In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, much of the self-righteously impassioned rhetoric about gun control carries an accusation: those who oppose further gun curbs are “allowing” children to be murdered.
Ridiculous.
None of the newly proposed gun and ammunition bans — all of them old proposals, of course — would, if put in place long ago, have prevented the atrocity in Connecticut.
A more cogent indictment spotlights supporters of gun control. For politicians who have long believed they can halt all acts of violence and save lives by outlawing this weapon or that or limiting ammo clips, what does it say that they did nothing?
“The first two years of the last Obama administration,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told NBC News, “Congress and the Senate and the White House were all in the hands of the Democrats and they did nothing.”
According to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Bloomberg’s “point is well taken.”
Connecticut Congressman John Larson argued that, “To do nothing in the face of pending disaster is to be complicit.”
President Obama first suggested that elected officials, afraid of the gun lobby, put their own positions ahead of the safety of six and seven year old children, stating, “[W]e’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”
In short, even when politicians believe their gun grabbing will save lives, they won’t act to protect those lives if it might risk their political position. They act or fail to, not on principle, but on their own political benefit.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a rational, constitutional step toward reducing the risk of a future massacre.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.