Like another commenter here I noticed the slap at President Obama. I guess Maureen Dowd has forgotten that the GOP vowed to obstruct everything that he tried to do, and were pretty successful at it. I always wonder what the public would have done if Obama
177
Maybe we should start celebrating mass shootings...like extra points for body counts. The backlash outrage would be huge...then we respond back with "Where is your same outrage for the people lives destroyed by guns"?
19
Until the children as collateral damage states, like Florida and Texas, act to stop the gun inspired tragedies, nothing will happen. It's up to them. They have to be the force to stop the carnage.
56
Jesus, I miss Obama. Trump, with that grimace and obscene thumbs-up gesture is a disgraceful and disgusting insult to every family member of the slaughtered. I am so sorry for their loss, and offended on their behalf.
I will never offer thoughts and prayers, I WILL offer my vow to work, and vote. Please join me.
244
"When gun violence becomes commodified as content by the media, we consume it rather than experience it."
That is quote from a NYT article ("The club no one wants to join"), written by someone who has lost two family members to gun violence. And it perfectly describes this piece by M.Dowd and all it's self-congratulatory links ("I wrote about this; I wrote about that"...very Trumpian, by the way, right down to the Obama bashing).
There are times when writing about something does nothing to change it. This is one of those pieces.
You know what kind of piece I want to see?
One that tells people to go home, turn off the TV and news for a day, and reflect. And then, rather than speaking out — go do something to change things. For the media, stop writing about it. It does nothing! Go out, and make change happen. Write something that turns a gun owner into a gun opponent. Write ANYTHING but this kind of content that simply rehashes what people already know.
Thank you.
125
Very soft on Trump. Still in love with him. Republicans are really despicable.
114
I predict that it will take 3 mass school shootings this year before the media will hound Ryan, McConnell, Ernst, Cruz, Rubio and the rest of that idiotic mindset to the point that no other questions get asked until gun control is addressed. Paul Ryan allowed a bill to go through the House just after the Las Vegas massacre that would allow a 19 year-old in Florida who could get a concealed gun permit to exercise that right in my strict gun control state. Silencers and armor-piercing ammo were held back until the mood of the country quieted down. The gun nuts have stifled a national data base and current technology that could identify the source of every bullet fired, the owner of every gun, mandatory locking mechanisms, etc. In the year 2018 they are afraid that a tyrannical government will locate and seize the 300,000,000 guns out there in a midnight raid so that Clyde Bundy and friends won't be able to take their country back. That is the profound idiocy of a very small tail wagging one big dog.
127
Far be it from me to tell people how to spend their money but if I were a multi-billionaire I'd go to every member of Congrerss who takes money from the NRA and double what they give them with the iron-clad proviso that within 6 months they come up with a comprehensive gun ban or they have to give back the money. Being the high-end prostitutes they are they'll take the money, we'll get something accomplished and the NRA can go pound salt.
136
President Hillary Clinton would have done something about our country's obscene gun laws (and imagine what sales would have been like in the weeks following her election). Perhaps this is why this is the rare instance when she is not mentioned in a Maureen Dowd column.
99
The satirical "news" source, "The Onion," has said most of what needs to be said on this subject.
All they have to do is to periodically update the details of time and place,
to this:
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-t...
from this:
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-t...
from this:
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-t...
Ad infinitum.
22
Maybe, just maybe, if the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, WSJ -- in fact, every major newspaper in the USA -- published on page one every day the photos, names, and ages of all the people shot up in the USA, maybe some meaningful gun control legislation would take place. It's too easy to hide the victims' faces. Publish them EVERY DAY until something is done. We are the crazies. I am glad I don't live in the USA any more, and it is totally embarrassing to try and explain our lax attitude on guns, shootings, and death to people all over the world. They just don't understand. Neither do I. I repeat, we (Americans) are the crazies.
70
Dowd plays to the crowd. President Obama had sense enough to understand that nothing on gun control was going to get through a Republican House and filibustering Senate. Obama had 90% of the people? Note to Maureen: Republicans don't care about Representative government! Got that!?
156
Perhaps our elected officials, who feel so strongly in the 2nd amendment, should remove all metal detectors from State and Federal buildings, as a show of continued support for the right to bear arms..... We can then offer thoughts and prayers for their safety in the workplace!
124
Ms. Dowd, please tell us why the US is the only first world country with these kinds of shooting statistics.
36
One angry Florida constituent tweeted out Mario Rubio after one of his latest platitude filled statements following the murder of 17 people in Parkland Florida, reminding him of the 3 plus million backsheesh he received from the NRA.
Nothing seems to move congress, the grip of the oligarchy and the NRA has defeated us. I began to wonder then, how would Senator Rubio feel if this tragedy was visited on his precious family. If this thought does not move a purchased senator, what in God's green earth will? What hope is there?
https://heavy.com/news/2016/02/marco-rubio-children-kids-how-old-are-age...
50
Military Type (MT) weapons are designed for only - one - purpose, to kill as many people as possible in the shortest period of time ! Here in America, Manufacturers of MT weapons are 'Merchants of Death', the NRA "leaders" are their marketers, the politician enablers aid and abet dread, terror and - murder - nationwide. In addition, there is tacit support for this epidemic disease from the White House, our 'Moscow on the Potomac". A sage once said; "Everybody has a price." I am not totally certain that is true! However, considering a solution, I cannot conceive of any humans involved in this whole disaster proclaiming their mission in life/business/politics is to slaughter as many men, women, and children as possible, although that is the actual "collateral damage". If I am correct, the only motivation for these "humans" has to be "their price" - money - as disgusting, amoral as that is. Therefore, the solution is to remove the money motive by making MT weapons and their possession illegal and subject to severe penalties. The only way that can happen in our "Democracy" is action by "our" politicians who are loathed to losing "their price", NRA money. Ergo, we must replace those politicians in the next election with moral, intelligent, responsible Representatives and Senators . If we, you and I, don't accomplish this vital assignment then we cannot complain, but just learn to live with the continued slaughter. It's that simple!
39
One of your best, Ms. Dowd. Thank you.
12
I think the tragic irony of the Parkland school shooter is that he arrived at his murdering ground by Uber.
In other words, he was able to legally obtain an assault rifle and enough ammunition for a holocaust, but may not have been allowed to drive.
38
There is only one answer: Nov 6, 2018
79
The country is polarized on this, as on so many issues . . . 'gun-culture' USA is clearly willing to accept regular gun massacres in return for the right to own as many guns as they like. Areas outside 'gun-culture' USA only want an exemption from the manic zealotry of the NRA. That's all . . . just allow us to impose state and local limitations that fit our preferences. Of course, 'gun-culture' USA can't be content until everybody is armed to the teeth.
The final irony is that I believe that the majority of gun violence is suffered by the residents of 'gun culture' USA. Even in Sandy Hook, the home of the NRA-like National Shooting Sports Foundation. By definition, gun suicides --one of the most common causes of death for adult, white males in the US-- happens only in 'gun culture' homes. They don't want to be stopped. They stupidly believe that they and their children are exempt from statistics.
I've been called every vile name you can think of by relatives that live in 'gun culture' USA for pointing out simple statistics. I've reached the point where I honestly can't care that they are massacring their families and neighbors except for their insistence that my community conform to their norms. You really can't cure stupid.
290
Our president's absurd gun crime focus, of course, is MS-13 - something he can do to stir up his anti-immigrant, gun touting base. Even though it turns out that more people were killed in ten minutes by the white, non Hispanic, middle aged man in Las Vegas than have been killed by MS 13 in our country.
43
If only there were more mass killings at country clubs. Either people would then care, or at least there’s would be less of those guys. And btw, murder is a state crime, not the biz of the fbi. This ones on you gov Scott.
71
Maureen, this is the best thing you’ve ever written. Powerfully on point.
“When societies try to protect a malevolent status quo, they become warped.”
19
unlike the hollwood and church matters, we have an objective, protect kids, that does not require the complexities of making new law or navigating "cultural change"...and we also have simple means, "harden the targets" as security pros say, fix insecure entrances, control, totally, coming and going and add the necessary personnel, armed and on station....once that's done, let the blather resume....blame the silent hollywood a-list for abetting harvey et al., and, by all means, blame trump for no-go gun control (of course he failed and in typical oh-do-crude-and boastful belly-flop fashion, as opposed to obama who failed with a degree of elegance, while he was in his bubble grading papers and clinton who good-old-boy failed because he was, likely, otherwise engaged, so to speak.
we can do this overnight, failure here (and responsibility for the next shooing) lies with all of us.
3
Americans like guns. That needs to end, if things are to change. If you own a gun - yes, even to shoot at bottles on a wall - you are part of the problem. The number of guns in a country is directly correlated to the number killed by guns each year. The gun was part of America's Ur myth, the foundation story. Now it's time to grow past that.
23
The children are going to take it into their hands. After all, their the ones getting killed and living in fear. High schools across the country are going to walk out on April 20, the anniversary of Columbine.
34
This country has always preyed on the most vulnerable. Women, children, racial minorities, disabled people, gay people, the elderly, poor people, field hands, immigrants, the environment, people who have two brain cells to rub together.... And then we quit targeting one vulnerable group for a while, improve things for them, and switch to another targeted group. After that, we quit targeting the second group for a while, improve things for them, and switch to a third. And then, once things come to a head with the third group and enough people are outraged in the name of justice, we simply go back to targeting the first group again. And so it goes.
This rich white male administration, however, is doing things a little differently. They're targeting all of the vulnerable groups at once. It's much more efficient.
21
We NEED to keep our children safe. Someone please explain to me why we NEED an assault rifle?
26
The NRA's behavior shows that it is mainly a gun-manufacture's lobby, not a hunting / self-defense lobbying organization.
28
America , land of unfettered gun ownership. I want to apologize for my desensitized opinion. I do not own a gun and will never own one. What did we expect handing out so many weapons . Weapons pure and simple . Police officers cannot do their jobs effectively. Children in schools marked as killing fields for cowards . Shame on us. What did we expect !!!
21
Gun regulation would cut into Cerberus Capital's Stephen A. Feinberg profits from guns sales.
16
The definition of irony: A man who murdered 17 people in cold blood is "willing" to take a deal to escape the death penalty.
17
Daniel Boone only required one shot. He relied on skill. No true sportsman needs an AR-15 type gun. I learned to shoot with a single shot .22 in the 1960s. If you know anything about ballistics, you know that the only purpose for the AR-15 is to kill people. Unfortunately, because of the congressional cowards, that is often children.
42
We are losing more lives in school shootings each month than we are in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
21
And let's not overlook the fact that he was well known to his friends on the internet as a racist, and was seen posing on his Instagram account wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, as marketed and sold by our President. He apparently even made an earlier video of himself shooting the gun, out of a window, while wearing the hat.
27
None of the corrupt members of the GOP nor Trump will ever turn on the NRA. It is about money and nothing else matters. If children have to die, so be it. They will get money for their next campaign and let the massacres continue.
35
Nothing exposes the fatal flaw in unregulated capitalism like the NRA. What legislators these cynical lobbyists can't buy out with dollars, they destroy with dollars. Sacrificing virgins has until now typically been regarded as a pagan practice, yet in our so called first world 'enlightened' society we freely permit a bi-weekly culling of the herd solely for profit, sick kicks and giggles. Ms Down has written her most incisive and important column in years, one worthy of Florida's wounded but undefeated children. Bravo!
20
Mo, just in case you've conveniently forgotten, the Republicans made plans to deny President Obama any legislative victory so I'm not sure how you thought he'd get gun legislation passed after Sandy Hook. That's such a specious statement from you.
I write this b/c it wouldn't take much for you to admit that you were wrong and examine your extreme feelings about Hillary and where they come from. This country is in a horribly weakened state. A President who tries to tear down the FBI and Attorney General. He can't staff most of the positions in his White House much less any other part of government. The ones he does appoint are complete toadies. And there's no one to stand up to him. The Lions of the Senate are long gone. Very sad state of affairs.
Honestly, does Trump really still look better than crooked Hillary? Oh, where was the dig at her in this column?
Confess your error in judgement, Mo!
49
I keep thinking to myself, “what’s the number?” How many children, how many people will have to die before our Congress and President do something about gun control? Seventy five isn’t the number, 49 isn’t the number. Wayne LaPierre knows the number, millions. Of dollars that is s, to be able to continue the insanity of guns. What’s the number?
15
Gun owners, with more guns than people in the US, are making cowardice a way of life. It certainly does not take an AK whatever to "protect" your home. You are merely providing someone a weapon to kill others, if not yourself.
16
My thought is to let all happy trigger gun owners to compulsory join foot soldiers who are fighting terrorists in Iraq and Syria. There's a lot of gun practice they can do and make all the parties happy. So you get to buy the gun only if you enlist and get deployed one year to ISIS infested countries...
11
America is now firmly in the grip of the addictions of the GOP base, and their suppliers are ruling the country and destroying its children. The triumph of ignorance.
19
The gov't. will ban dangerous drugs, toys and products, but they will not ban the most dangerous killing machine out there today...the assault rifle! This is horrendous, and the Republicans are complicit in these assault rifle murders! We must demand candidates who promise to ban assault rifles. Nobody needs to own a mass killing machine. Ban assault rifles NOW! Shame on you politicians who do not support this BAN.
24
Ms. Dowd says, " If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything? "
Yes something could. But not men.
In Ireland,"the troubles" roiled for lifetimes, until the Irish women said, "enough!" God bless those women. Some of the soldiers from both sides are now not fighting, bombing, terrorizing, but instead driving tour buses, showing former conflict zones to Belfast tourists..
America, your moment will come, when female and youth forces tell these gun nuts, and the Republican NRA funded politicians, "ENOUGH". It will come from your women, AND your children. Blessings to them.
23
Trump was widely known to be mentally unstable. a pathological liar, a business crook, a draft dodger, a tax evader, a willful destroyer of other people’s reputations, a faithless husband, a serial philanderer, a bad example to children, a man with no discernible knowledge of foreign affairs or American history and a man devoid of sympathy for Muslims and other minorities when the American people hired him.
"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."
--- Trump at campaign rally in Iowa in January 2016.
One of the most truthful things he has ever said to the American people, and a major reason why it is still difficult to figure out a way to get rid of him.
30
Thank you. Children should not be dying to protect the right to bear arms that began with muzzleloaders...
