Rich Lowry @ Politico:
Rarely has the political class whipped itself into a lather that has abated so quickly. After the Newtown, Conn., massacre, so many invested so much hope in President Barack Obama’s pledge to “use whatever power this office holds” to pass new gun control laws.
The president has certainly done his part. He has held rallies. He has used children as props. He has held events with parents of the little victims of Newtown. He has shamed the nation for its alleged forgetfulness over the terrible events of that day and urged members of Congress to “join me in finishing the job — for our communities and, most importantly, for our kids.”
Yet the needle of public opinion is moving the wrong way. CBS News found that support for stricter guns laws dropped from 57 percent to 47 percent, and CNN from 52 percent to 43 percent. An ABC News/Washington Post poll had support slipping only from 54 percent to 52 percent, but that’s still lower than the support it found for gay marriage.
The headline on a CNN story on the latest trend in polling was titled, Polls Suggest Congress Might Have Waited Too Long on Gun Control. It has waited all of four months.
But the assault weapons ban has been deep-sixed by Democrats in the Senate. Same with any limit on the size of magazines. The argument now is all about increasing the reach of background checks, although any bill that can pass the Senate and the House will be much less extensive than the president or his supporters would like.
The gun control debate has shown the president again to be hopelessly detached as a legislative mechanic and ineffectual as a shaper of public opinion. Before writing rhetorical checks that his own party’s majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, couldn’t cash, the president might have at least consulted with the wily old son-of-a-gun about what was plausible and adjusted accordingly. He might have taken into consideration Reid’s ribbon-cutting ceremony with National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre at the Clark County Shooting Park in Las Vegas in 2010.
It is true that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. Who can be against background checks? Heck, even the NRA wants states to keep more complete records of who is forbidden from purchasing guns.
States with weaker gun control laws have far many more murders.
^^^More than Chicago, Illinois? Or Philly PA? Or ST Louis MO? Or Washington DC? And please explain what types of murder you pertain too. Don’t be vague.
Alas for data. Data is so inconvenient.
Captain Kathy Lanier, Chief of Police in Washington, DC, blew the whole thing sky-high. She revealed that there were lots of gun crimes in DC, almost entirely committed by un-registered weapons. There were a few registered weapons, but these all turned out to be [shock horror] STOLEN!
How about this? Suppose that prosecutors did not null pros gun charges (decide not to prosecute them). Suppose that use of a weapon in committing a felony added five years, upon conviction, no matter what. But not charging a weapons offense is routinely used to enable a confession, and a lesser sentence. That is why so many gun-carrying felons stalk our streets. They were let go.
Remember: when seconds count, the police will be there in minutes!
mathman
they are making a lot of trouble for one who shoot to save
the life of one in trouble.
I think of GEORGE ZIMMERMAN
still waiting for the law to do their thing while he is still on restraint order, can you believe?
if there would have been one guard with a weapon in the killing of the children,
how his life with a procecutor would have been hell,
that’s why there is no need for any law to restrain the law abiding citizens,
when they see what is waiting for them in the justice system,
G Z should be free from it a long time ago, he is innocent, and they ruin his life, the guy told him he was going to kill him at the very first encounter and yet GZ waited till he was going to pass out to shoot him, he had the gun all the time he was beat up, why wait? there is the proof.
so the people who want someone to help them be secure, and don’t support that person if he has to shoot to save his own life, those people don’t deserve to be protected , even the police is having a hard time if he shoot a bad guy out to kill or hurt,
why are they wanting to restrain the good guys who know that society let them down
when they get a bad guy out. no need at all, the only one who will shoot a bad guy is for his and family lives, not for a public who so far are showing they don’t care of the protector’s problems
after he shoot them. scums of society.
GEORGE ZIMMERMAN was let down by the community he tried to help,
like he never existed, that community don’t deserve a good person to help,
they should be left to defend themselves, or be beaten to death or shot,