After a bloody baseball practice, guns remain king, but culture is changing

Some things are predictable, some are not. Not predictablewasWednesday morning’s attack onU.S. Congress members and their staffs assembled for one of the most American of things, a baseball practice.

Agunman identified by authorities as JamesT. Hodgkinson fired a lot of shots after first asking, according to reports, if the players wereRepublicans or Democrats. He learned theywereRepublicans and the gunfire commenced. House Majority Whip Steve Scalisewaswounded, along with an aide forTexasRep. RogerWilliams. The alleged gunmanwas killed.

Itwas the first shooting of a member of Congress since the 2011 attack onU.S. Rep Gabby Giffords in the most American of settings, anArizona shopping mall. Six people died, 13were wounded. The irony (?) is that Giffordswas, and is, a gun owner and a supporter of the Second Amendment, and Scalise has a top rating fromtheNRA. Those shootingswere unpredictable. What is totally predictable is the coming avalanche of screams for “gun control,” an amorphous phrase. If I cupmy hand tomy ear, I can begin to hear them now.

Whenyou get downto specifics, such as universal background checks, they are unlikely to happen.

Howcan I predict that? Because the last time itwas tried— the 2013 bill sponsored by DemocraticWestVirginia Sen. Joe Manchin andRepublican Pennsylvania Sen. PatToomey— it went downto defeat despite the approval of a large majority of Americans.

That relatively mild proposal, supported by this gun-owning columnist with a carry permit, would have aligned national requirements with those of Pennsylvania. It got shot down(pun intended) largely through the efforts of theNational Rifle Association.

If the deaths of 20 children and six teachers at SandyHook in 2012 didn’t result in legislation, I doubt this will.

The gun-grabbers will blame the gun and call gun violence an epidemic, which it might be in some few areas— looking at you, Chicago— but is largely unknownin the vast majority of counties around theUnited States. There are 300 millionweapons in the hands of100 million Americans. That tells you the periodic, and unspeakable, slaughters are actually an aberration committed by criminals and the mentally unbalanced.

The “gun problem” is a Gordian knot because it entwines rights protected by the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments.

The onlyway to “ban” guns is to revoke the Second Amendment, and I invite anyone whowants to, to try. It is almost impossible.

Even if you could ban them, will theU.S. government try to confiscate (buy back) the 300 million out there, aswas done with legislation addressing the millions of guns inAustralia and theUnited Kingdom? That could kick off a civilwar, given the current political mood.

Guns are enshrined in our culture, but, I admit, the culture is changing. Although more guns are out there, they are in fewer households.

The majority of Americans don’t ownguns, but haven’t yet been able to thwart theNRAand get access to what’s called “sensible gun control.” I applaud their efforts, but I think they are futile until the culture changes more.

Once upon a time, cultural changewas glacial. But when you see howquickly the culture shifted on gay marriage, for instance, there is optimism that America will be able to get stricter gun laws in the foreseeable future.

But a ban, I think, is still a bridge too far.

This op-ed by columnist Stu Bykofsky first appeared in the Philadelphia DailyNews.