Firearms, gun control and politics

2014

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down
Fact-checking some of the gun lobby’s favorite arguments shows they’re full of holes. (31 January 2013)
Myth #1: They’re coming for your guns.
Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it’s clear there’s no practical way to round them all up (never mind that no one in Washington is proposing this). Yet if you fantasize about rifle-toting citizens facing down the government, you’ll rest easy knowing that America’s roughly 80 million gun owners already have the feds and cops outgunned by a factor of around 79 to 1.
The most dangerous WiFi device: $22,000 sniper rifle that aims itself
Developed by Tracking Point, the gun can aim up to 1,200 yards away, which is more than half a mile away. The gun comes equipped with a laser range finder, wind speed sensors, ballistics computer, unit to measure inertia, a compass, and a networked tracking engine. Similarly to a standard gun, Tracking Point’s rifle is a simple point-and-click interface, except this gun doesn’t allow you to click unless you’re pointing the right way. (20 May 2013)

22 September
Bloomberg group launches midterm campaign for gun control
(USA Today) Former mayor’s gun-control group endorses dozens of candidates and launches commercials that feature the family members of those lost to gun violence.
The gun-control group started this year by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is making its first significant political investments of the midterms — announcing endorsements in more than 100 federal and state contests and launching television commercials in two states.
Everytown for Gun Safety‘s endorsements and the new ads in Illinois and Oregon are part of an effort by Bloomberg to make curbing gun violence a pivotal issue in midterm elections that will determine which political party controls the Senate and the agenda on Capitol Hill. Republicans need to net six seats to win the majority in November.
16 June
U.S. Supreme Court: You Can’t Lie About Your Gun Purchase, No Matter What Your Reason
(ThinkProgress) Straw purchasing works like this. An individual who wants to buy a gun with the intent to commit a crime does not go to the store himself to buy it. He gets a third party to buy it. That third party goes through the background check. That third party’s name goes into the database, and the individual who ultimately desires the gun may not be traced back to the purchase.
Prosecutors have sought to crack down on those purchases by enforcing gun law provisions that make it illegal to lie about who the gun is for.
6 June
Gun Lobby Says Moncton Shooting Is Proof Canada’s Firearms Laws Are ‘Excessive’
(HuffPost) It remains unclear whether the gunman who killed three RCMP officer on Wednesday and wounded two others acquired his guns legally. Photos of the shooter, who police have identified as Justin Bourque, show him carrying what appear to be an M-14 semi-automatic rifle (or possibly an M305) as well as a Mossberg 500 SPX 6-shot pump-action shotgun, according to Global News. Those weapons can be acquired legally in Canada and Global reported that as of mid 2012 the long-gun registry showed ten M-14 rifles registered in the Moncton area.
2 June
Most Americans Want No-Gun Policies At Shops, Restaurants
(HuffPost) According to the poll, 55 percent of Americans prefer that retailers and restauranteurs don’t allow guns, while only 32 percent prefer that they do. The poll found a partisan divide, with a no-gun policy preferred by Democrats 72 percent to 19 percent, and by independents 48 percent to 34 percent. Republicans said they preferred establishments that allow guns 50 percent to 41 percent.
28 May
Gun Violence Killed At Least 80 People The Week Prior To Elliot Rodger’s Rampage
The Memorial Day weekend saw a community eviscerated by gun violence that left several dead and many more injured.
But it wasn’t UC Santa Barbara that witnessed this particular round of bloodshed. It was New Orleans. By weekend’s end, the city had seen 19 people shot, four fatally. … instances such as the one at UC Santa Barbara are rare in respect to gun-related homicides. In fact, FBI data shows that there were 900 people who died in mass shootings from 2006 through 2012. By contrast, firearms were used in 11,078 homicides in 2010 alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Joe The Plumber: ‘Your Dead Kids Don’t Trump My Constitutional Rights’ To Have Guns Obscene!
25 April
The NRA Plan To Impose America’s Weakest Gun Laws On Every State In The Union
At the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting this weekend, attendees won’t just get trainings on the “survival mindset” and “potential threats, be they internal or external, and the response to those threats as intended by our Founding Fathers.” They will also focus their lobbying efforts on a federal bill that would make concealed carry permits reciprocal across state lines, regardless of whether one state has its own more rigorous requirements for carrying a gun, according to the Associated Press.
The bill would effectively allow the weakest state gun laws to operate around the country whenever residents from those states carry their guns, by permitting those individuals to ignore the more stringent requirements in neighboring states. The gun lobby’s claim is that different state laws threaten to confuse and unnecessarily imperil the rights of gun owners when they carry their gun across state lines. But a universal concealed carry bill would create what Erika Soto Lamb formerly of Mayors Against Guns called the “lowest common denominator” phenomenon, in which the weakest concealed carry law prevails, and any additional restraints imposed in other states can be ignored by visitors.
Bills that aim to allow individuals to carry their guns to any state have been floated for years, and garnered significant support in the House in 2011 before being killed in the Senate. But after a court decision invalidated the last ban on concealed carry in Illinois, every state now has a concealed carry law, giving the NRA new ammunition in its lobbying effort.
23 April
What Georgia’s expansive new pro-gun law does
(WaPost) Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed into law Wednesday a pro-gun package that groups on both sides of the gun control debate describe as exceptional.
The National Rifle Association calls it ”the most comprehensive pro-gun bill in state history.” Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun control group founded by shooting victim and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), calls it ”the most extreme gun bill in America.”
3 April
Are Guns a Public Health Issue? Let Us Count The Ways…
(New Republic) Gun violence impacts health in all kinds of ways. There are the more obvious ones, like death and injury. As Olga Khazan pointed out at The Atlantic, suicide rates are higher in states where gun ownership is more common. In 2010, 19,392 people took their own lives with guns, while “justifiable homicides”—self-defense shootings that may have saved a life—numbered only 230. Over two-thirds of homicides and over half of successful suicides involve the use of a gun, and accidental gun deaths average about two a day. The U.S. spends $2 billion a year on medical care for victims of gun injuries; one out of three people hospitalized after shootings is uninsured, according to The Huffington Post.
28 March
Conor Friedersdorf: The NRA Wins Again
The Newtown shooting led gun-control advocates to try the same failed strategies again. And once again, they didn’t work.
(The Atlantic) After the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, many in the American media insisted that the tragedy should prompt a “conversation about gun control.” These articles were written as if there had never been such a conversation. In fact, the issue had been debated for decades. Given the results, I argued, there was no reason to presume that a new conversation would end in more gun control.
That conversation has now come and gone. The result?
“Perverse as it may sound, the horrific mass shooting in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary produced a burst of state-level gun control bills around the country and then triggered a much stronger pro-gun backlash,” Paul M. Barrett reports at Businessweek. “The counter-reaction has now reached its apogee in Georgia. In the past year alone, 21 states have enacted laws expanding gun rights, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Several states added piecemeal provisions allowing firearms on college campuses or in bars or churches. Georgia’s politicians, egged on by the National Rifle Association, have gone for broke.” [See Nick’s Gleanings comment below]
17 March
White House pauses surgeon general appointment in face of NRA opposition
• Dr Vivek Murthy has supported gun control measures
• Up to 10 Democrat senators would vote against
Dr Vivek Murthy would have been the first Indian-American surgeon general if confirmed by Congress, but his nomination has been attacked by the NRA over comments in support of gun licensing and a ban on assault rifles.
The prestigious public heath post has traditionally had little involvement in firearms policy, but gun lobbyists claim that Murthy’s views – together with calls to fund more research on gun violence – make him “a prescription for disaster for America’s gun owners”.
29 January
There Was Another School Shooting During Obama’s State Of The Union Address
(Think Progress) This is at least the ninth school shooting so far this year. Prior to this week, the country had been averaging one school shooting every other school day. As of Tuesday night, that rate is now even higher.
President Obama has already used the power of his office to begin efforts to curb gun violence, but many of the reforms that gun reform advocates are demanding require congressional action.

