Firearms argument erupts again in U.S.
WASHINGTON — The shooting deaths in Newtown, Conn., reignited the long-simmering debate over the place of firearms in American society, with gun control advocates and political leaders calling for open discussion of solutions to random gun violence but stopping short of calls for sweeping new legislation.
“I hope and trust that in the next session of Congress there will be sustained and thoughtful debate about America’s gun culture and our responsibility to prevent more loss of life,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and author of the 1994 assault weapons ban, which lapsed in 2004.
President Barack Obama brushed away tears as he offered condolences to the families of the victims, 20 of them children.
“We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” the president said.
The assault weapons ban outlawed 19 types of military-style rifles as well as high-capacity ammunition magazines. Feinstein has called for re-introduction of an “updated” assault weapons ban. And President Obama said during a presidential debate that he wants “a broader conversation” on gun violence that would include “seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.”
But the ban, anathema to the National Rifle Association and many if not most gun owners, was not the focal point Friday of Feinstein, Obama or even stalwart gun- control organizations such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
“We’re a better country than this,” said Brian Malte, the Brady campaign’s director of network mobilization. “We’re optimistic that the American people have had enough. We’re optimistic the American public wants to have this conversation, that voices of Americans will be heard throughout the country after what happened today.”
Indeed, within hours of the Newtown shootings, six petitions appeared on the White House’s website calling for the president to address issues related to mass shootings. All the petitions had at least 200 signatures, and one had garnered more than 5,000.
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said that though the shootings were “terrible, incomprehensible,” liberals would try “to find a way to blame this on conservatives or Republicans.”
The guns recovered at the scene, two pistols and a semiautomatic rifle, are the types that have become standard weapons of recent massshooting incidents.
The semi-automatic rifle, a variation of the AR-15 (which is itself modelled on the U.S. military’s Vietnamera standard M-16), is made by Bushmaster in Ilion, N.Y., near Utica. Because the Connecticut shooter, Adam Lanza, killed so many people in such a short time, firearms experts wondered whether he used high-capacity magazines.
Six states, including California and New York, either ban or limit the use of highcapacity magazines.