16
I am frightened by the repeated fact that mass murder was committed with a "legally" obtained weapon. The wild west states and the laws-a-plenty northeast equally bury children. The 'right" Vs 'privilege' argument rings absurdly hollow for a grieving family. Dozens of first graders didn't do it, a field of gambling revelers didn't do it, the fear of firing any excitable angry male hasn't done it.
What will? A suggestion , in the 1960's the sight of legally armed Black Panther's caused near panic. How about armed grieving family members march on the Capital? How about arming every legally residenced Muslim immigrant??
Sanity and reason are not enough folks , we need to get creative!
6
“When societies try to protect a malevolent status quo, they become warped. The most chilling sign of this is when people look the other way as the most vulnerable members of society are preyed on.”
Just so. Your analogy to the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church and to the aspect of the #MeToo movement that rips the spider webs of protection from predators is also spot on.
We ourselves spent years devolving our politics to the point where Russians bots and trolls could flourish here. We’ll just have to start thinking things through for ourselves as best we can if we’re going to reweave our politics.
If one candidate supports figuring out how to reduce mass killings or child or maternal mortality as other wealthy democratic nations have done, and the other candidate is lukewarm or actively opposes the effort, that says something. We’re probably at the point where it says more than the brand of the candidate’s political party.
Perhaps the Democrats could take some of the tarnish off their brand by persistently taking their case to the voters on these issues without regard to what the polls say voters care about at any given moment. Will the people who underwrite Democratic messaging pay for that sort of thing? I’m not asking sarcastically, just asking.
5
I don't have children... but if I did I would certainly be doing something serious to protect them from the tyranny of the NRA who makes all of these killing machine massacres possible. Perhaps Americans just don't really care about their children as much as they like to think they do. After all there are a lot more parents in this country than there are NRA members. And as long as these parents wait for someone else to protect their children the result will simply be more and more and more and more of their children murdered. America need to decide soon just how much they love their children. Or whether they are all simply disposable.
10
The NRA spent over $50 million dollars getting Republicans elected in 2016. Virtually zero on Democrats. Where is the Republican majority voice for gun regulation needed to stop these murderous rampages? Meaningless, "thought and prayers".
19
Guns don't kill schoolchildren, people kill schoolchildren and the Republicans usually blame mental illness. They seem to forget that they voted for a bill a year ago, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, that made it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns. Here's a Facebook post they should mull over: "Amazing how mental illness doesn't massacre schoolchildren in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom."
19
It is unconscionable and criminal what the NRA has wrought with their greedy ferver. That so many Americans remain gullible to their two-bit arguments about freedom and infringement makes them co-conspirators in the ruse. That Congress refuses to negotiate sensible regulation is nothing short of collusion at this point.
When an 18 year old can buy an AR-15 but not a six pack of beer, we have truly lost perspective on our values and our responsibilities to each other as a community. The fact that we continue to strip our schools of tools, our communities of mental health support systems, and our local law enforcement of resources only exacerbates the problem.
There are many solutions that help reduce the risk of what happened in Florida happening again. It's time for the NRA to stand down and let us all come together to get to work.
35
I have had the same feeling that the #MeToo movement has opened the door for outrage and action to gain a foothold in solving other intractable societal problems where the community has “shrugged and looked away,” I am hoping people begin to place their priorities on protecting humanity but I have witnessed the job the NRA and the far right media have done (bot-driven or otherwise) to entrench people’s reactions to mass shootings. There is no outrage on that side toward weapons of war being easily accessed by citizens by the millions. There are only recriminations about failures of the mental health system (which didn’t seem to bother those same folks who who supported the repeal of access to health care for millions), lack of parental discipline, religion in schools or the proliferation of violent video games. Parental discipline, God in our schools and good guys with guns are the answers! There is no outrage for gun profiteers because the NRA and right wing media have done their jobs well and have obfuscated their real reasons for getting people to become second amendment worshippers. A rapist or abuser is a harder thing to ignore than corporate greed shrouded and protected by the best PR (and legislators) money can buy. This lack of a visible boogeyman perpetuates these silly arguments in a way that is not possible with the #MeToo movement and that is what gives me pause...
11
I cannot believe that there aren't enough members of Congress with the courage to fight the NRA and pass some measures on gun control.
25
Eunuchs of the Roman Empire had more manhood than Republican members of the current Congress whose tri-god of the Oligarchs, Putin and the NRA seemingly rules their every action and in-action. There's a reason that most "leaders" of the GOP have avoided serving in the military and come from families where that has been the tradition, generation after generation.
25
Guns don't kill people.
My guns never killed anyone.
Fatherless boys kill people.
Welfare and Progressive/Feminist attitudes (anything goes; dads don't matter, etc.) encourage, reward, and exacerbate single motherhood/fatherlessness.
Progressives have replaced God-based moral absolutes (i.e. don't murder) with "If it feels good, do it."
The self-esteem movement replaced "Sticks and stones..." with the teaching that we have a right to go thru life free from hurt feelings and failure, leaving folks clueless when teased or confronted with difficult situations.
Democrats are the reason for the killing season.
2
One of the stupidest observations/suggestions I have ever witnessed was the other night on MSNBC. Brian Williams on his show that this could be an opportunity for President Trump to lead on the gun issue, like "Nixon going to China" in the early 70s. Does he not know Trump by now? Trump is all about appeasing his radical base, who would never approve of any gun legislation. Trump made a speech to the adoring and approving crowd at the NRA convention. Trump invited Ted Nugent (NRA board member) to the oval office not too long after the inauguration. The only way to change things about guns is to change who sits in the Congress. The only way to do that is to get out and vote for their opponents.
24
This kind of slaughter will only happen in America. Republicans will never be for gun control just like they would never be for abortion. These two things are their bread and butter. The voters have to do the change. They have to keep voting for gun control candidates not in one or two election but constantly. Then we have a chance.
Look what happened to democrats in 1994 election. They have lost the House after 40 years. Not one republican lost election that year. Because Clinton signed the assault weapon ban that year. After that no politician is willing to stick it out. We the people have to do it in every election after election non stop so that our kids do not get slaughtered.
21
If WWII was won on the "playing fields of Eaton" then today's America was made by the " Boys from the mean streets of Queens" NY. Justice Scalia weakened our gun laws, tipped the scales in the Bush v. Gore decision. Weinstein made it acceptable for Hollywood to exploit women and Trump has attacked the press, the two party system, weakened our State Department, threatened our friends overseas and undermines our Democracy with his fake tweets. What a country.
16
This man is a sad, sick human being. Everybody knew this to be true because there were signs everywhere. People pointed them out, expressed concern, waited for someone - anyone- to take action to prevent a terrible tragedy. We're still waiting. N. Cruz or D. Trump?
8
Israel had a similar problem and they took a solution that has been 100% effective and there have been zero school shootings since this policy was implemented over 50 years ago. They took every adult working at the school from the principal to the janitors to a firing range and issued each of them A FULLY AUTOMATIC WEAPON. They were all trained on how to fire, care for and safely store the weapons and it worked. We need to end the gun free zones and let the teachers and staff CC be able to protect themselves and their kids.
3
Children are refusing to go back to school until the republicans ban semi automatic assault rifles, and a host of other sane measures. We should offer our services to home school them until that day comes. School children obviously have more sense and courage then the impotent, cowering congressmen to scared to take a vote. Absurd.
17
The protests from the Parkland students was very powerful. They are not old enough to vote yet, but we all heard their voices. Perhaps the the most potent words will come from those whose lives seem to be threatened the most. I would love to see this protest spread to all of our communities. Come on kids....start yelling!!!!
14
Curious...
Progressives attack the gun rights of law abiding citizens, yet defend:
Violent movies targeted at our youth.
Violent video games targeted at our youth.
Violent lyrics in popular music targeted at our youth.
That sounds rather agenda driven to a rational mind.
1
I watched a stunned nation on TV when we buried our 35th President. I remember Charles Whitman in 1966 showering bullets high a top a tower killing unsuspecting students. I was horrified when Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Robert Kennedy were gunned down.
I was stunned when Laurie Dann walked into an elementary school and massacred young children in 1987. Columbine, Sandy Hook, West Virginia....how many more of our children will die needlessly?
We need a march on the NRA similar to King's march on Washington. No more killing. Ban the assault rifles, tighten our laws on access. End the dirty money that kills our babies. Sadly, children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters are gunned down every day -- we lose over 30,000 fellow citizens a year to guns.
As a young student in grade school I feared the loss of our politicians, as a parent I feared for the safety of my children in school and as a grandfather I fear for the safety of my grandchildren to drive by killings and children dying in their homes because bullets of mass killing are striking children in the safety of their home.
This must end. Put the NRA on notice. We must satisfy the need of gun ownership with common sense bans on assault weapons manufactured for the sole purpose of killing enemy combatants.
The march on the NRA should be Mother's Day to signify the pain and loss every mother has burdened over the half century. Then onward to the Capital to end the flow of dirty money that supports killing.
24
Trump's immoral compass: Massive NRA campaign contributions vs mass shootings of kids. For Trump, apparently, the answer was easy. Maybe the moral voice of wise students will lead us back to sanity.
10
Offering my thoughts and prayers.....for the straw that breaks the NRA's back, for the NRA's un-American Activities moment, for the NRA's Edmund Pettus Bridge moment, for its #Me Too moment.What ever it is, may it arrive soon.
9
Note to Democratic leadership in Congress:
This is worth a government shutdown.
12
Ms. Dowd:
This is not only Trumps problem. He, frankly, is clueless. Making a thumbs up at a hospital? After children have been slaughtered. Trump is a fool and not someone who can lead this debate. His one term presidency will be recognized as a low point in the office. You can help to make that happen.
I am in favor of repeal of the Second Amendment. Replace it, if that is what it takes, with something that recognizes that there is no "militia". The cowards in Congress need to either step up or get out of the way.
But you are right...Trump is a fool.
23
Guns are big business and unless gun makers are held responsible for selling weapons of mass destruction, nothing will get done. The parents of Sandyhook have it correctly; sue the industry for their irresponsible behavior of selling weapons whose function is mass murder.
12
Yeesh Maureen, don't you have the ability to see Trump as his own pathetic self? Doesn't his ineptness have to be blamed on Obama? OK, Obama had some failings - so be it. Now, our intelligent electorate decided to put Trump in charge. It's his watch, that's the way it works in this country. He is demonstrating daily his incompetence and his inability to govern. He is devoid of ideas about most issues facing the US and especially so on guns. More emphasis on this please, and less on the past.
7
Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. Our children, their parents, siblings, and relatives, are being betrayed by Trump, Ryan, McConnell, and most Republican members of Congress, for the blood money from the NRA. These guys are rogues and hypocrites.
In their minds,if a white shooter is involved, he is mentally deranged, if black it is because " they are all the same". If Hispanic, it is because " they are all drug pushers and rapists". If a Muslim it is because " they are all terrorists" In this world, there is no need for gun control.
The reality is that the biggest population of mentally deranged people are in Congress. Why does any American outside of the military and law enforcement agencies, need an AR-15? Or any other similar weapon?
Gun control will not happen until we have decent, sensible, people in the majority in Congress.
27
I find it interesting to note that whereas the Supreme Court recognizes cannabis as sacrament but denies its use based upon their determination that the “health, welfare and morals of society outweighs that religious freedom,” that the health and welfare of gun victims cannot rise to this same level of concern?
And where oh where is the NRA when medicinal marijuana users are denied the right to purchase arms? Obviously in bed with the alcohol industry, concerned for lost revenue in the diversion of discretionary spending from alcohol to cannabis. And lest we forget the ongoing opioid crisis and the lip service, courtesy of Big Pharma, being paid there as the DEA denies petitions to remove marijuana from Schedule I based upon it being a violation of international treaty? This as Israeli allies lead efforts to dispense medical cannabis to its citizenry.
The US could learn from other countries if we would climb down off our high horses.
8
Gun massacres, though horrific, are a distinct minority of gun deaths in the USA. Many more people die every day from suicides and shootings which are primarily in big cities. These mass shootings get us all indignant but are just a sliver of where bullets kill people.
I suppose the rationalization that they did it to themselves or were in some type of situation (poor minority) which brought it on absolves us any need to be outraged.
It’s similar to how we got worked up over Zika virus (nobody died) when nearly 50,000 people die of influenza yearly and we have just gotten used to it.
2
YES! Thank you, Ms. Dowd, for clarification and illumination on this heinous, uniquely USA-owned scourge.
2
The time to handle this is NOW. For those who want to blame administrations, remember that it has to go through Congress first. Executive order will not work with the billion dollar lobby. This is our chance, if all representatives lost their NRA money, then the playing field is even. We have a three party majority. Otherwise, you are accessories to the murder of many.
2
Everytime I walk into a supermarket I check the potential for extra exits at the back of the store thinking any minute I could hear gunfire. This is the real America.
In the last couple of days it seems to have comedown to teenagers to enlighten Trump, Ryan et al how stupid they sound spewing pablum and empty bromides after these mass killings.
Equally as discouraging is that when people without access to millions try to run for office, they're discouraged by the vast resources involved in such an enterprise.
Our government is an outrage about which nothing will ever be done.
7
It's time for gun safety advocates to move into the wider world with more aggressive but always non-lethal tactics. here are a few suggestions:
- Send our representatives partially completed death certificates with the name of their child in the identification box and "gunshot wound" in the cause of death box and "secondary school" in the location
- Attach the fake plastic bullet holes to the doors or windows of the NRA headquarters, gun manufacturers and gun dealers relentlessly
- Place Post-It notes on gun displays in Walmart and other stores reading "Perfect for killing children"
- Divest any assets you have in manufacturers of sellers of guns for sale to individuals
- Attend gun shows and photograph license plates in the parking lot and send the photos to law enforcement
- Run for office as a gun safety advocate
- Ask each candidate what he or she will do after the NEXT mass shooting event and how many more would be needed before action is taken
In short, make gun sales, gun possession and gun use outside of the military, law enforcement and hunting for food uncool.
10
Our nation has become deranged. Absolutely deranged. The students see this and know they have to take this into their own hands. It’s their future or lack of it at stake. I’ve been incredibly moved and impressed at the articulate passionate outcry from them! We have raised some spectacular young people!! Let’s stand with them and help them force change!
