GUNS AND AMMO JANUARY 14, 2013
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Post-Newtown, our "national conversation" on guns has taken two strikingly divergent paths. On the one hand, much of the punditry and Washington political establishment is already lapsing into the resigned assumption that yet again, nothing much will come of our initial outrage over the horror of children being cut down by big guns with big clips, even before Joe Biden announces the administration's gun-control proposal this week. The gun lobby is just too strong, and the popular resistance to major new firearms restrictions just too ingrained, for reform to happen. At the same time, though, several high-profile Democrats who've been mentioned as 2016 presidential contenders are betting on a different read of the situation. As they see it, Newtown has truly changed things, making it not just politically feasible to broach new constraints, but perhaps even politically imperative.
Last week, there was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, tapping some of his father's moral fervor in a rip-roaring call to make his state a pioneer in gun control: "No one hunts with an assault rifle. End the madness now." He has since reached a deal with state legislators to further restrict assault weapons in the state, limit magazine clips to seven rounds and toughen background checks. Not to be outdone, Cuomo's potential 2016 primary foe, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who made his name running against gun violence in Baltimore, let slip that he, too, will be announcing a major package of new regulations, including the nation's strictest gun-licensing requirements and a ban on assault weapons. And don't forget Colorado's John Hickenlooper, another Democratic prospect who, in the more hostile political terrain of the West, is now calling for instituting background checks on all gun sales, including private person-to-person ones.
What are we to make of this? Are we back to the Democratic Party circa 1984, with candidates trying to outflank each other to the left to win the affections of the liberal base, with ominous consequences for the eventual general election? Wasn't that what happened to the Democrats in 2000, when Bill Bradley, an ardent gun control proponent, helped drag Al Gore to the left on the issue during the primaries, which helped lead to Gore's loss in Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia, any one of which would have put him over the top in the Electoral College?
To those questions, I would say: no and no. First of all, as I've argued before, the Democrats almost surely overlearned from their defeats in 1994 and 2000 that gun control is an issue to be avoided. There were plenty other issues behind the Republican wave in 1994 beyond the assault-weapons ban President Clinton signed that year; as for 2000, Gore was barely talking about gun control during the general election and in hindsight it's plain that his loss of Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia was part of a broad move away from the Democratic Party in that part of the country that has continued regardless of whether guns are on the agenda or not.
Second, to the extent that gun control was politically risky in past years, the picture simply is different now. The national Democratic coalition -- what it needs to get 271 Electoral College votes -- relies far less than it used to on white, rural voters for whom gun rights are a priority, now that West Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas are out of the Democratic column. Gun ownership generally sorts into partisan lines, with most ardent gun-rights adherents lost to the Democrats for good.
And then there is Newtown. The massacre of 20 elementary school students and a half dozen of their educators has indisputably shifted public opinion -- in a new Washington Post poll, 52 percent say that Newtown made them more supportive of gun restrictions. The NRA's provocative response has ginned up new members for the organization but not helped with the broader public. And that's even before the families of the victims – and of victims from other recent mass shootings, like the one at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado – have started to organize themselves as a political force, as we're now starting to see happening. We're going to hear more things like this, from Dave Hoover, a police officer in Lakewood, Colo., whose nephew A. J. Boik was one of the 12 people killed in Aurora: “It’s different now because children are being butchered in schools. Because kids were killed at a movie. Because families went to church and were gunned down. I don’t understand why we are even arguing about this.”
This not to say that a major gun control package is going to pass Congress in the months ahead. The fact remains that the House is controlled by the Republican Party (despite its winning well over 1 million fewer votes in House elections in November) and that the House Judiciary Committee, which has purview over gun legislation, is chaired by a Virginia Republican, Bob Goodlatte, who ranks the NRA as his sixth largest source of campaign funds and has declared new restrictions a non-starter.
But it is wrong to read the NRA's grip on the legislative machinery as a monolithic hold on this issue overall. The debate has been broken open after far too long, and it's going to be much more fluid and unpredictable going forward than it's been for years. It will be highly variegated from state to state—new restrictions will go on the books in East Coast states run by ambitious Democrats and in states such as Colorado, which have suffered more than their share of mass violence. Meanwhile, some states will go the other direction – Wyoming is considering a bill to block any new federal restrictions on assault rifles or magazine size – and, yes, congressional Democrats from those states will still balk at new regulations, as newly elected North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp has done. But these Democrats will for the first time in years face serious pressure from other Democrats and advocates, not least the deep-pocketed Mike Bloomberg. Democratic presidential candidates running in 2016 will have to have a serious gun control plank, and they will pitch it in the primaries with the forcefulness of people who won't fear that it'll come back to doom them in the general election.
If one needs further proof that the landscape has shifted and become far more complex, consider Rahm Emanuel, who as much as any other leading Democratic warned the party away from the gun control issue after 2000. He proudly recruited pro-gun rights House candidates in 2006, and strongly discouraged Attorney General Eric Holder and others in the Obama administration from pressing gun control in the president's firm term ("shut the fuck up" on the issue, he reportedly declared).
