Millions of words — some accurate, many inaccurate — have been spoken and written about the Dec. 14 school shooting and mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Most expressed revulsion at an insane killer’s act that ended the lives of 20 first-graders, five teachers and the principal.
During January, political responses began with President Barack Obama’s 12 proposals to “curb gun violence” sent to Congress and 23 executive orders that bypassed House and Senate scrutiny.
It’s the task of our elected representatives to respond to problems, and Americans expect them to do their jobs. But we’re perplexed and dismayed at the non-solutions proposed by Vice President Joe Biden’s study commission and the president.
It’s not that President Obama’s proposals and executive orders aren’t impressive. Included are criminal background checks for all gun sales, reinstating the expired assault-weapons ban, banning possession of armor-piercing bullets, reducing magazine capacities to 10 bullets and addressing unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that might prevent states from making mental health information available for background checks.
Here’s the rub: Although gun owners could live with some of these ideas, none would have kept Adam Lanza from taking firearms from his mother’s house — after he shot her — and using them to kill 26 people. President Obama said as much during his Jan. 16 news conference when he admitted his proposals and orders wouldn’t stop every act of senseless violence.
So whom would these proposals and orders affect, if passed and signed into law? Answer: law-abiding gun owners, not criminals nor mass murderers. Criminals and insane people don’t follow laws, and there are plenty of guns already out there — 270 million in private hands in the U.S., at last count.
One presidential order would increase the number of School Resource Officers. Many current SROs already are armed, if provided by law-enforcement agencies, and the NRA has promoted this idea. President Obama now likely won’t require armed SROs because his supporters hate the NRA. Likewise, the NRA vilifies his proposals because it sees groundwork for a future gun grab.
People who blame the NRA for the recent spate of mass killings are ill-informed. Anyone familiar with the NRA knows it has called for sure and swift justice for anyone who criminally uses firearms, but politically-motivated gun-control attempts have been recipes for disastrous unintended consequences.
We’d like to know when President Obama and the NRA will work to find real solutions and stop missing the mark because of politics?
To the NRA, we ask “Who needs 50-round magazines?” To gun-control advocates in high-echelon government jobs, if armed guards protect you at taxpayer expense, why can’t our school children have similar protection?
Be the first to comment