Timing of gun comments raises stakes for Ned Lamont

It’s the right thing to do emotionally. Democrats — including Ned Lamont — follow up a horrific shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue with a call to tighten firearms laws.

“We’re not going to be complicit in our silence,” Lamont, the Democrat vying to become governor, said Monday at the state Capitol. “We’re going to stand up. Connecticut will continue to be a leader ... for reasonable guncontrol laws.”

Is it the right move politically? That’s another question for Lamont, in a neck-and-neck race with Republican Bob Stefanowski, it’s a high-stakes risk.

No one doubts that these all-too-frequent tirades by Democrats come from the heart; at least I don’t. With each passing tragedy, nowhere more than in Connecticut, they bring their outrage closer and closer to the line of personal politics, no longer waiting for a shield of time after events unfold.

In February, Sen. Chris Murphy, already the most outspoken gun-control advocate, spoke on the Senate floor about the unconscionable failure of Congress to act — even as the mayhem in a Parkland, Fla., high school unfolded.

That pushed the time envelope. On Monday, another line was crossed as the Democrats — Lamont; his running mate, Susan Bysiewicz; Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, the nominee for state attorney general; Murphy; and Sen. Richard Blumenthal — broke through the personal envelope by attacking Republican Bob Stefanowski, Lamont’s opponent, on gun control even as the nation grieved.

“He has talked about rolling back the Sandy

Hook reforms,” Lamont said, in defense of using the daughter of the slain Sandy Hook Elementary School principal in a campaign ad. “I am proud that we are talking about the real differences between Bob Stefanowski and I.”

Sure, it’s easy enough for Murphy and Blumenthal to rail against the nation’s lack of universal background checks, about Republicans in the pockets of the powerful gun lobby. They can speak as bluntly as they like, with Senate jobs for life.

Lamont and Bysiewicz alone face the brunt of criticism that they’re gaining advantage from the killing of 11 Jewish worshipers on Saturday morning in Pittsburgh.

“Using this tragedy for political gain is absolutely unconscionable and the recent attack ad launched by Ned Lamont accusing Bob of being supportive of murder is beyond the pale,” Stefanowski spokesman Kendall Marr said in a written statement.

Lamont and the rest of the Democrats didn’t back down. He was at two synagogue vigils they said; where was Bob?

“What’s in bad taste,” Lamont said to me afterward,

“is not standing up and doing everything we can to prevent this from happening.”

The matter grows all the harder because Stefanowski is hard to pin down. The Lamont campaign produced a video in which Stefanowski is heard criticizing the post-Sandy Hook gun-control law, promising to veto any bill that adds new restrictions.

The Democrats also lambast Stefanowski’s A rating from the NRA.

But Stefanowski has made it clear in debates that he doesn’t view rolling back gun laws as a priority — at least that’s how it appears. Marr declined to elaborate on his position on military style rifles Monday.

Lamont is clear. “When it comes to modernizing those laws, when it comes to ghost guns, when it comes to 3-D printing...we’re going to do everything we can to keep Connecticut safe.”

Marr’s statement hewed to the Republican orthodoxy on guns, what he calls a balance between gunowners’ rights and gunsafety legislation.

“For Bob, the safety of our children is always our top priority. That's why he supports substantive efforts, not just cosmetic

ones, to ensure the safety of our students — things like having a well-trained armed resource officer at every single school, single entry points and other design elements that protect our students, restoring the funds cut from mental health programs and reversing the reductions in the number of state troopers.”

The gun manufacturing and retail industry, for its part, issued a statement of sympathy Monday through the National Shooting Sports Foundation, based in Newtown, and said it “welcomes participation in the national conversation to make our communities and our schools safer.”

There have been signs of a coming together in some areas of gun control, in mental health legislation, for example, and in shoring up the national criminal database, a bill Murphy co-sponsored with Texas Republican John Cornyn.

What’s different here is that the tragedy happened ten days before statewide elections across the country, putting both sides on the spot — and pulling them further apart. That’s unfortunate but the least of this ongoing national crisis is the timing.