The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Why the Parkland shooting led to swifter reactions in Congress
Two days after the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., members of Congress dispersed for a break. But in those 48 hours, the issue of firearms violence had more than the usual post-tragedy, pre-burial airing in ways that could raise the hopes of gun-control advocates.
If it is different this time — and it might well be, although we said that after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 — both of Connecticut’s U.S. senators are part of the reason.
Sen. Chris Murphy’s call to action from the Senate floor, blaming lawmakers for their inaction while the tragedy was still unfolding, set the tone for more immediacy this time around. His raw speech at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, which happened to be scheduled in advance on the immigration compromise, gave the Connecticut senator
a chance to talk about gun control — the lack of it — even before most of the nation knew what was happening.
Another difference this time around: Students at the high school in Parkland posted videos that brought us into the harrowing classrooms, with cowering kids and the clear sound of gunfire. At least one of the students later said on CNN that she and her friends were thinking and talking about gun control as their lives lay on the line.
Amazingly, Murphy appears to have drawn little direct criticism from fellow public officials for speaking so bluntly, so soon. Nothing from the Tweeter-in-Chief, for example. That alone tells us Murphy’s angry gambit is viewed as an acceptable, if still edgy, reaction.
And yet another reason for the immediacy to this tragedy: As Sen. Richard Blumenthal pointed out, it’s a midterm election year, one that could leave Republicans vulnerable anyway. With eight school shootings in 2018, Blumenthal is loudly pushing the idea that the jig is up for members of Congress who take money from the NRA.
“There comes a time when we reach a tipping point and I think it is not a dramatic earthquake-like occurrence, it is the accretion of horrific moments that at some point become intolerable,” Blumenthal said. “And whether it’s this point or another point, the nation’s anger is building and I think that the NRA and the gun lobby simply have an unsustainable position.”
Fitting with this view, there are some measures everyone can, or should, agree on, which some Republicans are saying they’ll support. On Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, used some of his time on the Senate floor — as the body discussed the ill-fated immigration compromise — to talk about a bill to close holes in the FBI criminal database, the so-called NICS system, that’s used to determine whether a person should be able to buy a gun.
Cronyn and Murphy are co-authors of that bill, which should have passed days after it became clear the Sutherland Springs, Texas, shooter was able to buy a rifle because his background report was missing from the NICS. Blumenthal is in a small group of bipartisan cosponsors.
Also Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., backed away from what he admitted was his own “dismissive” attitude about measures to control gun violence. He did, however, tell Fox News that Democrats should wait for an investigation in Parkland “before you jump to conclusions that there’s some law that we could have passed that could have prevented it.”
President Donald Trump talked about mental health but didn’t mention guns in his six-minute speech from the White House calling for unity, showing that he remains in the pocket of the hardliners in gun industry.
Many people in the industry are privately willing to move forward on reforms, but Trump’s empty rhetoric doesn’t advance that. “Making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority,” the president said. “Let us hold our loved ones close, let us pray for healing and for peace and let us come together as one nation to wipe away the tears and strive for a much better tomorrow.”
Trump didn’t bother to mention that he and Congressional Republicans last year undid an Obama reform under which people deemed “unfit to manage their affairs” by the Social Security Administration are added to the NICS list as ineligible to buy guns.
Put it all together and we’re still not likely to see any meaningful reform this year on guns, other than the NICS issue. But as Blumenthal and Murphy have both said, there are other signs of progress in the middle ground, where guncontrol and gun-rights sides can agree.
Murphy’s mid-tragedy speech wasn’t without crtitis. Former Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., wearing a cowboy hat on Fox News, said, “This is not a gun-control issue, we don’t need any knee-jerk reactions. … My God, let’s let the grieving period happen for these families.”
The question for Democrats, and for grassroots gun-control advocates, is whether the hard-shaming tactics hurt efforts at compromise. And for Republicans, whether hewing to Trump’s hardline will cost seats in November, with recent tragedies in the big, red states of Texas and Florida.
“In a certain perverse way, Donald Trump is digging them deeper into a hole that eventiually will bury them,” Blumenthal said. “Because he is in effect condoning and encouraging a position that is unsustainable and untenable.”