The battle against the clock on gun control

This post originally appeared on Slate.

The battle for gun control is a battle against the clock. After a tragedy like the massacre in Newtown, Conn., gun control advocates say lawmakers have about 30 days to channel public outrage toward enacting laws that might prevent another mass killing. After that, people get distracted, new challenges crop up, memories dim, and nothing gets done. Those who would like to stop gun control legislation know how this clock ticks, too. It is a battle between emotion and organization. How long can the emotion be sustained and how long can the NRA organization wait it out?

This Sunday will mark 30 days since the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

Gun control advocates say that the Newtown killings slowed this march of time. Whether it was because the victims were helpless kids, because it was near Christmas, or because this horrible event, after so many other horrible events, caused a tipping point, the window for action will stay open longer than 30 days this time. But how much longer?

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There is only one person who can really keep the window open: President Obama. After the shooting, the president who didn't talk much about gun control for four years, set a high bar for himself. He promised to use all the powers of the presidency to combat the root causes of gun violence. We're starting to see what that means in real terms, and the task, as administration officials and gun control advocates talk about it, puts the president ever more on the hook. The president is the only one with the public stage to maintain and shape public concern after the massacre. After his successful re-election, he also has the ready-made grass-roots organization to rally public sentiment.

Immediately after the shooting, the president tasked Vice President Biden with leading an investigation into all the possible measures that could be taken to avoid another gun massacre. He has held regular meetings with victims of gun violence, gun control advocates, faith leaders, video-game makers and Hollywood movie representatives, and the NRA and other gun rights groups.

• Biden: No "silver bullet" to prevent gun violence
• NRA "disappointed" with Biden gun meeting

There are two avenues for change emerging out of the discussions held by Vice President Biden. One is a long list of potential legislative changes: laws to ban assault weapons, limit the size of high-capacity magazine clips, promote universal background checks, crack down on gun trafficking, improve mental health screening, and perhaps nudge Hollywood into tamping down some of the violence in video games and movies. That's the grinding, nose-counting process that will take place in Congress. The second, larger task, as administration officials describe it, is broader and more fuzzy. It requires changing the culture of guns in America and shifting the conversation from one of protecting gun rights enshrined in the Constitution to one of protecting children.

It is this second task for which the president is qualified above all others. Every day we see examples of how difficult it is to get anything done in Washington. But when Vice President Biden talks about this kind of cultural change, he talks about seatbelts as much as the 1994 assault weapons ban he helped author. Changing public attitudes about seat belts took more than legislation to make it the norm.

Listening to those involved in this effort there are echoes of the 2008 Obama campaign--they describe an energy and swell of sentiment that just needs a person to shape and guide it. Activists who have been fighting for gun control for years describe a new unexpected passion among progressive groups. After meeting with the vice president and his staffers, they express surprise (and delight) at how seriously the president and his team are pushing this effort.

The reason the president is qualified for this larger task is that it doesn't require Congress. He can give speeches, use the bully pulpit, fire up his campaign organization, and generally engage all of his best tools. Of course he'll try to promote certain legislation once Congress comes up with an actual bill, but what administration officials are talking about goes beyond the immediate House and Senate wrangling of the coming months.

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[legalbutunjust]

by tsigili January 14, 2013 1:22 PM EST

When you try to trample on citizen rights.......you deserve what you get........LOTS more gun sales.

by infantryman11B1968 January 14, 2013 1:11 PM EST

Amid record sales, a call for restraint at gun shops
LOL!
Obama should get gun salesman of the year.

-----------------

How bright and thoughtful, these postings.

More guns are the answer, right? Afterall, the restraint of gun-owning America is zero match for the fantasies and obsessions had by these people. Everyone else but those who own the guns are ill-informed, everyone else is out to take ALL of their already existing purchases away forever and ever. Everybody who owns a gun, or five or forty, needs one or three or ten more. And those that have none need to get at least one or two, or five or ten.

The more guns, the safer. The more guns, the more controlled, orderly, and free we all are! The less guns, the worse we are. The fewer the guns, the much more vulnerable we become. I mean, what common sense or good judgement could challenge that? Three hundred million (or is is it 400,000,000?) isn't enough to tame this beast yet!