10
Imagine a person starts shooting in a dimly lit night club and 100 of the 500 patrons pull out their guns and start shooting. Who are they shooting at? They can't see 20 feet and are blinded by the muzzle flashes as they continue to pull the trigger, drop the empty magazine and put in another 15 rounds and resume firing. That ought to make you resolve to never again go into a night club or bar even if there is a sign that says you can't bring a gun into the place. Pat Tillman was killed by fratricide while in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. In broad daylight.
The NRA is America's organization of gun death.
7
After 911, we all felt resolve in sync. After Sandy Hook, there was resolve but division among the gun lobby and most others. We are lazy and most rather sit home and gripe. Its much much easier than political action. Someone needs to do the hard work and do the math and create a solution that might work to make gun ownership a very costly and merit based right. You can own a gun but you and the gun industry owns the results- all costs related to any accidental or intentional act. Also everyone who wants to own a gun must 'earn' it. Responsible gun ownership is as important to safety as driving a car. Finally, the definition of guns has to change- who needs a semi or automatic weapon? If for sport, then limit their use to gun clubs that are responsible for their safe use. These steps need to be law and the hard work and capital need to work on electing and convincing those who create law to pass the legislation. Then we need to enforce the law. Who's game?
4
Are we done with this topic now? It’s been like a whole week and the Olympics are on. I’ll give this topic 5 more days and a couple of Trump tweets and we’ll move on. And NOTHING WILL BE DONE!
6
Kurt Vonnegut pointed out long ago that a gun was a lazy writers way to end a story, or words to that effect. We see a lot of gun violence on TV and video games. That would be a place to start less guns and better writing on TV.
Mental health should be a major part of the social safety net but, oh darn there is no social safety net.
3
The gun fight is not only about money or kids dying. It’s the bedrock of the conservative struggle to focus only on the individual. Collective thinking is a threat to this philosophy. This bankrupt philosophy preaches that the collective will is bad, that the government solves no problems, and that all choices present winners and losers.
This is why Archie Bunker will never follow through on certain promises he made leading up to the election. Those that fail this litmus test will be discarded.
The threat isn’t that the NRA would disapprove. It’s that Americans might discover what the more mature countries already know— collective thinking solves problems way beyond the few. While it was a noble (and correct) ambition, the idea that we are “stronger together” is not one that America is ready for YET.
5
The common denominator in these mass murders is anger. Each of them has a hair trigger that often isn't obvious to those around them. Checks on mental illness will not root out these angry men who are unlikely to avail themselves of mental health services. Track weapon sales, registration and require licenses.
5
The inability of republicans to change course on gun matters is just another outcome of their reaction to the Civil Rights Act. Many whites have seen themselves as a threatened race since that time. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes and so on were quite willing to take on votes and money from anywhere they could get them, including the darker elements of society that had been largely purged from the party after the Goldwater debacle. They need their guns more than ever to battle the coming ‘brown horde’, and they sold themselves long ago on the fallacy that only the republican party can save us from doom.
6
Thank you Ms. Dowd. What I find frustrating is I hear what schools will do to help their students feel safe against predators with assault rifles but I don’t hear a d- - - thing coming from our President or Congress to help stop these predators, nothing. Why should our children be scared to go to school? How did our Republican and a few Democratic Congressman become so weak, so malleable to the NRA? What do these politicians owe the NRA? These politicians owe our children a safe learning environment. Someone in America, stop this. Trump is responsible for this Cruz murderer being able to buy an AR15 because he signed an executive order to change what Obama put in place which was to not letting mentally ill Americans from buying these guns. Trump has blood on his hands. God bless the students who are speaking out in Florida. For all, there’s a walk out in March against gun violence in our schools systems. Start preparing. The NRA Has taken the second amendment hostage and using it to sell guns for profit. That’s all they want is money and they will do whatever it takes to sell their guns.
8
I wonder when we will have another "1968" moment where people finally say enough and real change happens?
Do American cities literally have to burn again?
I really hope not. Enough with violence.
Enough.
4
Grover Norquist has famously required conservative politicians to sign a pledge to not raise taxes. How about someone leading a campaign to have politicians running for office to make a pledge to ban assault weapons? Or else lose campaign contribution, face bad publicity, and face opposition people at their campaign rallies!
7
Ms. Dowd returns and like Trump takes a hit at President Obama - the NRA runs deep - even in Democratic territory. The real question is how many deaths are prevented by average citizens carrying guns? How many people are killed by average citizens carrying guns? Is no one horrified that their children are trained on how to face these terrible situations. The adults in the room fail to act - I have hope in the traumatized young generation.
3
Where is the leadership on this issue? Ms. Dowd and the vast majority of Americans believe there are too many guns that are too easy to obtain and yet the same vast majority can agree on what to do: limit gun access, but do not eradicate a citizen's right to own a gun for hunting. Where is the leader who can persistently and tenaciously advocate for the majority who agree on this issue? We can learn from the NRA on how to conduct a counteroffensive - do not give up and support those who support your goal.
3
With the #Me Too Movement, I feel a glimmer of hope. But it will take a strong, grassroots, unrelenting movement of regular people. Civil Right was a long fight, not just a few phone calls to your Congressman. We can do it! We are on the verge. Politicians are afraid of the Pitchfork effect. They will never take action until they see the pitchforks of outrage coming over the hill, wielded by regular people who are not going to take it anymore. Could this finally be the tipping point on sensible gun laws?
5
Great article. It echoes the articulate intelligent rage that's being expressed in Florida by the survivors.
2
Lets be serious, nothing is going to change until the republicans are no longer in charge and companies are not considered people.
6
It all comes down not to lives but money. Shame the politicians who only offer "thoughts and prayers" and get to how much each receives in campaign dollars from the NRA. Public shame (and continuing public shame) on those who elevate their own egos and power at the altar of money and guns. How can they publicly justify total inaction on this life and death issue?
4
American 'adults' are still behaving like monied cowards. Our President and the GOP controlled Congress have clearly stated by omission that money for campaigns is more important than the safety and lives of our children.
It is with a modicum of hope I watch those children in Florida protest, tweet and shout, nay, rage against the NRA ideology and its followers. And their parents are going them.
Make no mistake about the generational importance of this moment against the status quo. They may not be able to vote but these students are standing up and rejecting the failure of their parents generation. They see the disgusting weakness and moral failure clearly. Demanding Action not just words.
It's way past time for us - the parents and grandparents - to find our spines and join our children in this moment. We have been far too lazy and inept in our weak profession of sanity in the face of gun carnage in our society.
Godspeed to the voices of the students. Time to ACT NOW.
3
If the current adults do nothing to reduce gun violence the next generations may very well take matters into their own hands by rescinding or highly restricting the Second Amendment. It’s already starting to happen; the children are fed up with the paralysis and demanding action.
When you grow up with the fear of being shot every day at school, planning and practicing escape routes, it’s your reality even if it never happens to you.
Gun control? Armed guards in schools? Arm all the teachers? These are proposals in my newsfeed. True, such measures can have an effect. But they are mere bandaids. Guns have been around forever; mass shootings have not.
The root of the problem is a subset of troubled kids. School districts should hire staff dedicated to identifying these kids very early to provide intervention. Teach conflict resolution. Identify and help bullied kids. For the older students, monitor social media when a student is reported while also not stepping on civil rights.
Ordinarily, a federal task force accomplishes little. In this case, though, it could provide an evolving template for school districts to tap.
Expensive? Yes. But we are worth it.
6
I think there is too much focus on gun control. so what is we raise the age of getting a gun to 21. I don't think that will change anything. what we need to look at is the lives of the shooters. lets follow those breadcrumbs and see where that leads. you hardly ever hear anything about that. child rearing practices, what children are doing online, the isolation that some kids feel, where is this rage coming from. we need to look down that path and see where it leads.
1
The second amendment says nothing about the right to use bullets,they didn’t exist when it was written. We can outlaw the sale different types of ammunition without amending the constitution.
10
"Then I gave up. If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?"
I fear too many of us did. As a teacher and mother bound by this tyranny for my entire career (I was a young teacher when Columbine happened and it's been a rare day since that I haven't paused to think about it) that terrible day at Sandy Hook was my nadir point. I stood huddled with teachers in our art room crying as the horrific images kept breaking, each worse than the last.
When these events happen they happen in all of our schools. We had a scheduled lockdown drill the day after the Pulse Massacre. I had students break down crying. One girl told us that there has not been a day since Sandy Hook when she has not paused as she's left her car to think, "Is this the day I die at school?" A chorus of students affirmed the same; many said they fear going to college because of V-Tech and other slayings. I was nauseous listening to them.
I am so furious and fed-up but for this first time I feel a real sea-change. Let our children lead us. Their righteous fury has given them the voice of true leaders. Frankly, it's time for teachers and students to walk out. The NRA is a terrorist organization. I have said so in the wake of every slaying and used to be accused of hysteria, but my claim is borne of the experience of witnessing what this inchoate fear is doing to my students and my children. We live in terror.
There is NO excusing this; those who do are complicit.Enough.
18
Mr. President - Do Something was an apt headline in a newspaper. The problem is he doesn't know what to do. Or does not have the inclination because he be's on the side of the NRA in his mind. He sees these shootings as aberrations.
At minimum, he could have established a federal Task Force on School Safety. Develop a method for young people using social media to report untoward behavior to authorities anonymously. Expand local police chiefs authority to engage and bring to a court young persons who exhibit a need for intervention like the young Mr. Cruz. In NYC years ago police made PIN REPORTS (Persons in Need of Supervision.)
Maureen Dowd is exasperated like many of us. What to do? What to do?
As Dowd points out, We had a chance under President Obama when they were in a position to do something and it went south. I thpught for sure something would happen when he spoke at the Gabby Gifford gathering after she was shot.
There is so much that can be done if we had the will and a leader like an LBJ. Here are some thoughts: ban the sale forever and limit the semi-auto rifle to only the military and law enforcement. Close the multiple loopholes for buying one used or otherwise. Raise the age to buy a firearm to 25 years old. Expand background investigations to include a more comprehensive psychological, emotional, and social media review.
And last, find me an LBJ to get it done.
5
There is a lot of frustration expressed in comments, but little on specific actions to discuss... here’s a few:
1. Metal detectors installed.
2. Enforce existing laws.
3. Mandatory active shooter training.
4. Facilities upgrades / locks.
5. Hire retired police / military as armed guards.
6. Train teachers who want to volunteer for concealed carry for added defense.
7. Publicize deterrents in local communities and on websites.
8. Raise purchase age for guns to 25.
Not being a gun owner or an NRA member - it just seems that if both sides could stop vilifying each other and have a substantive discussion - perhaps some solutions could actually be put in place.
3
The question for me: is it possible for any anti-gun political party to get elected as long as Citizens United stands and corporations, "charitable" groups that are really political scams, PACS and the very wealthy are prevented from spending unlimited amounts on elections.
Until that changes, good luck. The gun lobby will win every time.
What would happen if the Democrats made overturning Citizens United as a core priority? As of now, they would be overwhelmed by the corporate and NRA money machine screaming that their "freedoms" are being taken away. And the American people, like the sheep they can be, will fall in line.
7
And there it was, in the middle of an otherwise reasonable column. Maureen blames Obama for not getting gun control passed after Newtown, when in fact it was Mitch McConnell who blocked the bill that the Senate was ready to pass. There's a simple reason gun measures haven't been put into law to sae our children: Republicans take the NRA's blood money. Millions of it, including the $20-30 m that the NRA used to help elect Trump. Where is Maureen's mention of that fact here?
17
Where is the discussion on securing and protecting the children?
Politicians, celebrities, banks and airports all have armed protection details.
Our schools, for the most part have signs to protect them. "Gun free zone". 99% of the population respects those signs, even those who believe in and exercise their rights of self defense (the most law abiding group out there, BTW), disarm before going into schools. But, the 99.someting percent are not the problem, it's the .whaterver percent that bedbug crazy and intent on mayhem.
Let's protect the children, not with hopes and wishes, but actual security. Let's follow the existing laws and enter disqualifying information into NICS. Let's follow up on threatening and disturbed social media activity.
Let's not proceed down a path which will further divide our fractured society.
2
I taught high school English and endured the ridiculous, time-wasting "intruder with a gun in the building drills" knowing full well that a person with a gun could easily blast the lock off my classroom door and spay deadly bullet about like a torrent of rain. On a hopeful note, I see a glimmer of hope in the reaction of the teens in Florida. They are bravely taking on the politicians and their hypocrisy. In 2012, when the "beautiful babies" in Newtown were slaughter, these kids were just just 8 years old...maybe these are the Sandy Hook kids with a voice.
7
It's an addiction and a delusion, not a freedom; and it obscene to consider it worth the life of one child.
7
This is an awesome column, each word points to the madness of a complicit society. Please write a book on this subject, it's needed.
2
BTW- congress has acted on gun control. And they act all the time.
They gave the president the OK to ease restrictions on background checks for persons with mental illness. They are currently pushing for legislation that will allow a person with a concealed carry permit issued in any state to use that permit in any other state, even more regulated states.
They act to ease restrictions and regulation, to make it easier to purchase and transport (smuggle??) guns from low regulation states to restrictive states.
Who know what other actions they are planning-but it will certainly be make purchase of more powerful, more deadly weapons easier by anyone, and to compel states that have sensible regulations to get stuck with the will of the NRA. And, most of this over the objection of law enforcement professionals, so much for being the law and order party.
More like the "more guns and dead children party"
9
I to thought I could fight them from within, but upon joining, I find you have to be a member for 5 years before you get a vote. Anyone know how we can force their top brass to listen to the majority of the members?
1
Maureen, I think your dislike of President Obama has overtaken your analytic skills. He tried, so hard, to get gun control measures started. (You do know that legislation can only be introduced by a Member of Congress, right?) Presidents can encourage, even offer content for legislation but they cannot introduce it themselves. And Obama tried so so hard only to be screamed down by the gun lobby and their enablers in Congress.
13
My son is in law enforcement, which requires him to carry an off duty weapon. He had been patronizing a gun shop in Dutchess County, NY, which ran a continuous loop video on TV demonstrating how Sandy Hook was a hoax perpetrated by “anti 2nd amendment groups" (he stopped patronizing them because of the video). I know these small store owners did not make this video themselves. It was ginned up and disseminated by pro gun organizations. This is the level of deceit and propaganda we are up against in trying to convince lawmakers to DO SOMETHING about gun violence.
12
"Then I gave up. If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?"