2013

Obama marks Newtown school shooting anniversary with call for gun control
Despite a concerted push by the president and Vice President Joe Biden to tighten gun laws, legislation that would have stiffened background checks for gun sales and banned rapid-firing “assault” weapons died in Congress in the face of the powerful gun lobby.
Polls showed that more than 80 percent of Americans supported expanded background checks, but opponents of the legislation argued it is essential to hold the line on protecting Americans’ right to keep and bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Frustrated on the legislative front, the administration began taking executive actions aimed at preventing gun violence. Steps have included making it easier for federal agencies to share information about people with a history of mental illness who should be prevented from buying a gun.
6 December
Gun registry’s fate in limbo 24 years after massacre
Born in the wake of this country’s worst school shooting, the long-gun registry has particular significance for Quebecers.
The anniversaries of Montreal’s École Polytechnique massacre — when a lone gunman killed 14 women on Dec. 6, 1989 — have often been marked by announcements both federal and provincial to toughen gun laws. The long-gun registry was announced around the five-year anniversary of the tragedy by Allan Rock, the federal justice minister at the time.
Now, 19 years after the registry was created and 24 years after Marc Lépine opened fire on female students with a legally obtained Ruger Mini-14, the registry has been eliminated in all provinces except Quebec.
Gun Sales Exploded In The Year After Newtown Shooting

8 November
Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?
(WaPost) Colin Woodard, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and author of several books, says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.
“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.”
Up in Arms
THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS
(Tufts University Magazine|Fall 2013) There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence, as well as everything else, in its own way.

