The Aurora shooter came into the theater dressed for
full-fledged combat, like he was on a mission in Afghanistan prepared for
snipers and roadside bombs, but his targets were a bunch of people seeing a
Batman movie premiere. Television shows
have trotted out criminal profilers who have speculated that the shooter might
have been hungry for his moment of fame, believing in his immortality,
incredibly deficient in what most people have as a core reservoir of empathy
for others, and possibly suffering from an
untreated or exacerbated mental condition.
Kind of sotto voce, television commentators have touched on
the fact that the guy got his weapons and combat gear legally, passing
background checks, qualifying for the weaponry, including an automatic rifle
and 6,000 rounds of ammunition, because there was nothing in the official
record to be used against him.
Isn't it time to revive concern about gun control laws? A handful of Congressional Democrats, led by
Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), have taken some tepid steps toward
tightening gun laws. McCarthy's husband
was killed in a horrific shooting incident on the Long Island Rail Road almost
two decades ago. Since then she has used
her election to Congress to be the body's foremost advocate of gun control and
most consistent truthteller about the National Rifle Association's campaign to
turn back the clock.
According to The Hill, McCarthy and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) have a
bill pending to place some new restrictions on gun shows. Prompted by the attempted assassination of
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Lautenberg himself has a bill to ban
high-capacity ammunition magazines A logical bill would call for banning
assault weapons, given the Aurora shooter's use of an AR-15 semi-automatic
assault rifle, though we haven't seen much mainstream action by the Party in
that direction.
But the Democratic Party long ago, in the aftermath of Al
Gore's razor-thin loss to George W. Bush, reduced its public advocacy of gun
control. Congressional Democrats haven't
exactly flocked to the McCarthy and Lautenberg bills given their timing only
months before the national elections.
Since the shooting, the largest and most vocal gun control
groups, such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence announced plans to push for stronger controls,
though no one expects to make any headway this time around. There's good reason. The gun control lobby is way outmuscled by
the gun owners lobby, led by the ubiquitous and powerful National Rifle
Association. The comparison of the major
pro- and anti-gun control nonprofits is pretty telling:
The comparison is kind of pathetic and gets worse if one
looks at the dozens and dozens of state affiliates of the pro-gun lobby groups not
to mention other conservative and libertarian organizations such as the National
Center for Policy Analysis,
the Heritage Foundation,
and the Cato Institute that make protection of their distinctive interpretation of the Second
Amendment a core ideological tenet. When it comes to the political donations of
gun lobby PACs, the Center for Responsive Politics says that "Gun rights groups
favor Republicans with their cash -- and give a whole lot more of it than gun
control supporters."
In the aftermath of the Aurora shootings, both President
Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney offered the expected
statements of condolences. From Romney,
while struggling to prove his gun cred with his party's right wing, he wasn't
about to say anything about gun control.
From the President, however, occupying a bully pulpit worth more than
all of the National Rifle Association's millions, could have said something,
anything, about this horrific incident's serving as a reminder for this nation
to tighten up gun laws, to restrict the ability of people to arm themselves
like self-styled terminators, to bring some sanity and honesty to the
issue. But he didn't. He was silent on gun control in the aftermath
of Aurora just as he has been silent on gun control after the other mass gun
killings that have occurred during his first term in office.
Maybe President Obama will have something new to add to the
gun control discussion this week, but press secretary Jay Carney was quoted in
two Politico articles (here and here) that the
president has no plans for new gun control measures, including a reauthorization
of the assault rifle ban.
If the President doesn't find the
wherewithal to take on the Congressional misreading of the Second Amendment and
come to grips with the insane notion that Americans need access to assault
rifles and ammunition appropriate for invading small nations, he will have let
more than a teachable moment pass by the boards. He will have dropped the ball on the kind of
leadership a president should provide to a nation in moments of crisis.
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