Sadly, Maureen, the answer to your question is still "nothing." Two culprits emerge: a cowardly, greedy and uncaring Republican Congress and a terribly misguided and heartless NRA.
The cost of repairing these two problems may very well be more of the same until Americans, all American acknowledge the horror of this carnage and say, "Enough!"
This year's elections would be a good place to start.
375
All we have to do is remove the "special rights" that gun manufacturers have. Right now, we can't sue under consumer protection or product liability laws; we can't research the damage done by guns; we have no safety regulations in place to reduce casualties, no statistical information or measurements, etc.
If guns were like other products -- say, cars -- we could make them safer: license, registration, insurance, safety training, lessons.
If that happened, we can be sure the NRA would be right there with classes and insurance to continue to making money off the industry they serve.
22
The problem with “sensible gun control” is that there is a well-founded fear amongst gun owners and other conservatives that the left will use “sensible” legislation as the thin of of a wedge that eventually bans all firearms of all types. We see this already at work with the denial of Second Amendment Rights, even in the face of court decisions affirming them. What’s next, more “sensible” restrictions in other areas?
2
From your article in re Obama and guns:
"It’s unbelievable that with 90 percent of Americans on his side, he could get only 54 votes in the Senate. It was a glaring example of his weakness in using leverage to get what he wants. No one on Capitol Hill is scared of him." What you neglected to mention in your article but mentioned here is that the Senate did not pass the bill. Isn't that a pity? There are 3 separate departments of government and the president does not have the ability, given the GOP's hatred of Obama, to pass every bill he would like.
Ban assault rifles everywhere and repeal the 2nd Amendment. That's the answer. Somehow or other in virtually every op-ed piece you write a reference to president Obama comes up with a negative reference. Get over it!
The NRA owns the Congress. That's a fact.
54
Why wasn’t this handled in the prior Administration?
Or the one prior to that one?
Did they decide it would not make a difference?
What is it that will make a difference in how things happen?
Is it a law? If so, what does the law say?
3
Not much was able to be accomplished with the last Administration because we had an obstructionist congress who's motto was (first win for Obama, out of the mouth of McConnell,) "He will be a one term President", and upon second win,
" We will not let this President succeed ". How patriotic is that!
Even against those odds Obama achieved.
Oh how I miss the intelligence and class of that man and his family.
5
The point is to handle it now. As in the case of the Catholic priests and sexual predators there was a cultural "norm" that allowed the abuse. Now is the time to recognize that mass murders that kill children or any one for that matter should not be condoned by the N.R.A. or the U.S. Congress or the public.
4
The Second Amendment is not inviolate. It has been an impediment to taking any action at all. It's way past time to repeal it.
Doing so may well take a long time. It doesn't make sense to take our best option off the table, since it doesn't preclude us from trying all the others again.
26
It is so rewarding to see the high school kids - who were victims even though they weren't wounded or killed - standing up and shouting out for reasonable gun control. They are right. We are allowing them to be killed with our inaction.
Mental health is not the problem. Law enforcement is not the problem - except those who are retired and sponsoring gun shows.
GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM. GET THEM OFF THE STREETS OF AMERICA.
EVERY GUN in OUR United States must be REGISTERED on a national database, state LICENSED and fully INSURED for liability.
Attention gun owners: WE do not want your guns. WE want your guns to stop killing us and our loved ones. Don't you?
66
Two main elements, "prevalence of the weapon" and loss of "social cohesion" by the perpetrators, were demonstrated dramatically in the Viet Nam War, especially in 1971-1972. Guns per se in active combat zones were not commonly used to kill junior officers and NCOs, but the practice of "fragging" with fragmentation grenades thrown under beds and inside tents behind the lines in army and marine units, but not in Air Force and navy units where fragmentation grenades were not issued became common practice and their issuance was restricted; documented cases increased significantly in the latter stages of the war when morale and discipline within drafted combat ranks began to wane and racial and drug use tensions and the anti-war movement momentum increased. Loss of "social cohesion" is not to be equated with "mental illness" but rather social breakdown and isolation, and that is not a screenable diagnosis. The prevalence of the weapon of choice and its availability and its lethality can be changed as was demonstrated in the Viet Nam experience.
15
Maureen Welcome back. Two weeks in a row. Your voice has been missed. Please stay engaged.
15
I agree totally, Maureen. The perverted logic that ensues from the NRA is that the lives of our children are necessary sacrifices in order to prevent “the deep state” from barging into our homes and taking our guns away.
These tragedies require the American public to take action to make our society a safe one for us all. We can’t operate in the NRA fantasyland that is based on irrational fear and control.
And we need a compassionate president who represents America, not a bunch of recalcitrant Trump supporters.
35
We do not need another presidential election where votes are unequally counted for any reason.
4
It is this ilk that needs to be overcome. The Gun Goddess perched on a pile of cash, a gun gripped in her cold hands.
https://www.cnn.com/2012/04/15/us/marion-hammer-profile/index.html
10
Intolerable.
Yes, simply put, treating children as collateral damage is intolerable.
Clear. Simple. Fact.
What a stupid and irresponsible nation we've become.
49
Luckily, the kids know that, Maureen. Those kids in Florida are showing - and will show - what they can do. We did it in the 60s, and they are about to do it now. I have tremendous faith in these young people who are mad as hell and not ready to take it any more.
Here’s to YOUTH POWER!
64
true, we (youth) stood up and said no in the 60's but we as a generation have completely disgraced ourselves since.
4
To the extent that we (America) tolerate personal possession of weapons of mass destruction to continue, we are complicit in every such massacre. NRA friends tell me one can murder with a screw driver so must we make screw drivers illegal? Such a devious argument. Over-eating also kills. And over-drinking. And over-anything. So outlaw everything? How many massacres have been inflicted with screwdrivers or with excesses of french fries? Guns are intended to kill. Why has the right to kill, to kill virtually anything we desire to kill at the moment, become such a perfidious use of the second amendment in this land that once was described as a "city set on a hill?"
35
Every tool made for a specific purpose gets used for that purpose eventually.
5
So you cloth this column in outrage over gun violence, yet mask its real intent to slap Obama about the side of the head, till the middle of the column. What is it with you? The culprit in this national tragedy is the Republican Party pimping for the NRA, and you, with your pathological hate for the most decent man to occupy the White House in decades, forfeit the moral high ground to send a jab his way. You should probably forfeit this space and give a more responsible writer the opportunity; or better yet take over to Fox!
77
“I wrote in disgust about President Barack Obama failing to... push through gun control”. As if President Obama was the problem.
The dilusional hubris of Maureen Dowd! The woman who referred to the President as “Barry” for a decade. The columnist who earns a living by writing about her disgust for EVERYTHING, all the time. Except her conservative brother, and her saintly daddy.
Maurie: Your disgust means exactly nothing. Find a mirror. Contemplate what you see.
And while you’re at it, consider turning in your pen in favor of essayists who can write a cogent on-point op ed piece that doesn’t pull current news and trends together into a hot mess of “disgust”.
71
The hysterical leftists like Dowd, Blow and their ilk will not stop until the law abiding citizens are disarmed and only those intent on killing innocents, have guns. We have a President who believes un the sacred second amendment, the precious civil right afforded to us by our founding fathers. The "people" have that right , not only militias as the illiterate radicals who never diagramed a sentence tell us, andithat right shall not be infringed. That is in bedrock. Congress must pass conceal carry reciprocity immediately. If gunmen know teachers are armed, those who are afraid to die like Nick Cruz, will stay away.
3
If the answer is armed ex-military walking the halls of my kids’ school, I’ll keep them home & teach them myself. Teachers packing heat is not the answer.
10
Appears to me that the one who is hysterical is you. Man-made declarations, including the Constitution, are not sacred. The Constitution can be amended and amendments can be repealed. Reserve that for religious documents please (and even these are written by people and open to interpretation). Most school shooters are not afraid to die, and even if teachers are armed, that doesn't prevent students being killed. It only ensures that a school shooter bursting into a classroom will shoot the teacher first. And what education is it, when teachers have to teach with fully loaded and sharp weapons in immediate reach? Why do you think they don't have to do that in any civilized country, including China and Russia? The only other country I can think of where teachers have to be on the lookout for shooters at any time, is teachers in girl schools in Afghanistan...
10
Steve, do you really think when the founding fathers wrote our flawed second amendment that they intended it to lead to the mass slaughter of children? Sacred second amendment? Please.
8
First of all there is no use in expecting Trump to follow through on anything he says. He is an ignorant, soulless being as we all know. And his chief advisors are scary - especially Stephen Miller, the born again Nazi.
But I digress. The real criminals here are the greed driven gun manufacturers and their highly paid, well connected, lobbyists who funnel tons of money through the NRA and conservative PACs to GOP Congress members who do their bidding.
The real light in this darkness is the students from Florida who have spontaneously and immediately spoken out and protested about the real issue - guns. They get it! They are not diffusing the issue with all the lesser causes. What intelligence and courage they have! And they are are lifting up the issue and the outrage to the entire nation! Good on them. And may it be sustained in the coming national protests in March and April and in between and after until The AR -15 is banned and gun restrictions are federally, not state, mandated.
Children have historically been collateral damage in the game of power and money. Think of the children in Syria and the millions of children killed in the Holocaust. Now it is our own government that is the perpetrator. Only the uprising of the citizens of our country against the powers that be will effect permanent change.
Let's stand up for our children and not let them be slaughtered anymore!
25
Maybe you could have really done something about gun control, but no Maureen, you chose to bloviate about how bad "Barry" was doing as president. How does "Barry" look now, Maureen?
54
America is in the throes of great disruptions and anxieties, as we sort out our values and our future. But it doesn’t take any soul searching to know this: Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable.
---------------------------------------------
Stop being so maudlin, Mo. You should be better than that.
The massacre had nothing to do with NRA or guns. It had everything to do with FBI failing to do its job when it was tipped off TWICE within a year about this maniac, one tip coming as late as a month before the tragedy.
Get real.
2
Here’s what I don’t get. President fires FBI Director, installs a replacement. FBI fails to follow up on tips. President rips the FBI. Isn’t it his FBI now? Aren’t we far enough removed from Jan’17 to be done blaming the deep state?
5
No, you get real. The NRA political support for allowing no societal controls on at least assault rifles is real. Perhaps the FBI missed acting on a tip, but the Florida State Dept. of Children and Families investigated Cruz atleast twice in the two years leading up to the tragedy and determined "no risk."
Here's what's really real: We live in a "Golden Rule" world. "Do unto others..."
This kid (Cruz) has been crying out for help for at least five years, and everybody in his surroundings ducked or passed. Reap as ye sow!
6
The president tweeted the FBI missed the Valentine Massacre because they are wasting time trying to prove collusion between him and Russia. He goes Al Capone after a week like this? Does he have syphilis, too?
20
The shooter in Florida is not mentally ill he is a domestic terrorist.
19
Forget about Trump. There are godless monsters afoot in our society and their letters are NRA. The effective murderers of children. They should rot in prison.
18
Amen.
3
"But we didn’t care."
*************
I disagree. We cared very much about stopping Obamacare and tried over 50+ times to do it, and "those people" who think everyone should have medical insurance stopped the bill from passing.
I disagree. We cared very much about passing a tax cut that, in spite of the small amount the middle class and the working poor would get, was an economic boon to corporations and the very wealthy.
I disagree. We cared enough to trample as many regulations as possible, making it easier to pollute or water, air and earth and for the mentally ill to purchase AK-15's.
Those are the important things. Why on earth should we care about gun control just because some children might be harmed?
19
Don't let the BRA hunker down. Put "The NRA refused to comment" in every article about these murders. This is your responsibility.
8
Go Maureen!
2
If you meet these people and talk to them, or see their posts in social media, you quickly realize that semi-automatic rifles are worshiped and have become a fetish for them. It is a growing sick religion identified by the SPLC in their index of hate groups. The massacres in Las Vegas, Sandy Hook and now Parkland are just acceptable losses to these groups in their slavish worship of guns. When you try to limit the guns, you are treading on their god.
19
Ah but how much does America care? Even if Trump, himself,was behind that AR15 in Parkland, Florida, the base would look the . other way. Because they only care about getting rid of immigrants and taking food stamps and health insurance from the poor. They see America going to hell in a hand basket. At their expense. A few gun victims along the way isn't going to get in the way of Making America Great Again. Remember Mr Cruz was filmed shooting a pellet gun in his back yard. With a Make America Great Again hat on. He's one of them. They need to have his back. "He could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and not lose a vote" So what's a little school shooting in Parkland, Florida? Surely not worth any votes.
15
Trump's god is a heathen hedonist pagan named Putin who helped him get elected President. So that Trump can profit from his office while hiding his personal and family income tax returns and business records from the American people and spending a third of his time in office on vacation at Trump properties at American taxpayer expense.
The House of Trump is an Barbarian Organized Crime family. No member of the Trump family has ever volunteered to pull the trigger of any American military gun while wearing the military uniform of an American armed force. Don, Jr. and Eric pretend to be hunters. But both boys are shooters at best and poachers at worst
19
The GOP is full of idiots who have been brainwashed into thinking that the 2nd Amendment actually means that we all get guns. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with us all owning guns, yet that is how the Supreme Court has chosen to interpret it and that is what the GOP chooses to believe. It is insane.
Trump has criticized Chicago for being violent, yet seventeen people were not killed in a school in Chicago last week. The GOP has allowed the entire country to become a ghetto, yet the GOP criticizes inner cities.
10
Without the deplorable gun nuts, deplorable neo-nazis, deplorable bigots and deplorably ignorant voters there would be little left of today's Republican party. That's their base and if children die because of it they don't care. Tax cuts for the rich are what gets their attention.
We all remember your disillusion with Obama too well. LBJ operated in the 1960s with a majority. Oh, and he was white too. Did you upbraid Boehner, Ryan, O'Connell, The NRA for the slaughter then ? Did you speak out when Republicans swore to make him a one term president ? No, you wanted him to schmooze with the cowards, drink a beer, hang out with hypocrites.
It doesn't matter now. What you can do now is use your considerable skill to call out these cowards, relentlessly.
21
written by a woman that claimed her moron father took her ten year old brother to an expected gun fight in Herald Harbor MD
4
I'm encouraged at the idea of a nationwide walkout this Spring. Another assault weapon ban and universal background checks are possible next January after we've cleaned the stable a bit. #BlueWave2018
17
I really dislike the Obama bashing as he really tried to pass gun legislation after the Sandy Hook massacre! The clown in the White House went to Florida and gave his customary smirk and a thumbs-up sign while talking to the police! The Republicans have blood all over them as does the NRA!