20 October
Post-shutdown America is on the verge of outright civil conflict
In the months since the school shootings at Newtown, Connecticut, pro gun forces having been winning the struggles against the advocates of gun control. Demand for guns and ammunition has spiked over the past year. When I visited a gun shop north of San Diego a few months after Newtown, the proprietor told me that customers now have to wait as long as ninety days to acquire high powered, semi-automatic rifles, revolvers and ammo.
All fifty U.S. states now allow the “concealed carry” of firearms and over forty states allow residents to carry weapons in the open subject to a variety of regulations. Guns can now be carried in most states to schools, colleges, churches, malls and restaurants. Spokespersons for Old America argue that the right to bear arms is an essential bulwark against tyranny. If necessary, these arms could be used against the United States government itself.
11 October
Gun Groups Sponsor ‘Guns Save Lives Day’ On One-Year Anniversary Of Newtown Shooting
Several gun groups will honor the date 20 children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary with “Guns Save Lives Day.” The national Second Amendment Foundation, as well as the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and DefendGunRights.com anticipate participation across 50 states to counter an “anticipated push by the gun prohibition lobby to exploit the anniversary of the Newtown tragedy to push their political agenda.”
Gun rallies have taken a variety of forms since mass shootings propelled gun violence to national attention. These include an activist’s aborted plans to storm Washington, D.C. with firearms, men with assault rifles intimidating moms, and armed customers descending on a Starbucks in Newtown.
But this is the first time gun activists have claimed December 14 for their own agenda.

Statistics on Gun Deaths & Injuries

The people who want most fiercely to obtain and use guns include many of the same people whose access to guns society most needs to restrict. In the mass shooting in July in Aurora, Colorado, the killer’s actions were lawful almost until the moment he began firing. If the preparations of mass murder are legal, then the law is an accomplice to madness. – The editors, Bloomberg (11 June)

Bowling for Columbine
The United States of America is notorious for its astronomical number of people killed by firearms for a developed nation without a civil war. With his signature sense of angry humor, activist filmmaker Michael Moore sets out to explore the roots of this bloodshed. In doing so, he learns that the conventional answers of easy availability of guns, violent national history, violent entertainment and even poverty are inadequate to explain this violence when other cultures share those same factors without the equivalent carnage. In order to arrive at a possible explanation, Michael Moore takes on a deeper examination of America’s culture of fear, bigotry and violence in a nation with widespread gun ownership. Furthermore, he seeks to investigate and confront the powerful elite political and corporate interests fanning this culture for their own unscrupulous gain.
Things Can Change
A century ago, there were forms of brutal violence considered so thoroughly American that they could never be banished. Today, they no longer exist.
(Slate) The parallels between past and present are not perfect, of course. Today’s violence is more random, without rational motive or political purpose. Yet these examples tell us something important about how social change happens around violence, and about what we now need to do. Ending both lynching and class violence required efforts spread over many decades. And those efforts attacked the problem at multiple levels, from the passage of new federal laws to campaigns aimed at mobilizing public opinion.
Understanding the Second Amendment
By Geoffrey R. Stone. Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
(HuffPost) Opponents of laws regulating the sale, manufacture and use of guns fervently invoke the Second Amendment. In their view, the Second Amendment (“a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”) forbids the government to regulate guns. Period. End of discussion.
But it is more complicated than that. At the outset, let’s put aside the argument that the “well-regulated militia” clause signficantly narrows the scope of the Second Amendment. Although most judges and lawyers endorse that interpretation, the Supreme Court, in its controversial five-to-four decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, rejected that understanding of the text.

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22 September
NRA’s LaPierre calls for more armed personnel after Navy Yard shooting
(NBC) LaPierre said more personnel who work at military facilities, including retired military personnel, should be armed so they are able to stop attacks such as the one at the Navy Yard

16 September
There Have Been More Mass Shootings Since Newtown Than You’ve Heard About (INFOGRAPHIC)
(HuffPost) When 13 people died in a shooting rampage at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on Monday, the story made front page news. Many of the mass shootings that have happened since the massacre of elementary school students and teachers in Newtown, Conn., last December didn’t.
10 September
Blind people now granted gun permits in Iowa because of changes to state law
(AP via National Post) Iowa law enforcement officials are debating the wisdom of granting gun permits to blind people.
The Des Moines Register reports that Iowa law doesn’t allow sheriffs to deny a permit to carry a gun in public based on physical ability.
Some sheriffs have been granting gun permits to people with visual impairments while others have been denying them.
Jane Hudson with Disability Rights Iowa said keeping legally blind people from obtaining weapon permits would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Colorado Recall Results: Democratic State Senators Defeated In Major Victory For NRA
(HuffPost) What originally began as local political fallout over the Democratic-controlled legislature’s comprehensive gun control package quickly escalated into a national referendum on gun policy. Morse and Giron both voted in favor of the legislation, signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) in March, which requires background checks for all firearm purchases and bans ammunition magazines over 15 rounds.
Gun rights activists initially sought to recall four Democrats they perceived as vulnerable, but only collected the required signatures to challenge Morse and Giron.
29 August
Obama Offers New Executive Actions On Gun Control
Months after gun control efforts crumbled in Congress, Vice President Joe Biden stood shoulder to shoulder Thursday with the attorney general and the top U.S. firearms official and declared the Obama administration would take two new steps to curb American gun violence.
But the narrow, modest scope of those steps served as pointed reminders that without congressional backing, President Barack Obama’s capacity to make a difference is severely inhibited.
Still, Biden renewed a pledge from him and the president to seek legislative fixes to keep guns from those who shouldn’t have them – a pledge with grim prospects for fulfillment amid the current climate on Capitol Hill.

