And my response was:Carl Leubsdorf: Three slayings, zero talk of gun control
Three deaths in widely separated parts of the country: Each the work of a single person, each stemming from a different grievance.
They did have one thing in common: All three victims were killed by a gun (although each by a different type).
In Wichita, Kan., a single bullet from a handgun took the life of Dr. George Tiller, who ran a clinic that performed late-term abortions. The man charged with Tiller's murder was an anti-abortion activist who called his act "a victory for all the unborn children."
In Little Rock, Ark., bullets fired from an SKS assault rifle killed a 23-year-old private at an Army recruiting booth and critically wounded a second private. The gunman, a Muslim convert, told The Associated Press that U.S. military action in the Middle East justified his action.
In Washington, bullets from an ancient .22-caliber rifle killed a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Authorities identified the gunman as an 88-year-old white supremacist whose car contained a notebook calling the holocaust "a lie" and that "Obama was created by Jews."
The three gunmen face murder charges, but investigations are continuing, including whether weapons laws were violated. A federal ban on sales of some assault weapons expired in 2004.
We've heard some concern whether the nation's economic problems or the election of the first African-American president might inspire increased acts of political extremism. But there has been virtually no discussion of whether the incidents indicate a need for stricter laws to limit access to such weapons – or at least keep better records of who buys or owns them.
Indeed, every sign is that opponents of gun-control laws, like the National Rifle Association, essentially have won the longstanding public battle over the efficacy of legal restrictions to curb potential violence by individuals with access to firearms.
In the recent Virginia gubernatorial primary, Democrats nominated a candidate endorsed by the NRA when he ran for attorney general in 2005 and who did not suffer for opposing legislation to ban buying more than one handgun a month and carrying firearms in bars.
And when Republicans pushed a proposal curbing the District of Columbia's power to regulate gun ownership as a "poison pill" designed to kill a measure giving Washingtonians a voting member of Congress, 22 Democrats joined them, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
The nation's first urban Democratic president in a generation, busy with the economy and health care, shows no sign of wanting to press the matter. Asked this spring if Barack Obama might be willing to reinstate the assault weapons ban, spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes "there are other strategies that we can take to enforce the laws that are already on the books."
Earlier, Attorney General Eric Holder told CBS News' Katie Couric that the administration would work with the NRA on "common-sense approaches to reduce the level of violence" on the streets. Obama, Holder said, sought policies "that are politically saleable and things that will be ultimately effective."
The key phrase is "politically saleable," given that enactment of the assault weapons ban during the Clinton administration cost Democrats a number of congressional seats in 1994. Democrats don't want a repeat.
Besides, it's unclear if stricter gun laws would have prevented the three recent slayings, as well as other even deadlier incidents this year. A recent Supreme Court decision makes it harder for states and localities to limit sales and ownership.
Still, it's hard to argue that the easy availability of handguns and assault weapons is good for crime prevention or what the Founding Fathers had in mind in the Second Amendment.
And it's surely a sign of the times that there's so little effort to do anything about it.
Carl P. Leubsdorf recently retired as Washington Bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com.
Setting aside all of the obvious arguements about what the founding fathers wrote, or meant, and the fact that an SKS is a semi-automatic carbine, and thus, by definition, is NOT an assault rifle, your editorial suffers from a truly fatal flaw.
It starts from the assumtion that laws against guns, or anything else for that matter, actually accomplish much of anything.
Isn't it already illegal to shoot and kill, or even just wound, someone? What happened to the effectiveness of those laws?
Gin control has never been about guns, it has been about control, and only the law abiding will submit to that control.
The real sign of the times is that common sense is finally beginning to prevail in these matters, that gun free zones are only gun free for the law abiding, and that concealed carry laws contrinute to violent crime reduction, and finally that passing laws against guns does not stop criminals from using them, just as it will never stop them from obtaining them.
Interestingly enough he replied:
And I responded:Thanks for your letter. You make some reasonable points on the specifics. As I'm sure you noticed, I did not specially advocate anything in this article. And yes, many current laws are not being prospecuted very well. My main reason for writing it was that I fully expected more of an outcry from anti-gun groups and concluded the lack of it was significant. And yes, I do have a general bias against the widespread availability of firearms, much of which has very little to do with the Second Amendment protection.
And thank you for your reply. Please excuse the typos, I was dashing off to work and wanted to get that out while it was fresh.
Actually, the one slip is probably my best example, national "Gin Control" failed miserably and there is no reason, given the history of such schemes in other countries, to expect Gun control to work any better.
My grandpappy, a Texan tried and true, instilled in me with the attitude that only the law abiding obey the law, while those predisposed to breaking any will not care which ones they break, guns, knives, or fists.
I strive to live that philosophy and to imbue it in others.
Thank you,
Jim Longley