36
Ms Dowd you have articulated a situation that has been rolling around in my mind for years: what social dynamics are playing out in an institution that permit systematic wrongdoing to go on, with everyone knowing what is going on, and yet, no one in a leadership role steps in to stop the behavior. Putting Trump's broken moral compass aside, you can't tell me that Paul Ryan or even Mitch McConnell don't wince a bit when they see these mass shootings unfold in the media. When they do talk, it is like watching individuals suffering from the stockholm syndrome, where, no matter how bad the massacre, they are incapable of identifying the cause and incapable of any sort of action. When you have near 90% of the public identifying not only the problem---too many guns---and possible solutions---background checks, banding of assault weapons---and yet all our leadership is capable of doing is to pray and say, with a straight face, "it is too early to talk about guns," wow, you wonder, what kind of silos to these people live in and how did they get there.
50
I have never, ever, posted a comment on any web page, in response to any story or in any any other context. This is a first for me. But your piece moved struck a chord. This is, indeed, intolerable. Period. I support the second amendment, but I have come to believe the NRA is simply evil. There is no other explanation. I will do everything in my power, i.e., vote, to counter the NRA's truly immoral influence in Washington.
60
Seems pretty clear that mental illness not properly treated and law enforcement breakdown are the big issues here. It's hard to see how, short of national disarmament, an assault weapon ban is going to do anything except gratify virtue-signallers and issue fetishists. There are simpler measures that can be taken, and which are known to work. Install metal detectors in all high schools, just as in government buildings, with police or armed security guards to man them. Sure it is worth the cost. And raise the age for purchasing guns or certain kinds of guns.
2
@Stephen
Oklahoma
No mental illness problems then in Britain, Germany, Japan, Australia? So why are their gun homicide rates roughly a 50th of those in the US on a per capita basis. Like to tell us virtue signalers what the essential difference is? Needless to say we'll never hear from you.
36
Only high schools? And how many security guards for each school? It would be absurdly expensive to do this in every school in America, especially since the cost would be tagged to the board of education budget. We would end up hiring security guards to replace teachers. And it would still not be effective against someone with an assault weapon.
4
"So why are their gun homicide rates roughly a 50th of those in the US on a per capita basis."
The primary reason is that almost 75% of firearm homicides occur in low income minority neighborhoods, committed almost exclusively with handguns. State rates effectively hide it as it happening neighborhoods, county level can better point to where occurs. Of the top 50 counties for firearm homicides 46 are Democrat. CT has two in the top 100, one of which is Hartford. What are you doing about it?
1
In 1964, Joe Pyne said the government is coming to take my guns. Anyone know when that's supposed to happen? I'm tired of worrying about this.
25
We are all collateral damage to the quest for profit.
23
This may be the best column you have ever written. Please keep your laser focus on this.
15
Money in politics. Repeal Citizens United. Take away the money, then you take away the stranglehold the NRA, the Kochs and the Christian Dominionists have on this country. And you wouldn't have old-world, white privilege (& supremacy) perverting SCt decisions that allow teenagers to access weapons that had nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment when it was passed.
42
Trump has turned America's clean water, clean air, children's safety at school, immigrant dreamers, social safety net, courts of substantial justice in accordance with law, and crumbling infastructure into collateral damage. But the media which makes money marketing right wing claptrap cannot take their eyes off of the money. America used to nominate respected federal judges for political office. Where is a 50-59 year old experienced federal trial judge with a solid reputation for fairness (in NY, there are some), who is used to cross-examination that separates the false and misleading from the accurate, who will stand up and say "enough."
17
In today's society, it would be prudent to marshal social media to combat guns and the NRA. America does change. Think about driving while drunk. That campaign worked even if it takes decades to win. Think about how much faster we could change minds with social media beating the drum again the NRA. In those messages, we need to make guns and the violence that they perform as local to the person reading it. People may like the NRA and guns but if we can make them think about the "what if" of your child being killed. It just might work.
13
The only thing you hear from many Republicans after yet another mass shooting, is that "their thoughts and prayers" are with the victims and their families. Well, that certainly makes it all better.
Maureen you have it right. These guys have literally sold their souls to the NRA that hides behind the second amendment to justify the sale of assault weapons while our children are slaughtered.
26
Treating ANYONE as collateral damage is intolerable, but American history is replete with carnage: Indians, slaves, women, child labor, immigrants, McCarthy's "communists," gratuitous wars.
For the NRA, no lives matter.
If we really want to change, the best place to start is
to simply look in the mirror.
17
“Since Newtown, there have been more than 1,600 mass shootings. Each time, the outrage seems to fade faster.”
About says it all.
Well almost.
You did add this regarding Sandy Hook: “If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?
Each time this random terror happens the absolutely gruesome reality of the slaughter, the grave wounding, the images of children mangled, or for that matter concert goers or nightclub patrons, is largely repressed in the media coverage.
We hear of the profound grief of parents or friends, or spouses, of the shock and disbelief, of the personal horror of terrible random loss.
But the real carnage, the searing images of rented flesh, of blood letting, and wanton slaughter remain almost entirely hidden.
May be what is needed is to see fully into the carnage behind the routine and so often repeated coverage with the safer images that are so much easier to set aside.
15
Excellent commentary, thank you. It is just infathomable that our country's leaders accept the slaughter of our own children, for any reason.
7
Saying that this slaughter of children is intolerable is only the first step -- the next step of actual "action" is the only one that matters
10
Let’s put it this way: I wish my grandkids went to school in Japan.
Donald Trump could probably never guess why I write that.
16
The law abiding citizen continues to be one up until he does not. Mr. Cruz was within his American rights until he stepped inside the school, and started firing. Even if the FBI made a visit to the perpetrator, what crime would he be charged with? Law abiding is a straw man, a play on words, and an invalid concept as to whether gun owners are a menace to society or not. The rest of the civilized world thinks they are. We're a bit slow on the uptake.
14
"Then I gave up." Quite an admission on your part, and many other journalists who gave up and went on to other topics. The NRA did not give up. And still have not. And the journalists who remain, and ever American citizen, cannot give up; we must double down and we must vote. Let us hope that this growing energy remains committed to reclaiming this Democracy. Start by not re-electing any member of Congress with an A-C rating from the NRA. Perhaps then they will get the message.
15
I have no quarrel with anything Ms. Dowd has said in her column or for the most part how it is written. She takes issue with the actions of, President Trump, President Obama, the National Rifle Association ant the Roman Catholic Church (among others). No problem. And, then she refers to the film producer Harvey Weinstein using the noun "MOCHER." "
MOCHER is a Yiddish word, which describes someone who gets things done or In its derogatory meaning "an overbearing person." Yiddish is a language that is almost universally spoken by Jewish people. Mr. Weinstein' s actions were deplorable as ate some of the actions of Mr. Trump, the NRA and the Catholic Church. All could be called "mochers." Mr. Weinstein is Jewish but his horrid behavior is unrelated to his ethnicity
Abusers of women are of all ethnicities. Ms. Dowd knows that but some folks who read het column might get the wrong idea. She should be more careful.
10
It is too soon to talk about so called "gun control." Let's not politicize this tragedy. Guns do not kill people. People kill people.
5
I genuinely cannot tell if this is intended to be tongue-in-cheek; it is a near-parody if exactly the kind of useless platitudes Ms. Dow is writing about.
In any case, a question: if today is too soon, what is the appropriate interval to wait before a societal ill is intervened upon by our system of collective governance (a system we term “politics”)?
5
This column refers to many of the previous gun massacres we have mourned through the years. Is it too early to talk about Newtown, Orlando, Columbine, etc.? Even the grieving parents of the children in Parkland are already eager to talk about changing our murderous gun laws. Too early for whom? Not for the potential victims of the next mass shooting.
6
It’s not “too soon” to talk about gun control. It’s too LATE. And I don’t mean just in terms of the Florida shooting. Hundreds of people have died waiting. And remember, even now, some other shooter is purchasing a military-style rifle to be used for its intended purpose: attacking with maximum possible lethality. If conservative legislation continues to be adopted, the next shooter have an easier time concealing smaller weapons. Perhaps he will purchase a silencer for “hearing protection.” Have we officially banned bump stocks yet? Still too soon to talk about this stuff?
If we’re not ready to talk about gun control, can we set aside federal money to issue body armor to school children and teachers in the meantime?
5
Wisdom from a Douglas High School sophomore named Sarah Chadwick, who informed the President of the United States, via his favorite medium, in words that quickly went viral, “I don’t want your condolences you -ucking piece of -hit, my friends and teachers were shot.”
God bless the survivors at Douglas High School and all of America's children.
24
Modo cannot help but take a swipe at PBO. Remember, it was the Republican filibuster that killed the background check bill pushed by Obama. As long as the media is stuck in bothsiderism, too many Americans will believe that both parties are to blame; they are not. The NRA owns the Republican Party, and the only way we will ever see some common sense gun safety regulations are to throw the Republicans to the curb. Vote For the Democrats in 2018.
23
To put it another way, the OP is the political wing of the National Republican Army.
4
keep it up maureen. we must get control of the NRA and its stooges in Congress. australia should be our model. get military
weapons out of the hands of the public.
a lifetime hunter that never saw an ar-15 in the woods.
7
Imagine the congressional and executive right trying to weigh what is more important in terms of weapons reform laws: Guns and money or our children, Guns and money or our children, Guns and money or our children. The winner: MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After all we have lots of children, more than enough to go around and to top it off they can be quite costly.
Yes, a rather sick outlook, maybe even demented, but no less so than the inability of politicians to actually deal with the real issue. If weapons of death actually contributed to safety then given the amount of guns in this country, we should be the safest place on earth. Not even close!
12
Ms. Dowd rightly expresses the outrage we should all feel on the senseless mass killings, particularly in schools, something must done. The commenters on her essay show why nothing can get done. The usual liberal nonsense is trotted out. The NRA, Republicans are to blame. There has been 18 school shootings since the beginning of the year but that is not true. AR-15 are not military assault rifles, the second amendment allows people to have only muskets. Ms. Dowd rightly points out that Obama had a Democratic Senate it failed to pass any legislation after Newtown. This a hard thing to change. It is most likely that the second amendment will not be repealed or that the government will confiscate weapons. Feel good legislation like banning so-called assault weapons is unlikely to have much effect. I believe that the best approach would be a pro-active screening for anyone possessing, purchasing semi-automatic weapons. You would have to prove you were sane, submit to a psychological screening to possess these high powered firearms. This screening process would happen at the time of purchase and be repeated every few years. This would be hard to do, for example, would you permanently ban people who had depression at some point in their lives? However, in almost all the mass shootings, the perpetrator was known to have mental illness and in many cases was under active care. I realize this would be a very invasive process, but the mental ill cannot have these weapons.
1
You are absolutely right which is why we need to create real incentives for responsible usage and extreme penalties and liabilities for endangering others. Start with extreme federal oversight of sale and access. Track guns like automobiles. Have insurance like autos. The 2A does not guarantee unfettered access or the abdication of responsibility for anyone.
3
Your post, like the conservative rebuttal to assault weapons ban, is completely illogical. Let’s lay things out:
1. First you claim that “feel good” legislation banning semiautomatic rifles would not accomplish anything. 2. Next you instead suggest preventing mentally ill people from purchasing these same firearms- presumably because you agree this step would prevent some killings. 3. Third, you acknowledge that identifying such people is difficult to the point of impossibility.
So if keeping such weapons out of the hands of mentally ill is a good (2), and we cannot identify these people reliably (3), how does maintaining the access of such weapons to all (1) become your rallying cry?
2
Professor Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame, whose academic specialties includes gun crime, one said: "an honest assessment of a situation [is that] the cat got out of the bag 100 years ago, and there's just no putting that cat back in." I think maybe our more fundamental issue isn't bump stocks or magazine sizes - although those should be addressed. The bulk of killings are by someone the victim knows and using a handgun. Melt down all the AR15s, sure. But that's not going to make an appreciable difference in the 30K gun deaths (let alone woundings) each year in our country.
2
It seems that the commentator moderators don't like my perspective on the many op-eds about this issue, as they are not publishing them. I'll try one more time:
American society is ill. It has become addicted to violence and carnage and, like an alcoholic, the society refuses to admit it has a problem. It seems that you all have ceded your personal safety and sanity to a minority of folk who insist that it's there "god-given" right to own incredibly deadly weapons and nothing else matters.
How you can't see the reality right in front of you is incredibly disturbing. How many of you must die in order for you to wake up?
10
This is not a Trump issue. It’s not a Republican issue. It’s our issue, and it’s our fault not enough has changed. Ranting on about the government and the second amendment is pointless. Congress is ineffective. If you want change, focus on your local laws and representatives, where you can have an impact. Protest at stores that sell bullets and guns. Publish the names of community members in the NRA — name and shame. Don’t agree with your representatives? Run yourself. Send money to anti-gun advocates in gun owning states. But to continue to sit here, writing and whining and hoping for some grand somebody else to do something is futile.
3
No where do you mention Paul Ryan's flippant
statement condemning any criticism concerning
Gun control as "knee-jerk" action after school
shootings. Rubio's statement was similarly muted.
But you slyly crafted a major zing (as usual) at
President Obama. We will have our retort in November.
13
I'm heartened by the righteous anger I'm seeing on the part of surviving Parkland students, and I hope this gets extrapolated to all high school students in the coming months. Many of them will vote for the first time in November and it looks like they are ready to take that anger to the voting booth.
But we should all be ashamed that the children have had to pick up the ball that we keep dropping. It's our job to protect them, not the other way around.
9
The gun rights advocates have the upper hand, that is clear. To get something one will need to accept that something else will need to be given. Gun control advocates can forget about repealing the 2nd Amendment, registration, banning assault weapons, etc., but some other things could be on table. One thing that gun control advocates want is a 50 state concealed carry permit, and the ability to carry firearms safely through states in the US without threat of legal action. There is lot of trading that could take place here.