Toddlers Killed More Americans Than Terrorists Did This Year
(Opposing views) Of course, most if not all of the above deaths and injuries can be attributed to careless adult gun owners.
While this analysis focuses on children, another equally accurate headline could read: “U.S. Gun Culture Kills More Americans Than Terrorists Worldwide.”
In 2010, 13,186 people died in terrorist attacks worldwide, while 31,672 people were killed with firearms in America alone, reports CNN’s Samuel Burke.
7 June
Danger in 3-D: The Rapid Spread of Printable Pistols
(Spiegel) A student from Texas has invented a plastic pistol that anyone can make with a 3-D printer. It is undetectable by metal detectors and capable of killing. And it is spreading unchecked across the continents.
Cody Wilson is a do-it-yourselfer from the United States. His invention, a pistol, is small, white, oddly clunky and has a ridiculously short barrel. It consists almost entirely of plastic. But what looks like a toy at first glance is actuality a new threat to security across the world.
You don’t need a license to obtain this weapon, it can’t be bought, there is no official market for it and it isn’t regulated. In fact, anyone who wants to can make this weapon without assistance. All you need is an ordinary computer, an Internet connection, a roll of plastic, a nail and a 3-D printer.
31 May
Another Day, Another “Accidental” Child Shooting Death
(Slate) Trenton Mathis didn’t have to die. His senseless death is a direct result of this country’s baffling indifference toward the basic principles of gun safety. As I’ve written before, “accidental” child shooting deaths are almost never truly accidental. They happen because parents and guardians keep their guns loaded and unattended in unsecured locations where children can easily get to them. Mathis’ great-grandmother told KLTV that her husband thought he had locked and closed the door to the room where he kept his handgun. He was wrong.
10 May
US government orders removal of Defcad 3D-gun designs
(BBC) The order to remove the blueprints for the plastic gun comes after they were downloaded more than 100,000 times. …
Although the files have been removed from the company’s Defcad site, it is not clear whether this will stop people accessing the blueprints. State Department to Cody Wilson: Take your gun blueprints off the Internet (Foreign Policy) The letter informs Wilson that he also has to explain how his company, Defense Distributed, gained jurisdiction over the technical data for the weapons designs posted to the site.
3 May
Meet the New N.R.A. President
(NYT editor’s blog) … the N.R.A. has just elected a new president, an Alabama lawyer named Jim Porter, and he’s, if not freaking crazy, certainly aggressively provocative.
Among the less inflammatory statements he’s made in the last few years is that the Obama administration “wants to take us …to a European, socialistic, bureaucratic type of government” and that the Democrats have made “a run on our rights, our individual rights.” That’s humdrum by contemporary standards.
Less humdrum, and currently making the rounds on the Internet is a speech he delivered at the New York Rifle and Pistol Association’s annual meeting in June, 2012. At that speech he called Mr. Obama a “fake president” and Attorney General Eric Holder “rabidly un-American.” He claimed that Mr. Holder and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were “trying to kill the Second Amendment at the United Nations.” (For what it’s worth, he was referring to a proposed treaty regulating global trade in conventional weapons supported by every U.N. member state except Syria, Iran and North Korea.) And he gave a short lesson in terminology to the assembled Yankees, “Now y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it the ‘War of Northern Aggression’ down South.”
29 April
Senators Lose Support After Opposing Gun Background Checks, Poll Shows
Nationally, most polls taken since the shooting in Newtown, Conn., have found that upwards of 80 percent of people support gun background checks, and that there is relatively little partisan division on the issue.
Opinions were less unified on the actual legislation considered in the Senate, but most still say they wish it had gone through. A 65 percent majority of Americans said the measure should have passed, including 45 percent of Republicans and a majority of Democrats and independents, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.
21 April
Why does America lose its head over ‘terror’ but ignore its daily gun deaths?
The marathon bombs triggered a reaction that is at odds with last week’s inertia over arms control
(The Guardian) Americans who have such little experience of terrorism, relatively speaking, are more primed to overreact – and assume the absolute worst when it comes to the threat of a terror attack. …
If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There’s something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of “law-abiding Americans”.
So for those of you keeping score at home – locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).
18 April
The NYT headline A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip says it all.
A Shameful Day in the Senate
(The Daily Beast) The NRA got its victory, but Michael Tomasky is confident that, years from now, we’ll look back on yesterday as the moment when the gun lobby overreached—and laid the groundwork for its own undoing.
