The slaughter last Friday of 20 innocent children in Newtown, Conn. should bring an end to the mind-numbing debate over gun control. The time has come for legislators on the national and state level to act.
Hours after the shooting U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed and her son seriously injured while riding on the Long Island Railroad, said what must be on the hearts of millions of stunned Americans:
“There are a lot of unanswered questions right now, but one thing is clear – there’s too much gun violence in our country. These shootings are becoming all too common, and it’s too easy for dangerous people to get the weapons that help them perform mass executions like today’s.
“Leaders in Washington from both parties, and groups like the NRA, all say that now is not the time to talk about how gun safety laws can save lives in America. I agree, now is not the time to talk about gun laws – the time for that conversation was long before all those kids in Connecticut died today.”
McCarthy has introduced legislation in the House, which now appears to have the support of President Obama, that would ban the sale of assault weapons to citizens not in the military or law enforcement.
There is no reason on God’s earth why anyone needs to have the kind of semi-automatic weapons that Adam Lanza was carrying in their homes. Likewise no ordinary citizen needs high-capacity magazines like the one that allowed Lanza to kill 20 children and six adults in a matter of seconds without stopping to reload.
Even the NRA has been stunned by the massacre in Connecticut. On Tuesday the NRA said it will “offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.” We’ll see.
The legislation pending in the House and Senate also includes a fix for the Guns Check Act. Since the act was passed two decades ago, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System has kept guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and people with mental illness. But there is a dangerous loophole. The current law applies only to licensed gun dealers. Private sellers, the kind found at gun shows, can sell weapons in many states without doing background checks.
The arguments against control make even less sense today. We remind those who say that people should have the right to keep semi-automatic weapons for their own protection that the first person Lanza killed was his mother, the owner of his weapons.
The opponents of gun control are fond of citing the Second Amendment “right to bear arms.” This was written in the context of a “well regulated militia” at a time that muskets were the cutting edge in technology. Surely the authors never envisioned a day when a monster would use a gun to wipe out an entire classroom.
Action is also needed on the state level. State Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Long Island) has been frustrated in her attempt to get a law passed requiring microstamping of guns. This would enable law enforcement to match fired cartridge cases found at a crime scene to the last registered owner of the firearm. Gun manufactures, including Remington, have succeeded in blocking this legislation.
Finally there are now unconfirmed reports that Lanza was furious because he had learned that his mother was seeking to get him committed to a mental institution. He may have believed his mother loved the children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School more than him. Guns should never have been kept in that home.
Like most gun control, that’s just common sense.
We urge the passing of McCarthy’s and Schimel’s legislation and, in memory of the children who died at Sandy Hook, we will make sure our readers know of the names of any legislators who stand in the way.