Something that I would prefer to see is including certain magazine fed semi-automatic rifles as NFA weapons, but that would require increasing the size of the ATF due to the volume of weapons. I don’t think it would pass favor it does involve registration, even though that could be encrypted with two keys, one held perhaps by a non-government agency. Handguns were originally supposed to be included in the NFA of 1934, that they weren't was the biggest criminal justice blunder in history of the US. Let us hope we aren't doing the same with magazine fed semi-automatic rifles.
2
True, all true, but tell it to the NRA and the GOP.
3
What happened to "a well-regulated militia"?
What is so complicated about banning military-style weapons and punishing those who manufacture and/or sell them?
3
"well regulated" well trained and equipped.
We have come a long way with technology bettering almost everything. Including guns. Who believes any of the founding fathers of our nation or composers of the constitution envisioned the advance of the arms industry? Why is it permissible for ANYONE to be able to buy ANY of the weapons today and massacre innocent children who are our future?
The second amendment specifically says the right to bear arms is for a militia not every demented person or any person to bear arms.
Shame on those legislators who sold their souls to the NRA.
5
I completely understand the impulse to surrender. I wrote this myself after Las Vegas at the Tikkun Daily Blog. Yet, this time the young people and their parents in Florida are not lighting candles and leaving shrines with stuffed animals. They are protesting, demanding gun control legislation.
This is the hope.
So, we have no choice but to take a deep breath and continue the fight for gun regulations.
Do not vote for anyone who has or who does or who will take money from the NRA.
8
Maureen, I do worry, in searching every highway and byway for answers and understanding, if in anyway these children are being groomed to commit these terrible acts, like suicide bombers in other countries? Something is not right!
2
The USA was always a rough, rugged place, violence was always a factor in the nation's character, but we did not countenance the killing of innocents. That is what we are doing, inaction speaks loudly that we value an AR-15 more than a young life.
Doing away with them won't stop gun violence, there are already far too many of them in circulation, but a ban stops the fresh supply and over time such atrocities as happened this past week will end.
4
We need to redefine mentally ill people. In the next DSM there should be categories for people who buy or want to buy various kinds of guns. It is our most lethal addiction.
4
Don't vote for any politician--local, state, national--who accepts money or other support from the NRL...Period!
3
I think you mean NRA ,you have to know the NRA is the most moderate of pro-gun groups , if they go away people will join other hard core organizations
This NRA sponsored genocide against our country can be stopped cold without taking anyone's guns away. If a gun is used to kill or injure another human being, one or many, the chain of responsibility and liability runs from the manufacturer on down to everyone who ever owned or sold that that gun.
The liability can range from prison time to no less than monetary restitution to the victim(s) and their families. No excuses, no explanations, no legal defense. Your name appears in that gun's history, you're complicit.
That might not seem reasonable to people, but it isn't reasonable to be gunned down in study hall, either. Buy and sell all the guns you want. Feel free to own hundreds, with bump-stocks and all. No problem with the 2nd Amendment. No one is coming for your guns.
But know that you are responsible, your entire life, because you came in contact with that gun and helped it get to its final destination, wittingly or not.
9
Now “Gun Song” from the musical Assassins is stuck in my head.
Haiku
With our "45"---
Children will be much more safe
If all are toting.
3
I wish we could vote today.
3
...and, it also happened with slavery in this country, for centuries. Let us hope it will take less time to face up to the gun problem in the U.S., today.
4
Congress, President Trump: Show some moral courage. Our children are being gunned down.
DO SOMETHING! You are failing our country.
6
How about the Democrats giving up their adamant opposition to restrictions on abortion which also kills many that some of us regard as children?
As long as Democrats continue to defend abortion, their outrage is going to look hypocritical to many of us.
Did you know that France, German, Italy and India all limit elective abortions to 12 weeks? And yet the Democrats are fighting against a restriction to 20 weeks.
1
Because ultrasounds that can show serious fetal anomalies are not done until 20 weeks, and viability outside of the womb doesn’t come until later.
But that’s irrelevant here.
1
Donald Trump is a performer with the largest audience of his career. Watching his audience, he fis his lines to their expectation of his character. His audience imagines themselves in this actor; they see a successful businessman, a tough guy, a protector of religion, a man who puts women in their place, a man who takes what he wants. They get to live his successes instead of their failures, supporting the parts they like, not thinking or caring about the destruction he leaves in his wake. Trump has no position or belief other than in his own “success”. he will not do anything that will harm his image in the view of his admirers, which means he will not do anything other than playing himself.
6
I'd like to know which idiotic court ruled that the phrase "in a well organized militia" meant private citizens can have carte blanche ownership of weapons.
Remember this embryonic nation could not afford a large standing army, and had to rely on militia for defense in the 18th century. Well, it is now 2018 and we pay a large standing--well armed--military, extremely well.
Gun ownership is one thing. Military weaponry in the hands of civilians is quite another.
6
Which is why civilians cannot purchase “military weaponry” other than in extremely limited instances ( manufactured before 1968, need a federal stamp and extended BI to get it, etc).
And those militias were modeled on civil militias from England. The unit’s weapons were controlled and kept in an armory.
2
In Australia all semiautomatic fire arms are banned except for professional hunters of dangerous animals like saltwater crocodiles. Try putting a "bump-stock" on your bolt action rifle.
7
And now the police have found people are making full-auto machine guns in their garages and selling them to gangs
2
There was no such Constitutional “right to bear arms” in this country for nearly two centuries. That changed in 1988 with the Supreme Court decision (Holder) declaring that yes, indeed, there is such a right, something the Founders envisioned when James Madison wrote the 2nd Amendment. The majority decision was written by Antonin Scalia in a 5-4 vote.
What many don’t seem to know is that the decision culminated a decades-long PR campaign by the NRA, which was searching for a way to sell more guns by its main benefactors — gun makers. Bogus “academic” research paid for by the NRA asserted that the 2nd Amendment DID grant a right for everyone to own guns. The decision was stunning because hardly anyone expert in Constitutional law had ever found such an interpretation. Chief Justice Warren Burger opined that Holder was one of the worst SCOTUS decisions in history.
So, next time kids are slaughtered in school, or music fans picked off like fish in a barrel, remember two things: they died so more guns could be sold. And Scalia’s fervent protege, Neil Gorsuch, now sits on the Court, placed there to protect Holder from being overturned.
8
Of course the only real and lasting solution is to disconnect the NRA and Gun Lobby from elections. By passing Comprehensive Campaign Finance Reform, and publicly funding elections, we can break the hold this fringe group of terrorists hold over our elected officials.
Finally, what "Well Regulated Militia"was the shooter a member of?
5
I own an AR for feral hog eradication in Texas and to keep the coyote population down. The multi shot capability works well for those chores. But it was way, way too easy for me to buy--it would be very dangerous in evil or insane hands. It came with 30 round magazines, but I've switched to 10 as a simple, symbolic act of support for progressive laws. I think we should pass a four part law immediately--move suppressors (silencers) off the NFA, and move hi capacity magazines onto the NFA. Then approve concealed carry interstate reciprocity, coupled with a universal background check law. Those would be good trades, my friends, suppressors and lawful concealed carry are not problems, but the hi capacity magazines and easy access are.
121
I bought an AR style rifle for protection. The home place is rural with distant law enforcement, large piece of land and open fields around, large local drug activity unfortunately. Had a number of 30 and 40 round mags but destroyed and discarded them. Stick with 20's instead of 10's however because unlike the hogs and coyotes, some of the feral humans can shoot back and they too run in packs.
7
Concealed carry not a problem? I don't think so.
Interstate reciprocity of concealed carry means that if one state is idiotic, all the others must be, too. No, thanks.
20
Concealed carry should not be forced down the throats of states that currently ban it. Your other ideas I can get behind.
11
"If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?"
Unfortunately, people don't get religion until it touches them personally. With a nation as large as ours, many more innocents will be sacrificed to the GOP-NRA Gun Gods before enough of the population are 'touched' by tragedy. More children will die and some day, enough moneyed politically important people will lose loved ones to cause 'do-nothing' congressmen to enact legislation to counter the madness. As long as they get a fat donation to buy their vote!
23
Americans already have way too much religion. This nation is so infantile it believes the whole universe was created to reveal its magnificence. Trump has distilled its narcissism to its essence.
4
I just donated to GoFundMe for these parents to have the ability to afford a decent burial for their slaughtered children. As a mother of five I can't even begin to imagine the agony they are going through. I support Chris Murphy's campaign even though he is not my senator. I am a monthly contributor to Sandy Hook promise, an activist group started by the grieving parents of the Sandy Hook victims who were viciously slaughtered in that school shooting.
I'm enraged that FL Gov scott is attempting to wash his hands of all culpability. he mouths tiresome platitudes about access to mental health care but refused to sign onto the ACA out of racism and petulance directed at Obama. The school seemingly did all that they could to remove this disturbed young man from the premises. His disturbing and alarming behavior was reported to the proper authorities. Yet nothing more was done. No intervention by social workers, by counseling. No background check that would have flagged him as a danger. Why wasn't he in the police data at the least? My husband couldn't get a gun permit in MA to go target shooting with a friend because our 8 year old son, egged on by older boys in our neighborhood who bullied him relentlessly, stole junk mail from an abandoned house. Even with three character references my husband was still denied a permit due to this childhood prank committed by our 8 year old! Yet this young red-flag adult purchased a gun. At least his 2nd amendment rights weren't violated!
29
The nuttier people are in Massachusetts, the more the law treats them with kid gloves.
1
Maureen's exasperation has finally put me in the same place. I used to be quick to point out that the Constitution was not a suicide pact. Although not our Founders intention, I now realize that American are now living a suicide pact. Thoughts and prayers can't bring us back from the dead.
23
What is this broad statement “the community shrugged” or “America shrugs”? Or “we” can’t summon up the courage to take on gun control”? I’m so sick of these massive generalized statement saying “we”can’t stop the carnage and lumping me and so many millions of people together who work for change into the cesspool of the ones who are actually stopping real reform from happening: the sick and twisted NRA, Mitch McConnell, almost EVERY Republican, and a handful of Democrats. Journalists have a responsibility to name names, call those out, again and again, so they are held accountable for blocking gun violence legislatio. Stop with the WE generalizing. There is a critical difference between those who care, fight, and back candidates who will take a stand and the Republicans and NRA (and the voters who support them) who are accountable for the continued killings with weapons of mass destruction.
33
I will gladly call out names. In this once admirable but now wretched state of North Carolina our Senators Burr and Tillis are in the top 5 senators who accepted considerable money from the NRA. I believe it is Senator Tillis who was second on the list right after John McCain. And to all politicians 'thoughts and prayers' don't cut it, only action will. All these people care about is their own reelection. To do what exactly? Obviously nothing to protect our sad children.
2
"Trump wrote in his 2000 book, 'The America We Deserve'......"
Can we please stop pretending that Trump actually writes anything other than vapid, insipid tweets? The man can barely read, much less write.
39
Citizens United and legislators with no moral compass provide perfect cover for the NRA. You cannot convince me that they believe mass shootings of children is intolerable. Quite the contrary.
18
It is happening. The young people of Florida are shaming adults about giving in to the NRA much like my generation shamed adults about supporting the Vietnam War. We were sick of dying, of seeing our generation dying, in a war that made no sense to us. Now teenagers are saying, “Enough, we don’t want to die at school because you adults can’t protect us.” Good for them! I want to see huge protests aimed at shaming politicians who have sold out to the NRA. I want to see Donald Trump shamed for selling out to the NRA. I want to see a blue wave of Democrats who support a ban on military-style assault weapons and introducing reforms like the ones Connecticut enacted. To borrow a chant, “Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today?”
62
We Times readers have to get angry that our grandchildren were failed by our Leaders like Gov.Rick Scott here in Florida.Mental health pros failed them,too in a weak evaluation of Mr.Cruz.Local Police failed them and why should parents in that community ever trust them again? We won't hear of a low level FBI person being demoted or worse but they failed,too.You know who cared? A guy in another state who phoned in his concern based on the Cruz You Tube threat post.Don't blame just the NRA and the President. Blame School Boards and Police in nice towns who were not heroes on Valentine afternoon.And it will happen again. If you know of a kid acting very weird,do not hide him or her.
10
its not about "our" school children or even Trump.Its about US politics and the sort of society you are or want. On both counts, there is little room for hope.
9
I agree with you that there's little room for hope. Any country that would allow a man like Trump to run for the office of Presidency, let alone place him in the oval office, has very deep psychological problems.
2
Thank you, Maureen Dowd, for this. We mustn't give up. We mustn't allow this "malevolent status quo" anymore.
7
I travel a lot internationally for work and i can tell you that the U.S is seen as a crazed freak show. Most (not all) of the educated professionals i know dont want their kids to come here for college or for summer internships- now they go to Europe, Canada, Australia. The U.S is seen as too dangerous, too nuts. In addition to the tragedy and fear our ludicrously lax gun laws cause to our kids, the fear they cause (and putrid racism that has infected parts of the country) will keep away countless talented undergrad and grad students that would have made untold positive contributions to our country...think Steve Jobs biological father, Sergey Brin and countless others. We’re slowly destroying ourselves. It wouldnt surprise me at all if the NRA was getting money from the Russians. Disgusting.
40
Wow is your blame misplaced! 90 percent of Americans favor stronger, more restrictive gun laws. I'm sorry that, unlike abortion, gun control has not -yet- become a one-issue concern for voters. With this shooting, that may change. But individual voters have proven powerless to the money of the NRA... and your anger should be directed at no one but Congress.
14
What about those who elect our members of Congress? There's plenty of blame to go around.
2
I enjoy hunting and target shooting, but lately the ad campaigns by gun makers have sickened me. Example: Attractive women do a survivor-style competition with Springfield’s dubiously name “Saint,” an AR-15 of course.
How do we get out of this mess? Many gun owners like me are not fetishists, and for us they are tools for rural life. I hope these folk will join me this fall, by punishing all in Congress who take NRA blood money.
34
But collateral damage they are. The world must stop to fix this. How many more? How many more?
5
Enough talking. ACTION IS NEEDED Shame on the USA. How can you pretend to teach lessons on democracy when you can't even regulate the sale of firearms to just anyone who wants one.
What kind of an example are you giving to the rest of the world?
