Enough already; it’s time to ban assault rifles
In an Airbnb more than 5,000 miles from home, two San Antonians watched news of yet another U.S. mass shooting. This one was in Colorado. A friend and I, vacationing in Argentina, sat quietly as we watched a CNN anchor relay the horrid details.
This time, a man armed with multiple firearms, including a semi-automatic rifle, killed five people and injured at least 17 others.
This time it was at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, and the gunman had grown up in San Antonio.
“We’re numb,” one of us said to the other, breaking the silence.
It was how we felt at the time, so far away from home.
Speaking later and on U.S. soil, Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety in America, better defined the moment.
“We aren’t numb,” she said on Twitter. “We’re traumatized.”
Three days after the Colorado shooting, a Walmart supervisor in Chesapeake, Virginia, shot and killed six co-workers before killing himself on Nov. 22. He had legally purchased a 9 mm handgun that day.
The week before, a gunman killed three University of Virginia football players.
Asked about gun control, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin responded by saying that now was not the time to talk about it.
We may be traumatized. But we’re not numb, and we’re not stupid.
And “we” are the majority of people in the United States, who support tighter controls on the amassing of guns and on who should be allowed to buy them.
This alone won’t eliminate gun violence, but it’s a start.
Poll after poll shows Americans support gun control measures despite inaction in the nation’s statehouses and in Washington, D.C.
The Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans somewhat favor or strongly favor banning assault-style weapons, and that 64 percent support a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
Pew also found that 66 percent of U.S. residents support the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales, and that 81 percent support mandatory background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows.
Eighty-seven percent want to prevent people with mental illnesses from buying guns.
Yet Youngkin and other elected officials exemplify the political stalemate. It’s paid for by a gun industry that doesn’t want to stop selling weapons and ammunition to anyone, including people it knows shouldn’t have access to either.
Youngkin wouldn’t talk about restrictions of any kind even after his state suffered two mass shootings in two weeks.
On Twitter, Elon Musk joined the conversation by publishing a photo of what he called “My bedside table.”
It showed two guns and several Coca-cola cans. In another tweet, he joked, “There is no excuse for my lack of coasters.”
Don’t tell us this isn’t the time to talk about gun control.
President Joe Biden broke through the numbness and trauma to say — and to hope — that gun control legislation is possible. He vowed to work with Congress, despite its lameduck status, to “try to get rid of assault weapons” before a newly elected Republican majority takes control of the House in January.
The president said that continuing to allow “semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no social redeeming value, zero, none.”
Biden said what we’re all thinking and wishing.
“I’m going to try. I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”
We know what will happen. Republicans won’t hear of prohibiting assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. They’ll block stronger background checks.
They’ll cling theatrically to the Constitution, at least on this one issue, and say that none of Biden’s measures will address the real, underlying problem behind gun violence.
Mental illness is the issue right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation trot out every time gun legislation is mentioned.
One of Heritage’s legal experts said that investing in the nation’s mental health infrastructure would better address gun violence, as would investments in education, stable families, economic opportunities and programs “that promote human flourishing.”
Yes to all of that. But Republican-led legislatures aren’t exactly known for supporting such investments.
Back in Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in May, an activist and mother expressed doubt that Congress or the state of Texas will do anything to prevent more massacres.
“Their guns are more important than the children,” Janine Turner told me.
But there’s hope, and we saw some in November, in the unexpectedly strong showing by progressive candidates in elections across the country.
And there’s hope that at least a few Republicans will show with their votes that children deserve a chance to flourish.