But now he's the mayor of a big city suffering terrible gun violence, and is pushing a very aggressive gun-tracking proposal for all of Cook County, Illinois. At the same time, he clearly still carries the (overlearned?) lessons of 1994 and 2000, and warns that it'll be hard to get even all congressional Democrats behind new national regulations. At a Center for American Progress summit on guns on Monday, Emanuel preached sensitivity to Democrats from districts and states where gun rights still matter. "When the passage comes don't everybody run around and run away come November and then say …'Yeah you did that, but what have you done for me lately?' Because guess what? What happened after '94? … So my view is we have a responsibility to support our friends if they take a tough political vote," he said. “But if a person's gonna take a tough vote, don't walk away from them come the political season. Support them.”
Yes, support them. But before that post-vote support, there's also going to have to be persuasion that this territory is not as treacherous as it was perceived to be in the past. There was precious little persuasion of that sort from Emanuel and others in recent years -- in fact, the opposite. Now, it's coming from the likes of Cuomo, O'Malley, and Hickenlooper -- none of them political dummies or lost-cause radicals. For once, there actually is a national conversation.
Follow me on Twitter @AlecMacGillis
16 comments
MoJo reports the NRA likely has 3 million- 3.5 million members, which would be less than 1% of the population. So we tell the screeching loudmouths to shut up, and we ban assault rifles and high volume clips; mandatory registration of all guns with the same diligence we do cars; screen all prospective buyers and prosecute the ones that lie on their applications, instead of the kids on the corner selling nickel bags. It is amazing that a toupee wearing, embalmed-looking, cross-dresser like Wayne LaPierre has anything to say in a national conversation. The GOP cast of villains is deep and and deeply sociopathic.
- smabry03
January 15, 2013 at 7:31am
Terrific as always Alec, you're one of the sharpest media critics out there right now. Keep calm and carry on indeed. Democrats take heed! Chin up and ignore the lazy memes of the MSM.
- WandreyCer
January 15, 2013 at 8:03am
WaPo's big weekend piece on the NRA was fascinating in many ways, including the fact that Wayne LaPierre started his political career working for Tip O'Neill of all people! I'm not sure if the dude has any principles, if the ones he has are now deeply sublimated or vice versa. Also very interesting that Neal Knox, the guy who was primarily responsible for turning the NRA into the Republican lobbying behemoth and culture warmonger it is today was absolutely convinced that the political violence of the 1960's (including the King and Kennedy assassinations) was a sinister plot to ban all guns and enslave law-abiding Americans, and was really upset about bans on fully automatic weapons. Which brings us all back to the utter incoherence of the NRA and its GOP groupies on the issue of gun control and bans on high-capacity ammo clips, assault rifles and the like. After all, if your goal is to prevent government tyranny by means of an armed population, don't you want the population to have some effective firepower? If you concur that the population can't have really effective firepower because, you know, that would be really dangerous (which the NRA and every elected official in America do), then why can't you go further and ban high-capacity clips and combat-style weapons and require universal background checks, waiting periods and limitations on mass purchases of guns and ammo? Reminds me of the old joke about the woman who objects to the offer of sex in exchange for $10 by claiming that the price is too low.
- wildboy
January 15, 2013 at 9:50am
Although I wish such control advocates well, unless they have an overwhelming amount of "street cred" and other resources, they should proceed with extreme caution on this issue. There is a vast open-underground, so to speak, of ordinary Americans in the non-coasts who have a deep and visceral guns-first issue mindset. However, the recent movement to try and separate the calm occasional game hunter from the rabid gun owners who undergird the NRA could prove an interesting wedge experiment. But I am not holding my breath.
- atlasqq
January 15, 2013 at 12:47pm
Polls are generally positive on the public desire for gun control. However, I find discouraging the positive view of the NRA and of their proposal to put armed guards in every school. I spent 8 years as a big city school board member. Every year we would lose a few students to gun violence, but always outside of school. All indicators was that for most inner city kids the safest part of the day is when they are in the schools. Much better to spend the resources on making their neighborhoods safer.
- brthompson
January 15, 2013 at 1:00pm
Many of us are NOT members of the NRA because they are too wishy-washy on the second amendment. Witness the stupid idea of putting cops into every school. We already have too many cops, many of whom are trigger-happy thugs and bullies, corrupted by the war on drugs and other victimless crimes (and union membership). And the SWAT teams...they obviously have a stupidity requirement since most of them seem incapable of finding the correct address so that they can terrorize alleged pot heads. Instead, we should let any non-crazy person who wishes to do so carry a concealed weapon (like Diane Feinstein, although I'm not sure she could be classified as "non-crazy") or even carry openly (cops carry openly; what makes them so special?). Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun...and too many cops are NOT good guys. You are more likely to be shot by a cop (by mistake) than by a LEGAL gun owner. Freedom works; government doesn't! Individual Freedom & Personal Responsibility Maximum Freedom, Minimum Government
- dalefogden
January 15, 2013 at 2:15pm
NRA seems to be the descendant of the John Birch Society. Same anti-government paranoia and the same anti-intellectualism. The NRA is more than a pro gun lobbying organization, it's a right wing extremist political society and should be treated as such.