18
And how, my dear Ms. Dowd, should we treat the vengeful and fearful Trump Administration, the sanctimonious NRA, the paid for and professional lobbyists, the silent and clueless Congress, the complicit medias, the oligarchs of support as all of the above regard America as their collateral damage1
7
Jim of Boston,
I would not care what a woman did with her body if there was not another person involved in that decision. When you have an abortion, you are terminating a pregnancy. Of course, you knew that but obviously do not think it is wrong. That is a very selfish viewpoint but pro abortion folks do not care about the ending of innocent human life. Maybe if you had witnessed life or given birth you would see it differently. Those of us who have children do.
1
I was adopted and have given birth, and I am pro-choice. May have something to do with my degree in developmental & reproductive biology.
1
Nonsense. Plenty of "us" have children and still support a woman's right to choose.
1
America shrugs? I’m not sure I agree with that. No one I know thinks this situation is acceptable. The Republican-led Congress, however, has at every tragedy, balked at doing anything more than offering their hypocritical “thoughts and prayers”, praying mostly for people to let it go and for the NRA campaign donations to keep on coming.
How nice that you’ve had a change of heart, Ms. Dowd, since you did your best to help get this loser elected.
24
And don't forget Scalia and his tortured interpretation of the Second amendment. So much for appointing conservative judges
26
In all our wars, children have always been collateral damage. They still are. We are destroying children, and their parents, in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, just as we did in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,Nicaragua, Angola, Congo, and Mozambique. We never see any photos or names of those kids, or the adults who died trying to protect them from our attacks.
The Times should produce a directory of all the kids worldwide who are killed every day by adult violence. With photos and brief bios.
9
NRA's chokehold also includes Democrats. The entire Congress is beholden to this organization.
7
Tim Walz of Minnesota is one Democrat who benefits from the NRA donations. I hope he either denounces the NRA and gives the like amount to a good charity or he is primaried by a Democratic candidate financed by Michael Bloomberg.
1
The ones who are going to change all of this are those who have suffered the most from the carnage, children who have witnessed their friends gunned down by violence. Those in Congress will not be there forever and memories of these horrid events live forever in the minds of children. The NRA should be very worried about what the future will bring for them when todays youth grow to attain positions of power not only in local, state and federal government but also in businesses and community activism. Nothing lasts forever and those who will end this madness may not yet be born but it will end, it is all we can hope for today, those that can stop it now have decided it is not in their best interests to do so.
5
#NationalSchoolWalkout Maybe this time will be different? The children are taking over. (I am crying inside.)
4
I read your article with interest. I was struck beforehand with the way in which the cult of human sacrifice of the ancient Mayans and Aztecs is perpetuated in the sacrifices of American children and also in the human sacrifices today in Mexico in the ongoing "war on drugs" which is played out in present day Mexico as a turf war between dealers. One can only assume after so many sacrifices and complete inaction on any form of gun control that the President of the United States and the Congress are willing participants in the sacrifice of your nations children.
8
"she gave up." Maybe she needs to make a sign and march with those school children in Florida. for as long as it takes...
2
Ms. Dowd, let's speak frankly. The GOP is a posse of political prostitutes, although that's not exactly the word I WANT to use. The top twenty takers of the NRAs literal blood money, in the Senate are GOP. The number is much greater in the House. You've mentioned Trumps slavering obedience.
How to change this??? Simple. Money really isn't everything, even in politics. Voting is what actually counts. I'm asking readers, and others, to vow to NEVER vote GOP, in any election. Eventually, they will get the message, or " retire ". Speak with your family, neighbors and co-workers.
Volunteer or donate, if able. Most importantly: VOTE.
Gun Control OR Dead Children. CHOOSE. And choose NOW.
7
To my U.S. Senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and my Congressman, Roger Williams:
Do not change our gun laws. Your careers are more important than first grade children dying in a pool of their own blood. Your personal ambition is more important than high school kids murdered before they can get a driver's license. Your legislative success is far more imperative than a parent's pride at their daughter's wedding, their son's college graduation, their only child's tenth birthday.
Priorities, Sirs. Thank you for keeping your jobs in perspective.
10
People who can't live without guns aren't into any kind of negotiation at all.
3
So: ask Donald J. Trump, politicians who love guns more than human life
and N.R.A.'s LaPierre: How would you respond if your children or grandchildren were slaughtered?
Demand that they answer on the record.
Create the most awsome marches Donald J. Trump has ever seen.
Yes, our national mass murders are "intolerable."
So will be the hypocritical responses and the absence of responses from
the intolerable people we keep electing to serve themselves, serve power,
serve money over common sense, compassion and life itself.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
1
Wayne LaPierre is the most powerful person in the United States, and yet you didn't vote for him. When he asks the majority of members of the Senate and the House, "Who's your daddy?" they bow their heads and say, "You are, Wayne." Crude statement? Crude imagery? What's crude are the schoolhouse slaughters he facilitates by cowering members of Congress with his cash and threat of political extinction. Of course, they have a choice, now, don't they?; they can't blame LaPierre for their cowardice. He is the man who took the NRA from being a respectable organization that represented gun owners and hunters, the sort of people I grew up with, and usurped the Second Amendment to create a Civilian Arms-Industrial Complex that worships gun profits over life. When I was a teen, you could not buy a switchblade in Pennsylvania; you committed a federal offense if you sawed off a shotgun; and an assault rifle like the AR-15 (the civilian version of an M-16) was something you could carry only if you entered into military service. But LaPierre's NRA changed all of that, and now our schools rather than just foreign battle grounds are where blood flows so tragically from the use of assault rifles.
2
Nothing will ever happen until Americans take to the streets to resist, revolt and also go to the polls to vote the Republicans out of office. This supposedly progressive country is in R drive: Reverse policies, Retrograde gun laws and Regressive old politicians who need to retire and do some soul searching about how we have come to this, elected an incompetent ignoramus, self centered man for President who happens to be Putin's puppet. They also need to reflect on this question: Who is now the adult in the room? The old white gizzard who owes his political career to the NRA or the 17 year old student form Parkland Fl or any town USA who is calling on politicians to stop this carnage?
6
Trump, has surfaced as perhaps the most disgusting part of this entire problem. He has shown his true evil mind with his rollback of the Obama legislation meant to limit the purchase of firearms by the mentally ill. He did this to attack any piece of legislation put in place by Obama. All to satisfy his DEPLORABLE base. Can someone explain to me the logic behind such an illogocal move other political gain by satisfying a vindictive base?
Trump did this foul deed , knowing full well that this would only bring on more shootings, and more tragedy, but that never enterd his mind. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he cares not one iota for the American citizen.
There are many disgusting people involved in this gun control issue. A non caring NRA, politicians with their hands deep in the NRA pockets, gun manufacturers who have refused to heed worthwhile suggestions in the manufacture of these weapons, and a naive population that is frightened over loss of their so-called 2nd ammendment righs.
Non of thesse individuals however are as vile as the malignant tumor in the White House. He is inept, dysfunctional, and a danger to this nation.
1
It's called our national, cultural, abuse, gun sickness Maureen, suffered by all including the NRA, Donald Trump, whites, blacks, republicans, democrats, males, females and dogs who shoot their owners and pols.
It is easy to pick on the NRA and Trump, just like when you single out the male in an abusive relationship and not the co dependent female.
Yes, gun owners who shoot their neighbors for the simplest of reasons, kill themselves and family members and friends in countless ways suffer from the sickness but so do inner city families who do nothing re children of color killing each other with guns, Hollywood feeding them a steady diet of R rated gun violence films and media like the NYTimes reviewing them as "brilliant".
People in glass houses don't throw stones Maureen.
The solution is a policy of legality, regulation, responsibility and non promotion of guns like we had a stunning success with like cig. smoking.
Until then, as Lincoln taught us, the cure will be elusive.
3
It is the children themselves that will make the difference that begins with Parkland. The children are demanding, not asking, demanding to be made safe. They are raising their voices to demand, not ask, that the adults who have the political power do something. They are tired of excuses. They are afraid to go to school. They don't want to practice 'active shooter' lockdowns, they don't want to leave another school with their hands in the air as if THEY are the shooter (and the shooter left this way!), they don't want to hear the excuses, the mamby-pamby of the likes of a Marco Rubio who whines something must be done, somebody should do something (how about YOU, Sen. Rubio, even after you received 3.3 million dollars from the NRA?), they don't want to walk by the dead bodies of their friends and well-loved adults who tried their best to keep them safe, they are TIRED OF THIS.
If we so-called adults in this country cannot keep them safe because our politicians are in the pocket of the NRA.....then god help us. God help us. We deserve to die as a country if we allow this to continue.
To the children of this country: I am so sorry we have failed you. Your terror is my terror and I will do everything I can to change this so that America joins the rest of the civilized world and we fail you no longer.
9
Obama tried to get gun legislation passed, but the GOP would never even let a bill out of committee. Yet Ms. Dowd somehow thinks that he shares the blame. After Vegas, there were moves to ban gun stocks. Again, the GOP blocked even that. HRC, for whom Ms.Dowd had such contempt, made the NRA a target of her campaign; Ms. Dowd's friend, Trump, pledged his fealty to the NRA. If Ms. Dowd could have more often gotten past soap opera pop psychology about Obama and the Clintons, and had not bee an early enabler of Trump, I might take her outrage now more seriously.
9
So the Trump is tweeting this weekend that it's Obama and the Dems' fault because they did nothing about guns while in office. Can nobody flip the script on the Trump this time and challenge him with the list of guns laws that were wanted by Dems?? Dare him to act/enact??
3
Why is there no association of victims and victims' families? It could be stronger than the NRA. People need to organize.
Making horrific threats is not lawbreaking. Social Services workers and even the FBI are not mind readers. To even get a temporary restraining order a physical threat or assault must have occurred. We don’t arrest people on words alone. So we must prevent access to weapons. The school in Florida had a guard who could not react quickly enough to prevent the firing of an automatic weapon. The guard probably didn’t event know of the shooter until too late which with an automatic weapom shooter is minutes and seconds. Are we as a country such cowards to the blackmail of NRA money and grudge voting gun owners that we can’t even limit weapon purchases of bump stock or semi automatic weapons? Can’t the members of the GOP imagine the children killed as if thet were their own? Can’t they see the sacrifice of the teachers killed in Florida who put themselves in the path of bullets to protect children as exemplifying the courage we expect of elected officials? The GOP mainly is a craven heartless bunch completely unworthy of respect or re-election.
15
Law enforcement can take action when a person does something, not when they might do something. America law provides very little authority for preventive detention. An FBI interview of the young man would not likely resulted in any further action unless some existing crime was discovered at the time.
Trump is now claiming that were the FBI not so tied up with the Russian election interference investigation, it would not have missed the warnings about the Florida school shooter. Really??? One can but weep.
13
...and his mindless minions will swallow it without question.
Pathetic.
1
Good editorial. Thank you. My opinion is Obama may have had 90% of Americans on his side, but the NRA had a majority of congressmen. "There is little more that Obama could have done on gun control," UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler said. "The president's power is limited, and the NRA wrote the laws to restrict what the executive can do." By Joshua Gillin on Friday, January 6th, 2017 at 12:00 a.m. in Politifact
11
One cannot help but note Republican support for the unborn as opposed to their spineless disregard when children are at risk of being shot and killed in school.
Can we start with Assault weapons? “Assault” says it all. Assault is not about hunting or protecting one’s family and property, it is about killing a large number of people with a military grade weapon.
How ironic that the Russians are not a weapons threat anymore. They have figured out we can be defeated in cyberspace (for a fraction of the cost). We must do better or our democracy will not survive.
9
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
Problem is, we apparently have very few good men: Good men aren't cowards or greedy pigs; but we have too many of each of these types, our chosen representatives, in Congress -- and a dangerous demagogue in the White House. The moral rot is deep and wide. The cancer has overwhelmed its host, which sooner or later must die or magically get better somehow. Many of us rely on prayer and hopeful thoughts; sustained, focused, effective action is light-years beyond us.
Most of us are painfully aware of the problem. Few of us have a solution, however, because, truth be told, the problem is human nature. Our old misunderstood scriptures made it plain that we have serious built-in ethical issues, like putting ourselves first, last, and in the middle. Good Samaritans are the stuff of myth or legend, by and large. Exceptions, of course, do exist; but they must be few and far between. Most of us are hiding out in our safe places. I know I am.
I know: I'll write my Congressman; he'll know just what to do. Oh, wait, Marco Rubio, my guy, accepted big campaign contributions from the NRA. Well, there's nothing I can do then. (Throws in towel) What does Edmund Burke know anyhow?
8
I live in Canada and I am refusing to visit the USA until they get the guns under control.I hope others will join me.
12
Every shooting brings out the piety in us, the thoughts and prayers nonsense that has yet to bring back any of the lost or destroyed lives. If we truly cared, we'd respond with gun legislation that sticks and works. Apart from a shotgun or rifle for those who hunt, there's no need for ordinary citizens to carry any weapon. As for hunters, I've met many who can't hit their marks. That would make many hunters armed and dangerous.
A gun is a false sense of security. Imagine yourself hearing a noise in the middle of the night. You rouse from slumber still half asleep and start to fumble for that pistol by your bed. In the dark you try to undo the safety, the adrenalin pumps through your body. You're scared. Meanwhile, the perp stands at the foot of your bed with a gun aimed at your head. Guess who wins this argument?
There's a formula to owning a gun people forget: You have to be willing to kill another human being and at the same time be willing to die. Having a gun does not mean you'll win or come out ahead. Guns are the most anti-life tool known to man. They have one purpose only, and that is to kill another person.
Then there's this issue of killing another person. That event alone will mess you up for the rest of your life.
The NRA doesn't exist for any of us. It's there for the manufacturers, for those who profit from gun sales. The rest of us have been duped. The NRA is a terrorist organization with the backing of US and state policymakers.
15
Do you really think the N.R.A. gets all its vast, limitless money from American gun owners?
Recently in this paper columnist Michelle Goldberg suggested that Russia somehow may be significantly funding the N.R.A. Given American political ineptness and dysfunction; given the seemingly bottomless N,R.A. coffers funding Republican re-election coffers; and given the mass-murdering socioeconomic and cultural divisiveness our absurd, inexcusable gun policies encourage; I would not be at all surprised.
Do the math. In a perversely brilliant way, Putin's support of the N.R.A. fits very well.
10
Beautiful article. America can never be "great again" while we allow the NRA, and gun lobby to own us.
7
The quiet benefit of the 2nd amendment is the protection freedom loving Americans have from being ruled by a leftist totalitarian regime. The unfortunate citizens in Venezuela and Iran have no guns to use against the government thugs who rule over them with a total intolerance of opposition of any kind. Sometimes the enemy is not a force from another country; the enemy potentially could be an extremist movement within our own country.
