Ignore false choices on gun controls; we need all of the above
In the aftermath of the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, the nation should look past President Trump and the gun lobby’s false narrative of competing alternatives.
Making the country safer doesn’t require keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill rather than banning assault weapons. It requires doing both, and recognizing the latter is a much bigger issue.
It doesn’t mean restricting bump stocks, which convert semi-automatic weapons to function like machine guns, rather than raising the age to purchase weapons. It means both.
It doesn’t mean tougher background checks rather than extending the waiting time to purchase weapons. Making the country safer requires all of the above.
To protect the public, keep schools safe and ensure our churches are sanctuaries rather than shooting galleries, Trump and Congress should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Instead, we’re witnessing political foot- dragging — incrementalism at its worst. Republicans and the NRA have even blocked the federal government from studying the causes of gun violence.
Nearly four months after 26 died at a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church, Trump decided that guns should be kept out the hands of the mentally ill. This after he last year lifted Obama-era rules designed to do just that. But the mentally ill only account for a small percentage of mass shootings.
When 58 people were killed and hundreds wounded in Las Vegas nearly five months ago, even the NRA supported stricter regulation of bump stocks. But it took Trump un- til this week to call for banning them.
It’s about time. What took him so long? It’s as if he were holding a bone in reserve waiting until the political pressure mounted so much that he’d need something to throw at gun- control advocates.
This time, however, the bone might not be enough. This time, the victims are children — not first-graders from Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., but rather high school students, old enough to speak articulately for themselves. And they are making themselves heard.
Let’s hope they can sustain the energy. It won’t be easy. Trump, the NRA and congressional Republicans will try to wait them out, as they have past gun- control advocates after previous massacres.
The good news is that 62 percent of adults nationwide think Trump is not doing enough to prevent mass shootings, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken right after the Parkland shootings. And 77 percent say Congress isn’t doing enough.
The bad news: Only half the nation supports an assault weapons ban, down from 80 percent before a ban was implemented in 1994, only to expire 10 years later.
Even the Post-ABC pollsters fell into the gun lobby’s false- dichotomy trap by asking whether the country’s mass shootings are more reflective of mental health problems or inadequate gun laws. The answer: 57 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
Again, that misses the point. This shouldn’t be a matter of one or the other. It should be both — and a lot more. Our country and our children deserve nothing less.