(Host)
Seven people were killed this week when an apparently disgruntled
former student opened fire on students and staff of a religious college
near Oakland, California. Commentator Barrie Dunsmore, veteran
diplomatic and foreign correspondent for ABC News, calls this "the new
normal."
(Dunsmore) Screaming people fleeing a school or
shopping center. Hysterical parents racing to the scene to rescue their
children. Police SWAT teams searching for the gunman – who usually turns
out to have mental problems. Television cameras descend upon the
carnage. In interviews with the wounded and survivors, one feels their
sense of loss and admires their courage.
It could be Tuscon,
where just over a year ago, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was gravely
wounded and six others were killed including a lovely nine year old
named Christina Green. It could be Virginia Tech where 32 people were
killed. Or it could be Oakland. Eventually the communities or schools
come together in supporting each other. News reporters talk about
"closure’ and the coverage inevitably morphs into a feel good story. Not
a single word about the common factor in these and many other such
tragedies – the eight hundred pound gorilla that is sitting right in the
midst of each calamity – the far too easy access to deadly automatic
weapons.
Today I see no point in trying to re-litigate the 2008
and 2010 Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment, which reversed a
century of case law and extended gun rights to individuals – giving a
clear victory to the National Rifle Association in its decades long
battle against any form of gun control.
And I am certainly not
interested in taking peoples’ guns away. I respect the right of hunters
to own guns, especially in places like Vermont and in much of the
country where hunting is a part of the culture. I can also see the need
some people may have for wanting to have a gun for personal security.
So
perhaps since the fundamental right to own a gun has been settled by
the Supreme Court, reasonable people could come together on some common
sense rules and regulations governing such ownership.
A good
start would be the reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons, which
was allowed to lapse in 2004. Does anyone believe that the Framers of
the Constitution, wise and worldly men like Jefferson, Adams, and
Madison would have thought it was a good idea for Americans to have
easy access to the type of guns that could wipe out an entire company of
George Washington’s Continental Army in about a minute? Or, for that
matter, that the Framers would think it prudent that concealed weapons
be legal in schools, workplaces, parks, churches, sporting events and
even bars as is increasingly the case?
Today America has more
guns than people. Yet gun fanatics and the NRA block any rational
regulations – using the bogus claim that President Obama is out to get
their guns. In fact, since 2008, not one Democratic Party leader-
including the one in the White House – has publicly uttered the words
"gun control." This may be a pragmatic bow to the prevailing political
winds. But as mass shootings become commonplace, it is hardly a profile
in political courage.