By MARSHA MERCER
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris threw
down the gauntlet on gun control.
“Upon being elected, I will give the United States
Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass
reasonable gun safety laws, and if they fail to do it, then I will take
executive action,” the senator from California declared April 22 at a CNN town
hall in New Hampshire.
Taking a strong stand on gun control used to be
politically risky. Today, not so much.
Not after the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 students
and professors in 2007, the slaughter of 20 children and six adults at Sandy
Hook Elementary School in 2012, the mass murder of 17 students and teachers at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year – and countless other shootings,
including at a synagogue in California Saturday and a university in North
Carolina Tuesday.
Democratic leaders agree on the need for universal
background checks for gun purchases, reinstatement of the ban on sales of
military-style assault weapons and red flag laws meant to keep guns out of the
hands of those likely to hurt themselves or others.
In February, House Democrats passed two gun safety
bills with a smattering of Republican support. If lightning should strike and
the bills make it through the Republican-controlled Senate, though, President
Donald Trump will veto them.
And that divide sets the stage for the 2020 campaign.
Trump told the National Rifle Association convention April
26 the constitutional right to bear arms is “under assault – but not when we’re
here. Not even close.”
He urged NRA members to “get out there and vote” next
year. “It seems like it’s a long ways away. It’s not,” he said.
The NRA poured tens of millions of dollars into
electing Trump, but its clout appears to be fading amidst internal strife and investigations
into its tax exempt status.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican
of South Carolina, hardly a “gun grabber,” reportedly is drafting a red flag bill
to help police confiscate guns temporarily from people who are likely to hurt
themselves or others.
“I think most Americans believe that multiple murderers
shouldn’t have gun rights. Most Americans support background checks,” he told
The State newspaper in South Carolina. “The Second Amendment’s important to me,
but it’s not a suicide pact.”
Polls show the major issues for 2020 are likely to be health
care, the economy and immigration. Gun laws don’t make the cut, although few
polls even ask the question.
But Quinnipiac University does ask, and its polls since
2014 consistently have found over 90 percent support for background checks for
all gun buyers. Most recently, in January, 95 percent of Democrats, 94 percent
of independents and 89 percent of Republicans said they favored background
checks.
Gun rights groups say background checks are
ineffective and infringe on constitutional rights. When several states passed more
stringent firearm laws after the shootings in Parkland, Florida, dozens of rural
counties declared themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries,” refusing to enforce
the new laws.
How did we get here? For a clear-eyed account, I
suggest reading “After Virginia Tech” by award-winning journalist Thomas P.
Kapsidelis, a friend and former Richmond Times-Dispatch colleague.
Kapsidelis tells victims’ stories and what happened next
to survivors, families, first responders and others -- and where the political system
failed them.
“One Tech parent told me that all sides could have
come together to make progress. That hasn’t happened,” he writes.
It’s a sobering, unsentimental assessment, but Kapsidelis
cautions against losing hope.
He quotes an editorial by Gerald Fischman, who was
murdered, along with four colleagues, last summer when a gunman with a grudge burst
into the newsroom at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. After the Pulse
nightclub massacre in Orlando where 58 were killed in July 2016, Fischman wrote:
“Of all the words this week, hopelessness may be the most dangerous. We must
believe there is a solution, a way to prevent another mass shooting.”
No one wants more mass shootings. The 2020 campaigns
and election offer us the chance to show we care enough to try to stop them.
©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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