Three cheers for President Barack Obama, who had the guts to issue 23 executive actions and three presidential executive actions regarding gun safety.
Unfortunately, most will require congressional approval, and we all know that’s not going to happen anytime soon. At least not until the irresponsible obstructionists – the darlings of the Gun Lobby – are trounced in an upcoming election, and, sad to say, that’s not likely to happen either.
The very congressional members who howl with rage against Obama for issuing executive orders are the very ones who have adamantly refused to work with him or to compromise one iota on gun-safety issues, or any other issue for that matter. They are do-nothings who do not belong in the U.S. Congress.
Poll after poll shows Americans (even most Republicans and gun owners) are in favor of common-sense, reasonable gun-safety measures, including an expanded and strengthened system of background checks. The sickening prevalence of mass killings, most notably the butchery of the little sweethearts at Sandy Hook Elementary, has helped shore up opposition to this wacko gun craze.
Gun safety (or gun control as opponents like to call it) is a highly charged emotional issue, even though it doesn’t have to be. Those in favor of gun safety want to create programs to monitor the sale of guns, to limit their purchase by mentally unstable people or by people with criminal records, and many gun-safety proponents would also like to prohibit the sale of assault-type weapons used in warfare. Opponents claim any regulations whatsoever are an attack against the Second (Right to Bear Arms) Amendment and any restriction at all will have the result of “taking our guns away from us.” The latter claim is ridiculous, just as is the stupid assertion that “guns don’t kill people.” Such silly notions are trumpeted by the National Rifle Association, among other gun groups. The NRA, it’s become clear, is most vociferous in protecting gun manufacturers, not so much gun owners and certainly not the victims – past, present, future – of gun violence.
A commentator on a TV news show last week wisely compared gun safety to car safety. Both will take time, he said. Car safety has vastly improved during the past few decades because of increased seat-belt usage, stricter enforcement of DWI laws, crackdowns on speeding, car-manufacturing safety improvements and widespread public-education efforts. Like gun safety, car safety required the application and interaction of those factors and others to make a big difference.
The same will be true of gun safety. It will take more than one factor to turn the tide, and of course gun-safety efforts will never solve the problem totally. Gun-related deaths (murders, mass shootings, gun accidents, suicides) will continue. Car safety measures, obviously, have not prevented deaths on roadways, but they have been dramatically diminished. And if gun-safety laws can do the same (diminish deaths), they will be well worth it. Who could deny that?
Those who scoff at any proposal for gun safety are positively giddy with certainty when they claim that murders will always happen, that bad people will always get guns by hook or crook. Yes, to some degree, that’s true. But gun-safety laws enacted in other countries, such as Australia, continue to prove gun restrictions and the banning of military assault weapons really have made a big difference.
Among Obama’s proposals are these:
- Strengthen the background-check system and require thorough checks for all gun sales.
- Allow states to share more freely information about mental-health issues involving potential gun purchasers.
- Provide states with more monetary incentives to share information so records on criminal history (and people prevented from gun ownership due to mental-health reasons) are more available.
- Ban military-style assault weapons and limit magazines to a capacity of 10 rounds, max.
- A crackdown on gun-trafficking, including the closing of loopholes and strict penalties for “straw purchasers” – those who pass a background check but then pass on their guns to prohibited people.
- Urge Congress to pass the administration’s $4 billion proposal to keep 15,000 state and local police officers on the streets to help deter gun crimes.
- A call for more school-resource officers and counselors in schools and strengthening of emergency-management plans.
- The training of 5,000 additional mental-health professionals and a call for mental-health treatment to be covered under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.
Some Republican presidential candidates have already been crowing about how they will undo the initiatives proposed by the president. They are crowing at their own risk. Reasonable, rational, mainstream Americans are demanding gun-safety laws; and it’s about time those who take their cues from the Gun Lobby and oppose gun-safety measures start losing elections.
