Armed and dangerous
The recent mass shooting in Texas has readers talking about today’s students and school safety
NRA leaders need to be taken to task
BY NOW most Americans are — and our Founding Fathers would be — thoroughly fed up with the “thoughts and prayers” hypocrisy that emanates from our national leaders after each new episode of gun murders in our schools. We need common sense and an honest effort to address the problem and not wish it away.
Let’s start with renaming the issue. “Gun control” is a loaded phrase that plays into the hands of those who make it sound like confiscation and the erosion of any semblance of private ownership. Why can’t a center emerge? What the country direly needs is a group of motivated, common-sense Republicans and Democrats, and the moderate elements of both conservative and liberal wings. They could, and should, fashion the FSA: the Firearms Safety Act that about 77 percent of the people in our country would support. Raise a new flag — rally behind the FSA!
I have not written the bill, that’s their job. But a first-step approach that would include a comprehensive computerization of licensing data, raising the purchase age to 20 years of age, requiring locks on new weapons, and a ban on the sale of assault weapons would seem to be reasonable components to include in the law. We can put a camera on Mars, and pay billions for ships and aircraft, but we “can’t afford” a modern database that links retailers with state and federal law enforcement agencies? These are warped priorities that incur tragic consequences.
The NRA rank and file is not so much the problem as is its recalcitrant leadership. This is where our national media, print and broadcast, has let us down. In candidate forums or press conferences, one rarely, if ever, sees a reporter ask a legislator how much money they received from the NRA or posit that as a possible link to voting against any reform. Nor does the national media question or expose the subsidization the NRA receives from the nation’s arms manufacturers. It seems like the star anchors rush to the funerals — and then not one story or series of reports on the surfeit of weapons in the U.S., and the dogged and highly effective lobbying effort that keeps it that way.
How many more? What does it take to take A FIRST STEP? TIM KRAFT Albuquerque