[Vision2020] Wish You a Gun-Free Christmas

[Art Deco]

 [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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December 21, 2012
Wish You a Gun-Free Christmas By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

Well, the Mayans were sort of right.

The world didn’t implode when their calendar stopped on Dec. 21. But the
National Rifle Association did call for putting guns in every American
school in a press conference that had a sort of
civilization-hits-a-dead-end feel to it.

And we learned that negotiations on averting a major economic crisis had
come to a screeching halt because Speaker John Boehner lost the support of
the far-right contingent of his already-pretty-damned-conservative caucus.
We have seen the future, and everything involves negotiating with loony
people.

Wayne LaPierre, the C.E.O. of the N.R.A., has major sway in Congress when
it comes to gun issues. So the press conference, in which he read a
rambling, unyielding statement in a quavering voice, while refusing to take
any questions, could not have inspired confidence that the national trauma
over the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school was going to be
resolved anytime soon.

LaPierre immediately identified the problem that led to a deranged young
man mowing down children with a semiautomatic rifle: Gun-free school zones.
(“They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest
place to inflict maximum mayhem.”) Then he demanded a police officer in
every American school. Or maybe a program to recruit armed volunteers.

At around the same time he was speaking, a gunman in Pennsylvania killed
three people after shooting up a rural church. We will await the next grand
plan for arming ministers.

The idea that having lots of guns around is the best protection against gun
violence is a fairy tale that the N.R.A. tells itself when it goes to sleep
at night. But an armed security officer at Columbine High School was no
help. And history also shows that armed civilians generally freeze up
during mass shootings — for good reason, since usually the only way a
crazed gunman gets stopped is when he runs out of ammunition. So what we
continue to have is an excellent argument for banning weapons that spray
lots of bullets.

However unhinged LaPierre might have seemed to the casual observer, he sent
a clear message to members of Congress who fear the wrath of the N.R.A.: No
compromise on banning assault weapons or any gun control issue. That made
it hard to imagine any reform getting past the great, gaping maw that is
the House of Representatives.

We witnessed the magic of the House Republican majority when the Tea Party
forces blocked Boehner’s plan to continue the Bush tax cuts for incomes
under $1 million a year. This was around the time the speaker recited the
prayer, much beloved by 12-step programs, about seeking the serenity to
accept things you cannot change.

Boehner’s bill was mainly a political ploy, so in a way, its defeat was
meaningless. Except that it would be comforting not to believe that one of
the critical players in Washington was always at the mercy of the
loopy-extremist wing in his caucus.

Like, um, Representative Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. On Friday, Huelskamp
represented the House resistance forces on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in an
appearance with great Mayan overtones. First, he gradually acknowledged
that he was never going to vote for anything that raised taxes on anybody,
even if it was understood by the entire world to be a negotiating tactic to
win massive spending cuts, and avert massive tax increases on 99.8 percent
of the population.

Then the discussion turned to the Connecticut shootings, and Huelskamp
quickly announced that the nation did not have a gun problem. “It’s a
people problem. It’s a culture problem,” he insisted. Anybody who disagreed
— like President Obama — was, he said, using a tragedy “to push a political
agenda.”

In conclusion, the congressman announced that he had an 11-year-old son,
“and I have a choice whether he’s allowed to play those video games. What I
would suggest to moms and dads across this country is look at what your
children are doing. ... And I’m not saying to pass a single law about that,
because I think that would be politicizing the issue.”

Which we really hate. Politicizing.

There are so many ways we’d rather be celebrating the holidays. We would
like to be gathering around the tree with loved ones, discussing current
events in the form of that story about the theft of 6 million pounds of
syrup from the strategic maple syrup reserve in Quebec.

But we are where we are. President Obama bid a Merry Christmas to the
nation after announcing that he would try to re-avert the feared “fiscal
cliff” with a bill that resolves virtually nothing but avoiding tax
increases for the middle class. “At the very least, let’s agree right now
on what we already agree on,” he said. This is what currently passes for a
wildly optimistic statement.

Meanwhile, a congressman from Wisconsin, angry about the failure to pass a
farm bill, warned that the nation was about to fall over “the Dairy Cliff.”

At least there’s still eggnog. God bless us every one.



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w.
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