The more our sovereignty or civility becomes rendered completely imperiled, without more and more and more! We're just a macrocosm of the biggest and most expansive gun show one can possibly think of, as one great big society. We are all forming the 'big picture' of a much smaller one where nobody gets hurt and guns are all abound and everywhere around, crawling out from every conceivable nook and cranny. We're all gonna be just alright, no mental illness or criminality afoot here!

Magical thinking, in its purest.

[THGdriver2]

The new gun law that would have prevented those baby's from being killed will never exist. Gun laws don't work.

How come God did not intervene? God is not allowed in school anymore.

Here is my challenge to the gun grabbers.-----What law, if in place the day before the mass murders, would have prevented this horrific event?

Answer? There is none. There will not be one after Nobama uses his presidential powers either. Just more feel good legislation that makes people think they did something.

Let God back in school, What do we have to lose?

[chrisintheus]

they are so worried about banning assult weapons because of sandyhook was done with one, ok so what about the shooting in CA with a shotgun how come they dont want to ban shotgun's, why ill tell you because as bad as it was they dont care about sandyhook its just an excuse for them to try to tell us what they want us to do. I think they need to just shut up and make the laws in buying one more strict, thats it. thank you

[CarsonCitySteve]

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
- Ayn Rand

[harv823]

Isn't it obvious that those who are adamently opposed to banning assault weapons are doing so because they make a $$$$$$ profit on the sale of them.

[TimeToEvolve]

Thanks Bullard for making the case for stricter gun control. We can at least try to keep assault weapons out of the hands of the few wackos. The mother of that wacko did not have the proper safety training.

[99gst_racer]

And legislation doesn't keep guns out of the hands of wackos.

If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

[bullard42]

Everyone wants to address the "how" of those pieces of fecal matter that have done shootings but NO ONE wants to address the "WHY". There are appx, give or take, 300 MILLION guns in the USA. 99.9% owned, used for self defense, sports or fun and kept by LAW ABIDING good folks. So because some POS is a whacko and does a shooting at a "gun banned" area, I and the MILLIONS of other gun owners have to give up my RIGHTS (yes, it is a RIGHT guarenteed by the US Constitution). You people who advocate "gun bans" all say....well, DRUG bans don't work..............but ya sure want to ban guns. HYPOCRITES!!!!!

[TimeToEvolve]

Turn off the Fox Keeps You Stupid Channel quick. Why not do 100% background checks, mandatory waiting periods, mandatory safety training and registration and permitting (yearly like autos)?

[TimeToEvolve]

And rights can be taken away or modified if they start damaging the people. People's right to bear arms is trumped by people's right to be safe.

[TimeToEvolve]

So what is so wrong with controlling guns like we do cars? Or liquor? I can't see why law abiding citizens would be against that.

[Lucubration]

Guns are currently controlled, more tightly than cars or liquor. People who commit crimes with guns are going outside of those regulations.

[99gst_racer]

Because there is nothing in the Bill or Rights about cars and liquor with the words "shall not be infrindged" after it.

Rights are exercised, not controlled.

[PhilipPeake]

So the basic premise of this article is that laws need to be rammed through before people come to their senses and make a calm, considered un-emotional decision.

You people are pathetic. More, you are dangerous to society as a whole.
Hope you enjoy life when The Messiah decides that he needs media control and guts the 1st amendment.

[TimeToEvolve]

You know darn well that the gun nuts want to be armed against their fellow citizens. A lot of these paranoid right wing wackos actually want another civil war. The say they want to protect themselves against the government but they know that is a sad, sick joke.

[99gst_racer]

^^^ TRUTH!

[woozybarnes]

I would like to ask an honest question about gun control: Do the most avid gun enthusiasts recognize any limitation on what kind of arms people should be able to own? For instance, should we be allowed to own bazookas or RPGs? .50 caliber machine guns or long range sniper weapons such as the M107? If there should be limitations, what would they be? (I do believe in the right to own and bear arms by the way and I don't think that it would be desirable or even possible to go around collecting all 300M of them in the US. Nor do I believe that the gov't is proposing such a confiscation.)

[harv823]

You're correct! Actually Judge Scalia previously stated that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."