You cannot oppose the will of 90 percent of the public and expect no consequences. You can’t have people saying what Rand Paul said, that monstrous comment of his about Newtown parents being “props,” and think that you haven’t offended and infuriated millions of people. You can’t introduce amendments that encourage more interstate transfer of weapons and give it the way-beyond-Orwellian name “safe communities” act and think that karma will never come back around on you. And you can’t sneer at the parents of dead 6-year-olds and expect that God isn’t watching and taking notes.
Obama Gun Policy Agenda Comes To Maddening End
Months of work aimed at revamping the nation’s gun laws prompted by one of the worst shooting tragedies in U.S. history met an inglorious conclusion on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
Giffords Sums Up Her Disgust With Congress in a Scathing Op-Ed: “Shame on Them.” They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.
Why Newtown Wasn’t Enough
Gun control advocates won’t win until senators fear them as much as they fear the NRA.
13 February
Wayne LaPierre: More Guns Needed For ‘Hellish World’ Filled With Hurricanes, Kidnappers, Drug Gangs
(HuffPost) “Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals. These are perils we are sure to face — not just maybe,” LaPierre wrote in a commentary published by The Daily Caller, a conservative news site. “It’s not paranoia to buy a gun. It’s survival. It’s responsible behavior, and it’s time we encourage law-abiding Americans to do just that.”
12 February
5 takeaways from the State of the Union
1. Obama goes big on guns: With a chamber sprinkled with the families of victims of gun violence in Connecticut and Illinois as well as former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the biggest question looming over President Obama’s speech was how forceful he would be on guns. It’s no secret that the proposals put forward by Vice President Joe Biden have met with an indifferent, to put it mildly, response from Congress.
Obama’s decision to save his remarks on guns until the end of the State of the Union, and to aggressively urge a vote on all of his gun proposals were, by far, the boldest portion of his speech. If you are looking for a takeaway from the speech, it is this: “Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote.” Obama’s comments on guns will be the lasting legacy of this speech and a sign that his past pledges to use all of his political power to bring about measures he believes will curb gun violence was not simply rhetoric.
7 February
Gayle Trotter: The Woman Who Called Gun Control Sexist
(The Daily Beast) The D.C. lawyer and mother of six shocked many when she told a Senate hearing that guns are ‘the great equalizer’ for women—and that gun control is effectively sexist. She also opposes the Violence Against Women Act—and women in combat. She explains her views to Caitlin Dickson
5 February
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
(HuffPost) The likelihood that an assault weapons ban ends up in the legislative scrapheap is hardly unexpected — the Wall Street Journal also reported on the issue on Monday morning. …
The maneuvering around the assault weapons ban underscores how delicate the process of putting together a bill has become. Facing legislative hurdles, top lawmakers are gaming out procedural steps to placate both longtime gun control advocates and those more wary of an ambitious package of reforms.
The Right To Arm Buyers
(Slate) The NRA’s pathetic excuses for opposing universal background checks.
26 January
Thousands rally for gun control in Washington Newtown, Conn., residents participate
(AP via CBC) Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the crowd it’s not about taking away gun rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, but about gun safety and saving lives. He said he and President Barack Obama would do everything they could to enact gun control policies.
19 January
Rallies assail Obama’s proposed gun curbs
(Reuters) – Pro-gun activists who say the right to own firearms is under attack from President Barack Obama’s proposals to reduce gun violence held “high noon” rallies across the United States on Saturday in support of gun ownership rights. (Globe & Mail) Homemade placards read “An Armed Society is a Polite Society,” “The Second Amendment Comes from God” and “Hey King O., I’m keeping my guns and my religion.”
16 January
‘Morning Joe’ hosts eviscerate ‘sick in the head’ NRA for targeting Obama’s kids
(Raw Story) … On Tuesday, the pro-gun lobbying group sparked outrage by releasing an ad calling Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for opposing guns in schools while allowing his own daughters to be protected by armed bodyguards. The ad comes one month after 20 children were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and just days after the NRA released a first-person shooting game for Apple’s iPhone and iPad targeted at children as young as four.
Read President Obama’s New, Proposed Executive Orders and Legislation on Guns
The second Joe Biden suggested that the White House might enact “executive actions, executive orders” on guns, the gun lobby smashed the glass and hit the alarm. The Drudge Report illustrated Biden’s quote with portraits of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, who (among arguably worse things) restricted gun rights. There were surprisingly few questions from Republicans about what the executive orders might actually be.
Here’s the list, via the White House. (I did not engage in complication reporter-fu to get this. It’s the general fact sheet.)
15 January

