Nicholas Kristof, a self-described "farm boy," knows guns, likes them, recognizes that fellow liberals sometimes go 0verboard in their opposition to guns-in-general as distinct from guns-in-particular and their regulation. But he knows something must be done.
To protect the public, we regulate cars and toys, medicines and mutual funds. So, simply as a public health matter, shouldn’t we take steps to reduce the toll from our domestic arms industry? ...Just since the killings in Tucson, another 320 or so Americans have been killed by guns — anonymously, with barely a whisker of attention. By tomorrow it’ll be 400 deaths. Every day, about 80 people die from guns, and several times as many are injured. ...NYT
Limit the kinds of guns available, Kristof says. Is that so unreasonable? Crack down on those who sell to traffickers. Nothing wrong with that, particularly given what Americans have been responsible for in Mexico. "Ban oversize magazines" is one obvious move that needs to be made. And do a better job of background checks.
Of course, that will mean cracking down on the NRA which has made creating a database impossible. Equally obvious: NRA has become public enemy #1, a creature that has become far more dangerous Jared Loughner ever was in his wildest dreams.
All of this is sensible and obvious. What's standing in the way of sensible and obvious are greed, pride, and politically-driven paranoia.
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Gail Collins sees a day of reckoning emerging from Obama's speech in Tucson, an opportunity for Republicans to do the right thing.
For me, Obama’s best moment came when he warned that “what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another.” In his honor, I am not saying a word about Sarah Palin’s video. But, politically, there’s a challenge about where we go from here. You can’t expect the Republican majority in Congress to give up on killing the health care reform law, although it might be a nice step if the leadership urged its members to stop saying that God wants to see repeal.
The president, who was going for great, universal themes, didn’t make any suggestions.
Let me offer one really, really modest one. Congress should have an actual debate about Representative Carolyn McCarthy’s bill to reduce gun violence.
You will notice I just said have a debate. And the bill does not even control guns. It simply bans the sale of the special bullet clip that allowed the Tucson gunman to shoot 20 people without reloading. McCarthy’s husband was killed and her son permanently injured when a gunman using a pistol with a similar — but less powerful — kind of clip opened fire on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. “That’s why I came to Congress,” she said on Wednesday. But so far she has collected co-sponsors only from the same small band of members who always support this kind of legislation.
Members of Congress are so terrified of the political power of the National Rifle Association that the Democrats, when they were in power, declined even to give McCarthy’s bill a hearing. This is the chance for the Republicans to prove that they’re braver.
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The outlawing of the extended clips makes too much good sense for some. Some gun partisans see it as a real possibility, so real that NPR reported this morning that apparently Arizonans are loading up on still-legal extended magazines.
