Gun control: Déjà vu all over again?
Here we go again, said Adam Gopnik in New Yorker.com. The pandemic brought a momentary respite from mass shootings, but as the country begins to open up, “here they are, right on schedule”: eight killed at Atlanta massage parlors, 10 more mowed down in a Boulder supermarket. As always, the root cause of these tragedies is “not complicated”: It’s the “astounding availability in America of weapons designed to murder human beings quickly and in large numbers.” President Biden is calling for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and the House has passed bills to strengthen background checks and extend them to cover gun shows and private sales. Most Americans back “commonsense gun regulations,” said Max Boot in The Washington Post. How many more will have to die before “irrational, extremist Republican politicians” stop blocking them?
The Democrats’ proposals would achieve nothing, said National Review in an editorial. Take “universal background checks”—the Boulder shooter bought his gun at a store and likely passed one. As for banning so-called assault weapons, they’re “used so infrequently in crimes that the FBI does not even keep statistics.” In a 2014 study, a pair of Stanford professors found “no compelling evidence” the previous assault-weapon ban saved lives. The AR-15 is “the most commonly owned rifle in the United States,” and there is no commonsense or constitutional justification for banning it. The Democrats’ gun-control agenda
“is built atop the pretense that there is an easy answer to an appalling and vexatious problem—the Constitution be damned.”
Democrats face a choice between “lowering their aims” or “risking coming away with nothing,” said Paul McLeod in BuzzFeedNews.com. One possible compromise is to expand background checks to gun-show and online sales but not to private transactions. Some Democrats believe they can get 60 votes with such a provision “paired with other more narrow measures,” such as expanding police power to seize guns from people deemed dangerous. Even a small win could have major significance if it marks a “break in the NRA’s hold on Congress.” The NRA has been already weakened by its financial and legal woes, said Michael Warren in CNN.com. But many guncontrol advocates remain skeptical that anything will change soon. Every mass shooting, said Brian Lemek, director of Brady PAC, “feels like déjà vu.”