People WITH Guns Kill: Yesterday, Aurora, Colorado; Today, Wisconsin; Tomorrow ?

email Stephen L. Goldstein: trendsman@aol.com

            Until this afternoon, the memory of the senseless bloodbath in Aurora, Colorado had faded for everyone, except the hapless victims and residents of that otherwise anonymous town. TV crews moved on to their next breaking-news assignments—or waited poised to pounce. Some empathetic, mindful, opportunistic editor may yet send a resourceful reporter to sniff out a residual human-interest story in Aurora—a victim emerging from a coma, the marriage of two people shot, whatever.

            Until the shooting spree in Wisconsin, for all practical purposes, Aurora was old news. Like Columbine and the shooting of Cong. Gabrielle Giffords, it already became a minor footnote in history, if that. The predictable, national soul-searching that erupts after every sweeping disaster is over. Publicly, we soon stop asking “How could it happen?” and “Why did it happen?” and “How can we keep it from happening again?” And because we stop asking, we think it CAN'T happen again. Americans have the historical perspective of fruit flies and the moral conscience of mites: We are willful amnesiacs, especially when it comes to the bad stuff. And nothing is going to stop it, or us, for two reasons.          

            First, the National Rifle Association owns elected officials throughout the country. For decades, it has wielded more power than Grover Norquist and Citizens United combined. In the aftermath of Aurora, once again, at its headquarters, it’s party-time. Literally and figuratively, spirits are running high. Executives and their lobbyists will no doubt have high-fived and popped more than one champagne cork, toasting to their continued success at keeping the U.S. safe even for assault weapons. Especially in an election year, no one running for Congress or president is going to buck them. President Obama felt morally bound to tell his Urban League audience, “I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals; that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities”—but he didn’t pledge to take any action. And typically, Mitt Romney, who once was for gun control, is now against it.

            Second, the NRA owns the U.S. Supreme Court. In tortuous stretches of language and logic, in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a majority of the justices twisted the restrictive language of 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”) into an individual’s right to possess a firearm. For that decision, the Court deserves an A+ for NRA advocacy, an F for reading comprehension, and a second F for moral leadership. In Heller, the Court affirms the constitutionality of certain prohibitions and restrictions on firearms-possession, but that is not enough to redeem the immorality of its overall decision. Like too many others, the Supremes drank the Kool-Aid that “guns don’t kill; people do”—ignoring the overarching truth that “people with guns kill.”

            So, nothing will happen to bring sanity to gun laws and ownership in America until “people pressure” gives our elected leaders the cover they need to stand up to the NRA. Predictably, there has now been a next Aurora, Columbine, and Giffords tragedy--this time in Wisconsin and a Sikh house of worship. So, 24/7 TV coverage, hand-wringing and soul-searching continues again—and predictably forgetting will soon set in. The framers of the Constitution wrote the Second Amendment to protect us from government tyranny. But they should have included one to protect us from ourselves.