New York State Gun Laws The First In Country Since Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting In Newtown

Owners of an estimated 1 million previously legal semiautomatic rifles, such as the Bushmaster model used to kill 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., a month ago, will be allowed to keep their weapons but will have a year to register them with police. The sale of any more such weapons is prohibited.
14 January
Most Americans back gun control, poll finds
(WaPost) More than half of Americans — 52 percent in the poll — say the shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., has made them more supportive of gun control; just 5 percent say they are now less apt to back tighter restrictions. Most also are at least somewhat worried about a mass shooting in their own community, with concern jumping to 65 percent among those with school-age children at home.
The findings, which also show broad bipartisan support for mandatory background checks to purchase firearms at gun shows, came as President Obama said Monday that he will lay out specific White House proposals on gun-control legislation and executive actions this week.
10 January
Bill Clinton and Gun Control: Legal Sale of Assault Weapons is ‘Nuts’
Former President Bill Clinton joined the conversation on gun control yesterday, calling the legality of high-ammunition and assault weapons “nuts.”
“Why does anybody need a … 30-round clip for a gun?” said the 42nd President.
Two years into his presidency, Clinton signed the 1994 assault weapons ban that has since expired. The Arkansas Democrat, no stranger to firearm use, continued to express his confusion as to the need for such weaponry.
“I grew up in this hunting culture, but this is nuts,” he said in an Associated Press recording.
“Why does anybody need one of those things that carries 100 bullets? The guy in Colorado had one of those,” he said in reference to the Aurora movie theater massacre. “Half of all mass killings in the U.S. occurred since the assault weapons ban expired in 2005.”
Joe Biden: Obama prepared to use executive action on gun control
Vice-president promises swift action from administration at inaugural meeting of national task force on gun control
8 January 2013
We have had very unkind things to say about Stanley McChrystal (Rolling Stone article, etc.) but he has almost totally redeemed himself with this statement.
Stanley McChrystal: Gun Control Requires ‘Serious Action’
(HuffPost) Asked what his message was to the National Rifle Association and the House Judiciary Committee, he said, “I think we have to look at the situation in America. The number of people killed by firearms is extraordinary compared to other nations. I don’t think we’re a bloodthirsty culture, and we need to look at everything we can do to safeguard our people.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a co-founder and backer of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, praised McChrystal later in the program. “Stanley McChrystal is a guy who has more credibility than I ever will have in terms of guns and the damage that guns can do,” he said. “He’s devoted his life to public service. But Stanley McChrystal can be as good a spokesman as can the five of us.”

