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Calls for gun control stir little support
President Barack Obama pauses during a moment of silence for the victims of the Aurora, Colo., shooting during an event at the Harborside Event Center in Ft. Myers, Fla., Friday, July 20, 2012. Obama, who was scheduled to spend the day campaigning in Florida, is canceling his next campaign event to return to Washington to monitor the shooting. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) / AP Photo/Susan Walsh
(AP) WASHINGTON - Gun control advocates sputter at their own impotence. The National Rifle Association is politically ascendant. And Barack Obama's White House pledges to safeguard the Second Amendment in its first official response to the deaths of at least 12 people in a mass shooting at a new Batman movie screening in suburban Denver.
Once, every highly publicized outbreak of gun violence produced strong calls from Democrats and a few Republicans for tougher controls on firearms.
Now those pleas are muted, a political paradox that's grown more pronounced in an era scarred by Columbine, Virginia Tech, the wounding of a congresswoman and now the shooting in a suburban movie theater where carnage is expected on-screen only.
"We don't want sympathy. We want action," Dan Gross, president of the Brady campaign said Friday as President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney mourned the dead.
Shooting rampage in Colo. theater
Ed Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, was more emphatic than many in the early hours after the shooting. "Everyone is scared of the NRA," he said on MSNBC. "Number one, there are some things worth losing for in politics and to be able to prevent carnage like this is worth losing for."
Yet it's been more than a decade since gun control advocates had a realistic hope of getting the type of legislation they seek, despite predictions that each shocking outburst of violence would lead to action.
In 1994, Congress approved a 10-year ban on 19 types of military-style assault weapons. Some Democrats quickly came to believe the legislation contributed to their loss of the House a few months later.
Five years later, Vice President Al Gore cast a tie-breaking Senate vote on legislation to restrict sales at gun shows.
The two events turned out to be the high-water mark of recent Democratic drives to enact federal legislation aimed at reducing gun violence, and some Republicans said they could see the shift coming.
"The news media in its lather to distort this whole issue may be wrong in their estimation that this will help Al Gore," then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said in an Associated Press interview a few weeks after the tie-breaking vote. "As a matter of fact, it may already have hurt him, and it may hurt him a lot more."
By 2004, when the assault weapon ban lapsed, congressional Democrats made no serious attempt to pass an extension. President George W. Bush was content to let it fade into history.
Public sentiment had swung.
According to a Gallup poll in 1990, 78 percent of those surveyed said laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter, while 19 percent said they should remain the same or be loosened.
By the fall of 2004 support for tougher laws had dropped to 54 percent. In last year's sounding, 43 percent said they should be stricter, and 55 percent said they should stay the same or be made more lenient.
In terms of electoral politics, Harry Wilson, a Roanoke College professor and author of a book on gun politics, said violent crime has been declining in recent years and, "It becomes increasingly difficult to make the argument that we need stricter gun control laws."
Additionally, he said in some regions, gun control "can be a winning issue for Democrats. But nationally, it's a loser ... and they have figured that out." Attempts to emphasize the issue will "really motivate the opposition. And in a political campaign, nobody wants to do that," he said.
Vigils for Aurora shooting victims
At its core, Wilson said, the issue divides rural voters from urban voters.
Often, that means Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other. But not always.
In the current election cycle, the NRA has made 88 percent of its political donations to Republicans, and 12 percent to Democrats, according to OpenSecrets.org. The disparity obscures that the organization consistently supports some Democrats, a strategy that allows it to retain influence in both parties.
It also reported spending $2.9 million on lobbying last year.
Its clout was vividly on display in 2010 when majority Democrats in the House sidetracked legislation giving the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House of Representatives. Republicans had vowed to add an NRA-backed provision invalidating a city ban on handgun possession as the price for passage, and there was little doubt it had the votes to prevail.
Later in the year, the NRA objected to legislation to require groups airing political advertising to disclose donors. Fearing the fallout, enough rank and file Democrats demanded changes that the leadership had to revise the bill. A revised bill, granting the NRA and other large organizations an exemption, eventually passed.
Gross, head of the Brady Campaign, says Democrats have drawn the wrong lessons for years. "The cultural narrative exists because of the assessment of Al Gore's loss in 2000 and the mid-terms in 1994, and in both cases I think the gun issue was scapegoated," he said. "Those who didn't vote for Al Gore weren't going to vote for him anyway."
At the same time, Gross readily conceded the lingering hold of the issue.
"Look at Kerry when he felt he needed to dress up in hunting gear," he said, referring to the Democratic presidential candidate's well-photographed excursion into a duck blind in camouflage clothing in swing-state Ohio a few weeks before the 2004 election.
Four years later, Obama won the White House despite strong opposition from the NRA.
As a senator from Illinois and state lawmaker before that, he was a strong supporter of gun control.
Following last year's killing of six people and the wounding of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., Obama called for steps to "keep those irresponsible, law-breaking few from getting their hands on a gun in the first place."
He advanced no legislative proposals then, and on Friday, spokesman Jay Carney said, "The president believes that we need to take common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights of Americans, while ensuring that those who should not have guns under existing law do not get them."
Obama isn't the only 2012 White House candidate to adjust his views on gun control.