- arnon1
January 15, 2013 at 2:35pm
dalefogen - you might want to take a quick look at the video of Reagan getting shot. There were 15 people around him with guns. Their only jobs in life were to be on the lookout for a sudden gunman there to take out the President. It didn't work out too well - it never does. I'm not sure how many of them were "good" guys versus "not good" guys, crazy or non crazy, union members or what have you - any of the other Monty Python level silly irrelevancies you use as categories. You're describing a dopey utopian vision that simply does not, cannot nor ever will exist. I'm not sure what will happen with changes in background checks, high capacity clips or however you technically refer to the accoutrement of mass murder, I'm not saying I even know how to stop the mass murders via guns happening in this country. I'm sure it's very complicated. What I do know is that utopian thinking like yours is really sad and has no place in the making and implementing of public policy. Like all sentimentalists, you think you can make yourself safe somehow with some painfully concocted black and white answer. You can't.
- WandreyCer
January 15, 2013 at 2:44pm
There really is room for hope here, hope that something sensible will actually emerge from Newtown. So far, my primary reason for hope is the modest scope of the proposed changes in law, and the fact that so far we have had only a few public statements that indicate total ignorance with the realities of actual firearms. Even Cuomo's "toughest in the nation" legislation is relatively modest, and Cuomo himself actually shoots occasionally. So please, please, let's keep it that way. Leave the rants for the other side. Leave the rants and accusations of treason for the NRA. Don't equate gun ownership with those unwashed flyover folks and feed the cultural divide that already exists on this issue. Treat gun ownership with some modicum of respect, and we may actually be able to achieve something meaningful. And if really do think that guns and gun owners are just icky and that firearms should all be confiscated, get real. Do you really think you can impose your will on a third of the American population?
- gwcross
January 15, 2013 at 4:10pm
ok gwcross - you're right. We actually don't hear much from most gun owners. If the polls are correct, they seem to support almost all of these measures, even NRA members, but a wide margin. So we're all not so far apart I think. It is probably best to grit out the provocations, not take the bait and keep moving forward. (I wish I wasn't nervous as a New Yorker tonight).
- WandreyCer
January 15, 2013 at 4:32pm
At first I was going to say that people were missing the fact that dalefogden was clearly having a bit of delirious fun with an obvious satire of, to quote myself, "the rabid gun owners who undergird the NRA." (Because he said he was NOT a member.) But then I realized his carefully noting he was not a member (unlikely, but who can say) because the NRA is not extreme enough seems to cast some doubt on his comments being satire. The rational being I hope I am really, really wants to believe it is a joke, but I fear he is serious, thereby only proving my point. Oh my.
- atlasqq
January 15, 2013 at 4:47pm
Post script-- GW Cross: your comment is the sort of sane reasonable path that actually seems realistic. Although there is a grain of truth to the cultural flyover stereotype you decry, more fundamentally you are correct that it is self-defeating to dwell on such notions, and ignore the more mainstream gun owners, typically hunters in my mind, but collectors also, since many of them rarely even fire them.
- atlasqq
January 15, 2013 at 4:53pm
Time to start labeling the supporters of the NRA for what they are: "Pro Child Murder" Maybe that would get people's attention.
- jamesroymo
January 15, 2013 at 8:21pm
dalefogden, You have a very fitting last name. You're in a fog there in your den. Your party-line implications are bizarre. Cops are more of a threat than criminals? Drug use is a victimless crime? Do you know how many burglaries, robberies, and murders have been committed in U.S. history by drug users? It's in the high billions. Most hard-drug addicts commit a minimum of several hundred burglaries alone. So you think the cop on the street is more of a threat to your safety than a desperate burglar? I lived in the inner city for 10 years. I know better. "Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun...and too many cops are NOT good guys." So "good" guys should start shooting "bad" cops? The crazies on the Right today are sounding exactly like the crazies on the Left did in the Sixties and Seventies--more proof that extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are brothers and sisters under the skin. They all fantasize about killing someone in authority. We're headed for a civil war in this country, and no state or national gun law is going to prevent it. There are too many millions of Americans who equate freedom with guns. The Nazis and the Bolsheviks would agree with them.
- magboy47.
January 15, 2013 at 8:56pm
Dale F. Ogden is just mad that the good citizens of the Golden State did not elect him to the Senate instead of that Old Bolshevik Dianne Feinstein. That said, I heard from a reliable source that Dale is already #4 on the waiting list for a 3BR, 2 1/2 BA colonial in The Fortress in scenic Idaho, where he can get as intimate as necessary with his AR-15.
- wildboy
January 16, 2013 at 12:25pm
Ha! Maybe he can move in to Glenn Beck's new Libertarian utopia in Texas (although they like their cops down there, he might not fit in).
- WandreyCer
January 16, 2013 at 1:40pm