2012

28 December
NRA to oppose global arms treaty
The National Rifle Association says it “will be involved” in the United Nations General Assembly’s negotiations on a treaty that would regulate global trade in conventional arms. Amnesty International said the organization was “interfering in U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the arms industry.” NRA President David Keene said he was guaranteeing “the American people’s rights under the Second Amendment.” Reuters (12/28)
Despite Newtown, 54 Percent of Americans Approve of the NRA
(Slate) Even after a harshly panned press conference about the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, 54 percent of Americans still say they have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association.
The new Gallup poll shows numbers in line with the NRA’s averages, suggesting its image remains intact after the shooting. The group hit a low of 42 percent approval in mid-’90s and more recently hit a high of 60 percent in 2005.
Critics called NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre tone deaf after his press conference last week in which he blamed gun violence on the media, video games, and other culprits, but not on guns themselves. He also called for armed guards in all schools.
A recent Gallup poll showed 58 percent of Americans favor stronger gun laws, but the same poll showed that most people generally do not favor bans on particular weapons.
26 December
What a sad, sick society
AR-15 Rifle Used In Sandy Hook Shooting Becomes Popular Christmas Gift As Gun Sales Soar
(HuffPost) As the world takes to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Boxing Day to show off its Christmas presents, it seems one gift in particular is standing out.
It looks like Santa was pretty generous doling out AR-15 style rifles this year, the weapon used in the recent school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut and the Aurora theatre massacre.
While Americans used social media to reveal their potentially lethal stocking fillers, it emerged the rush on guns and ammunition sales spiked to “unprecedented” levels ahead of Christmas Day.
24 December
Lawmakers Signal Willingness To Pursue Gun Law Changes
(AP) — Lawmakers from both parties voiced their willingness Sunday to pursue some changes to the nation’s gun laws, but adamant opposition from the National Rifle Association has made clear than any such effort will face significant obstacles.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre dismissed efforts to revive a ban on assault weapons as a “phony piece of legislation” that’s built on lies.
21 December
NRA’s solutions show Americans the true face of gun culture
(Globe & Mail editorial) The United States reached a defining moment on Friday when Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, described his organization’s vision of the country in a news conference carried live on television.
And what was Mr. LaPierre’s answer? To post an armed police officer in every school. To organize communities into what sound like vigilante teams or militias for children’s protection. To call for an “active national database of the mentally ill.” To lament make-believe violence in video games and films, while failing to address the plague of real-life gun violence in the U.S. And to attack the media for what he described as a cover-up of the dangers of violent video games played by children.
Mr. LaPierre did Americans a service. He gave them a chance to see the face of gun culture for what it is – fear-mongering and demagogic. He railed about the injustice of leaving an unarmed principal to die at the hands of an “evil monster.” He asked why banks have armed guards but not schools. His answer to the threat posed by guns is more guns, in the hands of “good guys.”
18 December
David (Jones): Gun control redux: More gun laws won’t prevent another Newtown
(Yahoo! News)
The United States will not be altering its gun laws; indeed, opposition to gun control rises and gun sales jumped following the Aurora Colorado shooting and will probably rise again.
Nevertheless, again, I offer two (perhaps useful) observations:
— The incidence of “off their meds” schizophrenics is rising. A generation ago the delusional were institutionalized; today modern pharmacology permits them to function in society, but at potential cost. Schizophrenia frequently strikes brilliant young males and the Newtown shooter is widely characterized as highly intelligent; however, the medication is distinctly unpleasant physically and mentally. Their privacy rights prevent notification of family, employers, etc. But reporting suggests that the Newtown shooter, as well as the previous Aurora, Tucson, and Virginia Tech assailants, was mentally disturbed. Should “privacy” continue to protect schizophrenics?
— Renewed affirmation of constitutional protection for gun owners has also prompted “concealed carry” laws in many states. Connecticut’s laws are very restrictive, including making it illegal to have a firearm on school property. Thus the shooter knew that nobody would be shooting back. Would concealed carry weapons users have made a difference? We’ll never know — but in other instances they have.
We want both freedom and privacy; each has costs.
vs.
David (Kilgour): Gun control redux: Obama must step up and implement strong gun laws
Despite the power of the National Rifle Association and the bitter partisan divide in Congress, the time has come for a national conversation about gun control; Obama’s call for meaningful action must be addressed.
Probably no justice issue divides Canadians from Americans more than the control of handguns, assault rifles and other weapons. Our own nationals are often victims of the current toothless federal regulation of guns in the U.S. The measures at the state and municipal level differ so widely that weapons which are declared restricted in Canada and most countries often appear to flow virtually unimpeded from states with weak laws to ones with stronger regulations and across international borders.
Responsible gun regulation in America and the accompanying reduced gun violence can only be achieved nationally in Washington.
Obama ‘backs assault weapons ban’
(BBC) US President Barack Obama wants to reinstate an assault weapons ban in the wake of the mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut, his spokesman says. …
“He is actively supportive of, for example, Senator [Dianne] Feinstein’s stated intent to revive a piece of legislation that would reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Mr Carney said on Tuesday.
The White House press secretary added that Mr Obama was also supportive of other gun legislation, including on high-capacity ammunition clips and against a loophole that allows for gun purchases at gun shows without a background check.
17 December
Newtown shootings: NRA silent on gun laws
(BBC) Prominent pro-gun political organisations and US senators have kept quiet since the mass killing in Newtown, Connecticut. Why is the National Rifle Association leaving the floor to gun control advocates as a national debate takes shape?
Gun control advocates have blanketed the media calling for measures such as a renewed assault weapons ban. President Barack Obama has indicated he will back new policies “aimed at preventing more tragedies like this”.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the most prominent gun control advocates in America, has publicly called on Mr Obama to propose specific legislation. [See Meet the Press]…
To counter him, the show’s producers invited 31 pro-gun US senators onto the show – but they all declined. By Monday morning one of the 31, Democrat Joe Manchin, publicly changed his tune on a US morning news show. Virginia Senator Mark Warner, another Democrat, then joined his colleague.
