The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Shooting roils gun law debate
Exasperated Dems react after deadliest mass shooting in U.S.
The mass shooting in Las Vegas, the nation’s worst ever, has reignited the gun debate in Washington as it did after the Newtown tragedy in 2012, but this time the playing field is tilted even more against those who favor tightening gun laws.
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which took the lives of 20 children and six adult staff members, Connecticut lawmakers were optimistic that Congress would finally act on long-stalled items like expanded background checks to cover virtually all gun sales.
That didn’t happen, even with a Democrat, Barack Obama, in the White House
and a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Now, nearly five years later, the political atmosphere of the nation’s capital has grown even more unfriendly to gun control. With Republicans in control of both Capitol Hill and the White House, guncontrol advocates and their Democratic allies are fighting to protect firearms laws on the books rather than focusing on new ones.
“At the national level, we’re unfortunately playing more defense than offense right now,” said Rep. Elizabeth Esty, who serves as vice chairwoman of the all-Democrat Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in the House.
Like the rest of America, Connecticut reeled at news that a gunman opened fire Sunday night with what appeared to be fully automatic weapons on a crowd attending a country music festival. The death toll Monday afternoon stood at 59, with more than 500 wounded.
“The attack overnight in Las Vegas — the largest mass shooting in our nation’s history — is horrific in its scale and senselessness,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. “The frequency of these awful events — Newtown, Aurora, Orlando, Las Vegas, and the list unfortunately goes on — is striking and must be met with immediate action.”
At the White House, President Donald Trump kept his response low-key.
“It was an act of pure evil,” he said during a brief statement.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sidestepped a question on whether the violence in Las Vegas might propel new gun legislation forward.
“There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” she told reporters. “It would be premature for us to discuss policy when we don’t fully know all the facts or what took place last night.”
Such answers were not good enough for Connecticut’s delegation, all Democrats, which sees itself as a main keeper of the Newtown memory.
“It’s time for Congress to get off its ass and do something,” said an exasperated Sen. Chris Murphy.
But Democrats might have to put their own wish list aside in order to hold back legislation proposed by gun-rights advocates.
One of the dominant items is a bill to lift tough government regulation of gun silencers. The “Hearing Protection Act” — so named because its backers say silencers would help preserve the hearing of hunters and sport shooters — is incorporated into a broader sportsmen’s bill and might get a House vote this week or next.
Silencers have been stiffly regulated since 1934, when Congress required licensing, registration and payment of a then-exorbitant $200 tax to own what had been a murder accessory of choice for Prohibition-era gangsters.
Critics target it as a thinly veiled bump-up for the gun industry, a new source of profits from sales to gun owners. Hearing protection is available through earphones, they argue, and in any case silencers would complicate law enforcement’s ability to detect the direction of shots being fired.
The Las Vegas shooting is providing them new ammunition.
“The only reason people in Las Vegas ran from the shots is because they heard them,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The other long-term goal of the National Rifle Association and its allies is a bill that would guarantee reciprocity to gun owners who carry concealed weapons. Under current law, such carriers must abide by the laws of the state to which they travel.
No state restricts concealed carry 100 percent, but states like Connecticut make it much more difficult to obtain a permit than, say, Texas. Under the reciprocity measure, concealed carriers could take guns across state lines as long as they are abiding by the laws of their home state.
Connecticut Democrats say such a law could open Connecticut up to a new kind of Wild West that local authorities cannot counter.
“We should be working in a bipartisan way to have sensible gun safety laws, and this is not it,” said Esty. “Hearing protection and reciprocity are solutions in search of a problem.”
Blumenthal said neither piece of legislation could pass the Senate, where a 60-vote threshold is needed in a body that is 52-48 Republican.
“We’re going to have to play both offense and defense,” he said.
The Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers, dealers, wholesalers and importers, declined to comment on how the Las Vegas shooting might affect debate on these legislative items.
“Out of respect for the families of the victims and the law enforcement process, we are not going to comment or participate in media requests made relating to this attack,” said NSSF spokesman Michael Bazinet.