Stop blaming soft politicians and the NRA, and look in the mirror.
On March 30th, 1981, as President Ronald Reagan left an AFL-CIO luncheon at the Washington Hilton, a schizophrenic obsessed with Jodie Foster named John Hinckley Jr. opened fire, seriously wounding Reagan, a secret service agent, a DC cop, and his press secretary, James Brady. Reagan was hit in the lung about an inch away from his heart, but eventually made a full recovery. Brady, however, suffered a major head would, and although he survived, Brady was paralyzed.
In the following years, Brady became an ardent gun control advocate. The work of him and his wife, Sarah, culminated in the “Brady Bill”, signed by Bill Clinton in 1993. The law required background checks and imposed provisions on transporting “If it hadn’t been for them,” Clinton later said, “we would not have passed the Brady law.”
Around the same time, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was passed in the 1994 crime bill, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California after two high-profile shootings in her home state, one being the 1989 Cleveland Elementary shooting, killing 5 children and injuring 29 others as well as one teacher, and the other being the 101 California Street shooting in San Francisco in 1993, which claimed the lives of eight people.
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Since 1993, when gun homicide peaked, gun violence has been cut in half, from 7.0 deaths per 100,000 people, to 3.6 in 2010. While it can’t be claimed outright that the gun control lobby’s efforts during the 1990’s directly caused fatal violent crime to go down, it sure didn’t hurt to have new provisions on guns including background checks and a ban on military grade assault weapons.
So why, when it seems like we’re cycling through horrific shooting after horrific shooting, is Washington doing nothing to push the same kinds of restrictions on gun ownership? We’re desensitized to it. By the time next summer rolls around, you’re going to forget that Isla Vista, Seattle Pacific, and the Reynolds High School shooting even happened. Because there will be more. And, in the case (as it is 99% of the time) that it’s not a mass shooting in a mall, or a school, or a movie theater, the media simply doesn’t care enough to report on it. Maybe it’s not juicy enough, or doesn’t carry much political capital. Or maybe it’s because the victims have the wrong shade of skin. Whatever the case, the 83 people shot and killed in 2014 so far in Chicago alone are as much apart of this conversation as any college kid. And the culmination of the conversation, up to this point, has been: we simply do not care enough to do anything.
When any hint of gun reform reaches the ears of the gun lobby – no longer just the NRA, but even further right-wing, over-my-dead-body types that see any concession that there’s some kind of gun problem in the United States as treason punishable by death threats, they’re immediately out in front trying to shut it down. In fact, it’s now at a point where both sides, instead of feeling some sort of sympathy for those who lost their lives and their families, retreat into two different, opposing sides to have a political argument that, at this point, has been had to death.
But when it comes to action, gun control advocates have yet to tap into a huge resource of people who feel that guns too easily fall into the wrong hands.
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When Senators Pat Toomey, Republican from Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin, conservative Democrat from West Virginia, came up with the “common sense” legislative response to Sandy Hook, which included an “extra” ban on gun registries (which were already outlawed), expanded interstate sales in addition to expanded background checks, it’s hard to imagine they knew what kind of backlash was coming from the NRA. The bill went nowhere, first filibustered, and later tabled.
At the time, it seemed incredulous that we could sit by and do nothing after Sandy Hook. But just a year and a half removed from that terrible day, we don’t have any meaningful reform out of Congress. Instead, we have Samuel Wurzelbacher’s “Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights” comment, directed at Richard Martinez and the other grieving parents. And despite the fact that Joe The Plumber has made a career out of being a lying scumbag, he represents a swath of this country that is so vehemently anti-gun legislation, or anything resembling “gun control”, that they’re willing to call Sandy Hook a conspiracy before conceding that our laws are outdated and that guns sometimes fall into the wrong hands due to those laws.
At the end of the day, the failure of any substantial reform to be enacted into law, or even considered on the floor of the House or Senate, is the failure of the “silent majority” – the 85% of liberals, moderates, and conservatives who support universal background checks, but aren’t willing to stand up and fight for it. And until that happens, we’re going to have more Sandy Hooks, we’re going to have more Virginia Techs, and we’re going to have the same, exhausted response.
And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.
Photo credit – Michael Glasgow/Flickr
Paul, why has GMP never done any articles on the gun violence committed by cops and Federal Agents? Why can they do “No Knock” raids in the middle of the night and terrorize or kill with impunity? Why have we allowed the police to become the Gestapo/Waffen SS? This too is our responsibility.
