Gun debate gets a new jolt
Both sides have something to say
The shooting that injured five people, including a member of Congress, at a Republican congressional baseball team practice Wednesday re-energized both sides of the gun debate.
Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who was among the team members at the scene when the shooting happened, offered a forceful statement in support of the Second Amendment.
“The Second Amendment right to bear arms is to help ensure that we always have a republic,” he said. “And as with any constitutional provision in the Bill of Rights, there are adverse aspects to each of those rights that we enjoy as people. And what we just saw here is one of the bad side effects of someone not exercising those rights properly.”
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., who was not at the practice, told a Buffalo television station he has decided to carry his gun with him everywhere as a result of the shooting. “I have a carry permit,” he told WKBW. “On a rare occasion, I’d have my gun in the glove box or something, but it’s going to be in my pocket from this day forward.”
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said the political debate should wait for another day, though he called for more background checks.
“We need to do more to protect all of our citizens,” he said after the shooting. “This is not what today is about, but there are too many guns on the street.”
The shooting occurred on the same day members of Congress were set to hold a hearing on legislation that would deregulate gun silencers. The hearing was was among those canceled Wednesday in the wake of the shooting as the House of Representatives suspended legislative activity.
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said he told police the shooter had asked him in the parking lot of the baseball field whether it was a Republican or Democratic practice.
Duncan’s bill is shaping up to be one of the latest flash points in the gun debate. Gun rights advocates say silencers help protect the hearing of hunters and sports shooters while gun control pro- ponents say weakening silencer restrictions undermines public safety.
Leading up to the hearing, gun control advocates accused “gunlobby-backed members” of attempting to “sneak a dangerous provision” into a larger bill. Called the Hearing and Protection Act, the silencer provision is included in the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act package, which has passed the House in three Congresses without the silencer provision.
The SHARE Act aims to guarantee access to federal lands for hunting, fishing and shooting. One provision would eliminate federal authority to reclassify rifle ammunition as “armor piercing ammunition.”
Duncan’s Hearing Protection Act measure would remove silencers from the National Fire- arms Act, which has regulated silencers, along with machine guns, for more than 80 years. The measure is backed by the National Rifle Association.
Gun control groups say the bill puts gun manufacturers’ profits over safety and would allow dangerous people to buy silencers with no background check, just by finding an unlicensed seller.
Wednesday, gun control groups expressed support for the victims of the baseball field shooting in Alexandria, Va. Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot at a constituent meeting in 2011 in Tucson, tweeted, “My heart is with my former colleagues, their families & staff, and the US Capitol Police- public servants and heroes today and every day.”
Groups also called for congressional action.
“Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with lawmakers’ inaction in the face of this epidemic of gun violence,” a statement from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said. “We need Democrats and Republicans to work together on common-sense gun reform that is supported by a majority of Americans and would save countless lives.”