In a losing Senate campaign in Massachusetts in 1994, Mitt Romney said, "I don't line up with the NRA." A decade later, as governor, he signed legislation making a state assault weapons ban permanent.
This year, bidding for support at the NRA convention, he said: "We need a president who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners."
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Both contemporary interpretations are correct, in a way. The amendment does appear to have been designed to protect the militias, and it was also designed to protect an individual's right to own and bear a gun.
The question, then, is do we have to adhere to both tenets of the amendment today? If we decide to do away with the individual ownership aspect of the Amendment, reinterpreting the amendment to allow highly restricted gun ownership, we seem to open the door to radical reinterpretation of other, more basic parts of the Constitution. If we decide to do nothing, and allow unrestricted gun ownership, we run the risk of creating a society of the gun, a risk that seems too great to take. So the real question seems to be, can we have the a constitutional freedom to bear arms, and still allow restriction and regulation?
Reasonable restrictions do seem to be the way to go, acknowledging the Amendment, but molding it, as we've done with much of the Constitution. After all, we have freedom of speech in the United States, but you are not truly free to say whatever you wish. You cannot incite violence without consequence; you cannot libel someone without consequence; you cannot shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater without consequence. Why cannot gun ownership by similarly regulated without violating the Constitution? Of course, prosecution for speech violations only take place after the fact, and regulation of gun ownership is necessarily different -- it is a "prior restraint," a condition rarely allowed in speech restrictions, but necessary in gun restrictions.
The trick is finding that balance between freedom and reasonable regulation, between unreasonable unfettered ownership and unreasonable prior restraint. Gun ownership is indeed a right -- but it is also a grand responsibility. With responsibility comes the interests of society to ensure that guns are used safely and are used by those with proper training and licensing. If we can agree on this simple premise, it should not be too difficult to work out the details and find a proper compromise.
The drive for a bill of rights in the federal Constitution was strong, however, and one of the main points of the Anti-Federalists. Eventually, Madison, and those on his side, won the debate to create a Bill of Rights, with several of Madison's concepts, if not his exact wording, appearing in the twelve articles of amendment that were sent to the states.
His original wording of the 2nd Amendment is as follows:
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."
The final version adopted by Congress and ratified by the states was a bit different, though.
If instead of using guns, what if this wacko drove a vehicle at high speed into a large crowd of people standing outside the entrance to a movie theater while they were waiting to get in? That could easily kill just as many people, if not more. But would you propose banning vehicles? Probably not, because, as logic dictates, it was not because of the car, it was because of the actions of one deranged person misusing an otherwise useful, and not inherently dangerous on its own, object. But, because so many people are so simple minded and live in their own little dream world, they cannot see the hypocrisy in calling to ban guns, but not vehicles. While on this subject, more completely innocent people are killed every day by careless, drunk, or incompetent drivers than by people with guns. So, there is even more reason to ban vehicles, but again, it is illogical to ban something useful because of the poor actions of a few. To counter this, you will probably say that far more people are exposed to the risk of a vehicle accident than being shot, but in reality, you are most likely around armed people all the time when you are out in public, but you just don't know it, that is why it is called concealed carry.
The right for every American to defend one's self is a cornerstone of the American way of life and the freedoms that we enjoy. Every single one of us is a potential victim of an assault. Maybe some of you don't mind knowing that if you, or a loved one, were about to become one of those victims, that you would be stuck just watching and waiting as you are, or your loved one is, assaulted, robbed, raped, murdered, or whatever, but some of us chose to exercise our right to be able to prevent that from happening. You are the only defense against someone who is going to assault you; you only get to call the police after the fact, if you're still alive. Every year there are numerous people who use their guns to avoid becoming a victim. To those of you who want to ban guns and take away that right, you should go face to face with every woman who has ever avoided being raped because she was armed and say, "I am sorry, but you should have had to endure being raped, because my false sense of security is more important." Idiotic gun control proponents never want to look at the big picture though, like typical good liberals, they look at one specific thing and think that due to their (non-existent) superior intellect, they have all the answers.
And as far as the typical liberal's interpretation of the Second Amendment, it is laughable. Do you really think that it was written to protect the right of the government controlled military powers to have arms? Really? When in history has any country/government had that problem? But, besides that, all you need to do is actually read it with just a small sliver of English comprehension, and consider who wrote it and when they wrote it, and you will clearly see the true meaning and intention. First of all, you have to remember that our country was founded by people who took up their own arms to fight, overthrow, and split from, their corrupt government. Now, with that in mind, see if the Second Amendment makes sense to you if it was worded slightly differently, but still with very much the identical meaning and intention:
Because the government must regulate a military to ensure its security, the right of the people to own and carry arms shall not be infringed.
It does not say the right of the militia, or the right of militia members, it says "the right of the people". It does not get any more clear than that. The right to hunt, the right to target shoot, and the right to defend yourself, were all considered inherent rights by our founding fathers. The Second Amendment was meant to protect all of those rights, but even beyond just those rights, to ensure that the people of this country would always be able to overthrow a corrupt government, by force if needed, just as they just had to do. If you do not understand this, I am sorry that you are slow and cannot read and comprehend the English language...
Again, this is only my personal thoughts!
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed
OK, were in the second amendment does it say that assault weapons cannot be ban?
It is always about money in America.
Rant for the day.