What’s bothersome to me is that within the responses to all the articles, are well communicated clarifications of the facts about guns and as important, the devastating use of “illegal” guns. Yet, none of the authors respond. Their lack of response is showing to work against their movement. What also appears clear is that most of those who respond in favor gun ownership. The “silver lining” is that many of the readers are being well educated by the respondents. This could potentially result in some fence sitters, much less proponents of harsher legislation to move in favor of gun rights.… Read more »
Tom, that’s a sincere, sincere laugh. In addition to the three writing jobs I have as well as the job in music I also have, I’m working anywhere between 40-50 hours a week. The Good Men Project is an outlet for me to focus my political BLOGGING – which I have always maintained I am, I am not under any circumstance a political journalist – whenever I get a chance. Even within those parameters, I, and John, respond to the comments on every article we post. This one was the first one I can remember that I didn’t follow up… Read more »
Paul, indeed your opinion is yours and you are entitled to it, but it is troubling when people form and communicate opinions that are not backed up by data gathered through objective research. The overwhelming amount of scholarly research, including that conducted by the US Department of Justice, has found no correlation between gun control laws and reductions in gun violence. Rather, the evidence tends to indicate that gun possession and ownership is not the most important independent variable, it’s the intent of the individual who has the firearm that is important. Case in point is your own statement about… Read more »
Let’s also talk about this so-called “silent majority” you refer to that is the only thing standing in the way of gun control. According to the Pew Research Center, public opinion on gun laws is darn near a 50/50 split between protecting gun rights and passing gun control legislation.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/12/a-year-after-newtown-little-change-in-public-opinion-on-guns/
Illegal guns? Fast and furious. Obama made sure the cartel received those… In the 90s, the CIA brought those along with crack. Seems you are looking at the wrong people…. Also, shooting deaths are down 49%. I do the own a gun, but I’m much more afraid of police being the only ones to carry them…. And so should everyone else.
4 anti-gun articles in rapid succession? This is getting ridiculous. Is Bloomberg paying the bills at GMP?
You did get one thing right in this article. The reason there hasn’t been any big gun control measures enacted at the federal level is absolutely the “fault” of the populace. We don’t want more useless feel-good legislation that restricts the law abiding, ignores the Constitution, and does absolutely nothing to prevent violent deaths. Give it a rest.
Take guns away, then they will continue with knives, cars full of fertilizer and pool chemicals and pressure cookers. Wth is going on with the “good men project” getting a little too leftist for me.
500 murders in Chicago averaging each of the past few years. That’s mostly with illegal guns. Did the thousands of laws on the books help them? Let’s ban cars. I don’t like cars and they cause lots of death. That’s how it works, whoever screams the loudest gets what they want. Too bad the people who smoke and drink don’t matter enough to ban those items. Oh wait, prohibition is a crock!
The article isn’t talking about banning guns, it’s talking about passing legislation aimed at limiting gun violence. Cars are highly regulated to reduce the number of accidents and car-related deaths. Unlike guns, the government can actually spend money studying how people are injured in car accidents and use that data to enact laws to make cars safer. When I was a kid no one wore seat belts. Now there are laws regarding seat belts and car seats for kids. And yet cars haven’t been banned yet. There are lots of things we could do as a country to reduce gun… Read more »
Doth my eyes deceive me? Did I see yet another anti-gun article in the midst of GMP? In so far as the “right wing” you need to pay attention to the people who are speaking. A friend of mine, one who is so far left, he goes any further, he’ll appear from the right, is one of many that you “claim” to be right wing. Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Max Baucus of Montana, and Mark Begich of Alaska and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are democrats … may want to write them a letter in that their views appear… Read more »
The Hinckley case is also a great test case for looking at the power of guns to deter crime. When Reagan was shot, he was surrounded by men carrying firearms, including an Uzi or two. These were people highly trained to be on the lookout for gun-wielding maniacs, highly trained in the use of firearms, and very quick on the draw. How well did this deter Hinckley? Although it’s a myth that the NRA Headquarters does not allow firearms in the building, it is definitely true that in recent years the NRA annual convention has not allowed visitors to carry… Read more »
Yes, the U.S. military has it right. Just ask the people present during the two different shootings at Fort Hood how well that plan worked out. And the Secret Service… yes, they are so well-trained that Regan was shot by some random guy who wanted to kill the president to impress Jodi Foster. Multiple people have successfully fired shots at the White House, perhaps one of the most well-guarded venues in a city with what is almost a total ban on all firearms. Incidentally, they were not apprehended by unarmed law enforcement officials; they were taken down by people with… Read more »