’s main position:  since criminals won’t follow laws anyway, there is no point in creating any.  If that argument had any validity, it could also be argued that we should have no laws at all--criminals are just going to break them so why waste time writing them?

Far right activists like author Tom Mullen are claiming that the call for more gun ownership regulation is really a first step in abolishing the Second Amendment.  The average American citizen will recognize this view as transcending common sense; but that hasn’t stopped Mr. LaPierre from espousing the same opinion.  Mr. LaPierre, writing for the NRA, claims that President Obama has a “Secret plan to destroy the Second Amendment by 2016”.  In an article currently appearing on the NRA website, Mr. Lapierre writes that President Obama plans to “Prosecute a full-scale, sustained, all-out campaign to excise the Second Amendment from our Bill of Rights through legislation, litigation, regulation, executive orders, judicial fiat, international treaties--in short, all the levers of power of all three branches of government".  He contends that President Obama hid this agenda during the 2012 campaign.  "In an act of pure political calculation, (the President) plotted to keep (his) gun-ban objectives concealed.“

Excluding far right extremists like Mr. Mullen and the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, most American citizens favor some new form of gun control.  In a recent Johns Hopkins University national poll, 69% supported a ban on military style assault weapons, while 68.4% favored a ban on magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.  Even in Texas, one of the most gun-crazed states in the union, pollsters found that 49% supported a ban on assault weapons, with 41% being against such a ban.  

It is time for us, the majority, to stop cringing in fear when faced with the rabid oratory of gun loving militants. It is time to show that we will not be harangued into submission.

No one is saying that new gun control laws are going to eliminate shootings tomorrow, next month or even next year; but we have to start somewhere and requiring universal background checks, banning the sale of assault weapons or restricting the size of gun magazines will have an effect over time.  Our patience will certainly be tested, but we can’t let the lack of immediate results become a roadblock to making a beginning.

I would hope that Congress will at last concede that “No” is not a solution and “It won’t work” is not a viable excuse.  As California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said earlier this week, “I understand how difficult this is.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try”.