16 December
Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Time for President Obama to Stand up and Lead on Guns (video)
(Meet the Press) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg urges President Barack Obama to lead the national discussion on gun violence in America today on Meet the Press.
Jonathan Kay: There are other Adam Lanzas out there. Just ask “Anarchist Soccer Mom,” Liza Long
Given all the attention that will (rightly) be lavished on the parents of the dead children of Newtown, perhaps policymakers might also listen to parents such as Ms. Long, whose fear is as acute as others’ sorrow. If we treated the psychopathology of boys such as Michael as the serious and deadly problem it is, we might prevent the next Adam Lanza from striking. I am Adam Lanza’s Mother — Liza Long, a writer based in Boise, says it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
President Obama: American hearts ‘heavy with hurt’
(CSM) In his radio address Saturday, President Obama said ‘every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt.’ Republicans canceled their radio address, House Speaker John Boehner saying ‘I join the president – and all Americans – in sending prayers and condolences to the victims’ loved ones.’
Nicholas Kristof:  Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?
(NYT) Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries, according to David Hemenway, a public health specialist at Harvard who has written an excellent book on gun violence.
So let’s treat firearms rationally as the center of a public health crisis that claims one life every 20 minutes. The United States realistically isn’t going to ban guns, but we can take steps to reduce the carnage.
Guns, Parents and Sandy Hook: Time to Take The Bullet
(The Atlantic) On Saturday afternoon, a grim state official, Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner Wayne Carver revealed to the world that the primary weapon used on the Sandy Hook school victims was not a handgun but rather a long gun, a Bushmaster .223 assault rifle, a formidable killing machine eschewed by most hunters, unwieldy for self-defense, similar to weapons used by our soldiers in Afghanistan and the weapon of choice of the Beltway snipers.  …
It was all perfectly legal for Nancy Lanza, the first victim and the mother of the alleged shooter Adam Lanza, to have purchased and possessed the rifle, as it was legal for her to own the two handguns which also were found at the scene of the crime. Although Connecticut, like other states, has a regulatory gun scheme, and although it has a form of gun “control,” state law does not require permits or licenses to purchase or to carry rifles or shotguns. Nancy Lanza loved guns, her friends told the Times, and would talk about her collection at local bars. [If her son was as disturbed as we are led to believe from the news reports, this is the most irresponsible behavior I can think of. See I am Adam Lanza’s Mother ]
It would be foolish to contend that the massacre at Sandy Hook is a tipping point in America’s raging debate over guns. The near-murder of a congresswoman by a raving lunatic in 2011 didn’t move the needle. Neither does the fact that gun violence kills 10 times more Americans each year than died on September 11, 2001. As Elspeth Reeve wrote Friday at the Atlantic Wire, the National Rifle Association is gaining, not losing, ground even as we mark one mass shooting after another. Just ask George Zimmerman, the man who killed Trayvon Martin.
But it also would be foolish to dismiss the idea that the Sandy Hook shootings won’t change something. Our nation’s inability to protect our school children from gun violence is not just a basic failure of law and government. It’s a personal failure on the part of every adult — and especially every parent — in America.
High-ranking Dem Rep. Larson calls for gun-law reforms: ‘Politics be damned’
A member of the House Democratic leadership issued a forceful statement Saturday calling on Congress to vote on key gun-control laws in light of the Connecticut elementary school shooting that left 20 children dead.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the outgoing chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said lawmakers should vote soon on banning assault weapons and high-capacity clips, closing terrorist watch list loopholes, and instituting background checks for gun sales.
Ten Arguments Gun Advocates Make, and Why They’re Wrong
(The American Prospect) There has been yet another mass shooting, something that now seems to occur on a monthly basis. Every time another tragedy like this occurs, gun advocates make the same arguments about why we can’t possibly do anything to restrict the weaponization of our culture. Here’s a guide to what they’ll be saying in the coming days:
Gun Control Debate Back In Spotlight After Shooting
(HuffPost) The question surfaces each time a mass murder unfolds: Will this one change the political calculus in Washington against tougher gun control?
The answer, after the Virginia Tech killings, the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords, the Colorado movie-theater attack, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings, and more: No.
But now?
The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the bloodiest attack against youngsters in the nation’s history, stands as a possible tipping point after Washington’s decade-long aversion even to talking about stricter gun laws.
So it seems in the stunned aftermath, judging from President Barack Obama’s body language as much as his statement. “We have been through this too many times,” said the famously composed president, this time moved to tears. “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”
It remains to be seen whether Sandy Hook will break the usual cycle of universal shock fading into political reality. That reality is based on a combination of powerful gun lobbying and public opinion, which has shifted against tougher gun control and stayed that way. However lawmakers react this time, it’s the president’s call whether the issue fades again or takes its place alongside the legacy-shaping initiatives of his time, with all the peril that could mean for his party.
14 December
Adam Gopnik: Newtown and the Madness of Guns
(The New Yorker) Gun massacres have happened many times in many countries, and in every other country, gun laws have been tightened to reflect the tragedy and the tragic knowledge of its citizens afterward. In every other country, gun massacres have subsequently become rare. In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity, and they happen with hideous regularity because guns are hideously and regularly available.
Mike Huckabee: Newtown Shooting No Surprise, We’ve ‘Systematically Removed God’ From Schools
Former Arkansas governor [and former Republican candidate for the presidency] Mike Huckabee (R) weighed in on the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday, saying the crime was no surprise because we have “systematically removed God” from public schools.
Sandy Hook School Shooting: Adam Lanza Kills 26 And Himself At Connecticut School
5 August
Nicholas Kristof
I’m hoping that today’s Sikh temple shooting, on top of the Colorado cinema shooting, will elevate the issue of guns onto the national agenda. As somebody noted on my Twitter account, 1 person hid explosives in his shoe, and now we all remove shoes at the airport. But 30,000 Americans die annually from guns, and there are no efforts to reduce the toll. Time for change?
2 August
David (Jones) The gun debate: Americans simply won’t surrender their right to bear arms vs David (Kilgour) The gun debate: More regulation in the U.S. will result in less gun violence in Canada