2
Ugh. The enemy is the NRA and their Republican stooges.
Please help me understand why so many pro-gun arguments assume that any restriction on gun ownership equates to taking away all guns? Does making assault rifles illegal mean that you can't own any gun? No, it means you can't own an assault rifle. Do registration and background checks mean you can't own a gun? No, it means you must be sane enough and law abiding enough to own one. We require a test and a license to drive a car, but to own and use a gun? Civil war scenarios and the whole "well armed militia" thing are wearing pretty thin.
3
“Sometimes” is too vague of a reason to sacrifice children. We allow kids to be murdered with weapons of war so “patriots” can rise up against our government “sometime” in a dystopian future.
How many more times will we make public sacrifice of our beloved babies to the “sacred right” of the 2nd Amendment? Do we have to live in terror so some folks can shoot powerful weapons for fun and games? The idea of reciprocal concealed carry seems utterly absurd, yet here we are.
I want a different future for my grand babies.
2
"The #MeToo movement has proved that spider webs of protection for predators can be ripped apart in an instant, that unspeakable things that have been tolerated for decades can suddenly be deemed intolerable."
I feel that this is what you and your fellow journalists should be speaking to. We NYT folk know who Trump is. Inconceivable.
We don't want to emulate the Fox echo chamber, and we can only do this with the optimism you underline here.
If each and every one of us could convert just one Trump supporter with facts and examples, what the eyes see ... I pray for a democratic renaissance.
5
@MaureenDowd: that's the best column you've ever written. You got it exactly right. It is not about guns or the 2nd amendment or hunting. It is about recovering our outrage. It is about saving our children. Thank you.
5
We are an adolescent nation. We will listen to no one and we will pay the price. Those that voted in this administration are reaping what they sowed and there will be more tragedies. I fully support a complete walkout of our schools. I will home school my ten year old if necessary to keep him alive.
7
Running from this issue with home schooling is not the solution. Ending the dirty money to political campaigns is the answer. And voting is the solution.
1
Its all so pointless and tiresome. Whenever a call for action needs to be answered on any issue these days issue we go back 25 to 30 years to find someone to blame. Its Clinton's fault, it W's fault, its Obama's fault. Can we just live in the present? Its not rocket science folks. Either you vote for Candidate A who supports restrictions on semi automatic rifles or you vote for Candidate B who doesn't. Either you change the GOP controlled Congress that will not act or you keep the status quo. We don't need to see another gun study or hear more fake promises about improving the mental health system. We have to change the law makers or accept that these massacres are the price we pay for having a second amendment.
15
As a mental health professional i find it concerning that so many people, including the president, seem to believe the solution to gun violence is to focus on mental health. As if counseling alone would or could stop someone who is antisocial, disconnected, and so damaged that they put their pain into planning and executing a mass shooting. Mental health professionals can identify someone at risk, and they can hospitalize them if and only if they are overtly stating they have such a plan.
If a person is deemed high risk, there should be a law in place that allows counselors to work with law enforcement to have guns removed from the person and have them flagged for any future purchase attempts.
The NRA needs to take a seat and allow lawmakers, law enforcement, the CDC and US citizens to control the gun problem in this country.
11
Equating campaign money with free speech is the root cause of America’s insanity. Justice Kennedy is to blame.
7
Campaign money and Citizen United is a problem, but we have the power to change that. It is called an amendment to the Constitution. The greatest threat to our representative government is the dirty money that flows into the campaigns of those who seek to bury their heads into the sands of indifference.
1
We're all collateral damage. This president is incapable of addressing situations. Far too impulsive, he assigns blame before he even gets started. It's beyond disheartening.
A leader is supposed to build up trust & relationships. And be resilient. But he's without a set of beliefs or convictions. He's the most selfish man to ever walk the earth.
Easily flustered and emotional, he's the insurmountable obstacle. We all saw it in action, televised, more than once, to draw these conclusions:
Worst.Negotiator.Ever
Worst.President.For.These.Times
7
The problem is Congress and those who control the legislation our representatives vote to pass or fail. I fault Mr. McConnell and Speaker Ryan.
1
Even with the strictest gun control laws in every state, people who want to do harm to others will find a way to obtain a gun. Arm every teacher with a gun so that we may protect our students instead of watching them die. If teachers had a gun they would have killed this monster and all of the monsters in previous shootings who killed our students.
As teachers we are responsible for the safety of our students, yet, we have no possible way to do so when faced with a homicidal maniac with a gun. And what do we have to defend our students - a pair of scissors on our desk at best.
I do not want my grandchildren's teachers to have guns, I do not want my children who are teachers to have guns. And I would not have wanted to have a gun when I was a teacher. Teachers are professional educators not members of the armed forces. When would an educator have the time to be properly prepared as a shooter.... oh I guess when they should be meeting with students, preparing for classes, taking continuing education course, counseling students....
2
The second amendment is here to stay and to be misinterpreted forever. The answer? Mandatory gun ownership. If you can’t afford a gun, the government will supply you with one. Confronted with mandatory possession, the NRA and its fellow travelers would be forced to reveal the hypocrisy of their actual agenda... or would they?
1
It’s time for a full on Thoreau Satyagrahara style protest against the NRA and every politician who takes money from them. Sit-ins, walk-outs, endless protests until semi-automatic weapons are only for military and law-enforcement.
8
Mother's Day March on the NRA and then to the steps of the Capital. That is the answer and the solution. No more dirty money to public servants.
There is to be a one day walkout April.20th of high school students to protest the lack of anti-gun laws being passed in Washington.
This extremely significant because it is a demographic that is soon to be voting age and this does not auger well for the GOP...for the first time in a very long time a grassroot movement is rising up against the NRA and the their toadies lawmakers in Washington.
It is hearting to see the young people in your country come out strongly in favour of sensible gun laws...if they are the future, then the future looks bright.
15
I support the students. We did that after Kent State. But nothing happened to the war until Congress ended the funding.
The pressure must be placed on the Majority Leader, The Speaker and the President.
What is their reason for being -- their lust for power. Quench it with a real fear they will lose their power. How? By demanding no acceptance of money of any kind from the NRA.
McConnel will be dethroned and Ryan will be voted out of office.
It is really rather simple.
If the GOP will not, at the very LEAST, ban bump stocks and extreme capacity magazines for assault rifles, then we have lost. If they can’t start there, then any shred of common sense and decency is stone cold dead. You might as well howl at the moon. It’s all well and good to TRY and keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, and maybe arm some teachers or add some security personnel, but when a mad man drives up to the cyclone fence around a school yard at recess, sticks his barrel through, and fires at the rate of perhaps 500-600 rounds per minute, there will be bloody horror before school personnel even know what’s going on. I can’t believe, after the horrific Vegas shooting, that this capability hasn’t been stopped in its tracks. The nation’s school children should rise up and shame the leadership in Washington.
6
Perspective changes when you are personally affected. But, now the outrage we see everywhere, except Fox and the GOP, may hold until the mid-terms.
There are several epidemics running through the US simultaneously: 1) Abuse of women by predators; 2) Deaths by drug overdose; and 3) NRA and GOP driven deaths, children and adults.
How am I affected: 1) I worry about my grandchildren in school; 2) I worry about my wife simply driving to work who could, at any time be shot by a mad man,or just a stray bullet; and 3) my adult children - lost a son to an overdose and was told by the detective here that my son's death was not a priority for law enforcement here in a red state.
Please read the post by NA below re: Ben Dickmann of Florida's post where he turns his unnecessary AR-15 into law enforcement.
3
I am as disgusted by the modern interpretation of 2nd Amendment “rights” ....first promulgated for an 18th century organized civilian militia using single shot muskets....as I am by a zealous and literal modern interpretations of biblical passages drafted over 2000 years ago. Where is our collective reason and evolutionary maturity?
6
Amen. Voters should ask candidates for congress this year "Have you received money from the NRA?" If yes, don't vote for them. If no, check that they are telling the truth. Make NRA backing anathema to candidates and the organization will shrivel up.
8
With a granddaughter in high school, I freaked out, lost sleep, and was stressed and upset at the Parkland shootings. I agree with a few things said here and with Ms. Dowd's column. Lots of words needing action. It's depressing that there probably won't be any. I just hope and pray every minute of every day my granddaughter and everybody else's stay safe.
3
This column elucidates the scariest thing about the Trump era, the number of people willing to believe a man who doesn't believe in anything except his own status, who chose to run in a party that would rather trick the electorate than actually listen to them.
3
There's absolutely no reason for civilians to have automatic assault 'sporting toys.' It's an accident 'not waiting' to happen.
6
All of these slaughters were profitable for someone. The gun seller made money. The gun manufacturer made money. The manufacturer of the bullets made money. The politicians get their donations from the gun lobby. I hope they enjoy spending their blood money.
4
Wish there was an acknowledgement that we're living in anomalous times...a unique period where school shootings are like a FAD...
The Copycat nature of these attacks is undeniable...
Perhaps institute draconian gun control with built in time limits...Compensate gun shop owners...No time for shabby principles about "rights" of minors to purchase tactical weapons!
Starve this epidemic...
1
I agree we are sorting out our values and our future. And the post 9/11 generation of children is going to lead the way. The adults of this country have become complacent, willing to take the path of least resistance by doing nothing and averting their eyes to yet another slaughter of innocents. I think the NRA and the Republican Party have met their match in these children who have spent their entire lives participating in active shooter drills and watching mass shooting after mass shooting. These children are going to determine the world they will inherit and we can either follow, or get out of the way.
4
The Trump presidency is a threat to all Americans who revere our constitution and ideals but it is an urgent threat to children.Mr Trump rolled back rules that would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, so it will be easier for the deranged to get and use guns.Mr Trump is also making health care more difficult for children to obtain and is reversing environmental regulations which protected them from toxins.His incompetent administration frustrates and infuriates many but we must employ our rage when his policies our hurting our children.They do not have a voice but we do- at the BALLOT BOX.
4
In a related WaPo article, there is this quote from Senator Toomey:
“Partly it’s our polarized political environment, obviously,” Senator Toomey said. “Partly it’s because most of these issues are more complex than they appear at first blush.”
Please, Mr. Toomey, tell the students in Florida what is complicated about a bill saying it is illegal to purchase or sell AR 15s and equivalent in the United States? What is complicated about requiring universal background checks?
I will tell you what is complicated. Learning to live without the father, mother, sister, brother, or other family member who was just murdered in cold blood in the high school where they worked or studied. Why don't you spend a week with such a family!!!
8
And unfortunately, the paid agents of the NRA, our Republican senators and congressmen, are busy offering their "thoughts and prayers".
It turns my stomach. Thoughts and prayers about what? How much money can they squeeze out of their masters by slavishly repeating the dreadful slogans?
And then Speaker Ryan says, let's wait until we have "all the facts". I wonder what facts he was looking for. Whether the Florida murderer held the rifle in his right hand or his left hand?
Or that how much money he can get from the NRA if he makes some statements defending them?
By the way the entire debate about semiautomatic weapons is totally wrong. There were NO semiautomatic weapons when the Second Amendment was created.
Or would the NRA hold that even personal atomic bombs are covered by the Amendment?
6
The murderers of groups are either crazy young males or Muslim terrorists.
Go read up on young Mr. Cruz and tell me he would NOT have killed people if a gun had not been available. Of course he would - with a car, or rocks, or a blade.
Solve the problems of terrorists sneaking in past our gate guards and crazed young men, and the murders of teenagers will once again become rare.
Blaming guns marks one as either panicky or determined to do away with our freedom to own guns for a political reason.
Dowd: " But then the N.R.A. spent more than $30 million to get him elected."
Trump is the NRA's guy just as he is Putin's guy. Trump has been MIA in dealing with gun violence just as he has ben MIA in providing the leadership needed in dealing with Russian interference in our elections. Tump is endangering America because of his weak leadership.
5
I had a childhood friend who once bragged to me that he was able to eat whatever he wanted, even to the point of eating donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was true!
His father worked insanely long hours, leaving the clueless mother to raise the three children as she saw fit. In her mind, making the children do anything that they didn't want to do was cruelty. Homework and chores were things the children didn't do. Allowing the children the freedom to choose .....anything and everything...... was her idea of love. Obviously, the children were sickly and psychotic. In their mind, they bragged about being "Free".
As I read about America's problems -past and present - much of what we suffer from comes from our freedom. We have freedom without discipline.
Our freedoms have allowed us to become the world's industrial giant and "breadbasket". The freedom to partake in our own successes allowed us to fall headfirst into our taster's bowl. We ate all we wanted. We drugged. We shot our guns. We flexed our macho muscle car industrial muscles. We ate donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We didn't do our homework. We bragged to other nations in our neighborhood as to how "Free" we were.
In reality, we just became fat and stupid. In our greasy crashing sugar high frustration we became violent.
Is this really freedom?
3
Nothing will change. Nothing will change. Nothing will change. If/when a member of Congress's kid or grandkid is gunned down, the rhetoric will get amped up (a little louder). But nothing will change. The NRA holds the purse strings.
5
When enough parents and children picket in front of their school with signs that say, END GUN VIOLENCE NOW!, maybe change will happen. Better yet, if enough students refuse to go to school until gun laws change, maybe the president and congress will WAKE UP!
2
People in Florida voted for Scott twice. They voted for Rubio twice. They will vote for Trump twice if they have the chance. Votes count. If you want to make it more difficult to get an assault rifle don't keep voting for the guy who takes money from the NRA. Or overturns a law that makes it more difficult for mentally ill people to buy a gun. The next time you go to the polls think about those kids in Parkland. And if you voted for any of these guys, please blame yourself a little bit too.
keep
3
Even within the cannon of op ed pieces decrying the slaughter of the innocents by AR-15, this was not a great column. It is undermined by a long history of columns by "Maureen" decrying liberal Democratic politicians for obscure, and typically spurious reasons.
What "Maureen" fails to understand is that the days of fair and balanced reportage are gone, and have been dead for a long time. So this offering, like most, provides criticism without content, without offering solutions, absent examples or thought leadership.
But on she goes, writing in that upper east side voice so removed from the daily bread of normal Americans.
3
Don't ever give up trying, Ms. Dowd!
Remember A.J. Muste and his vigil outside the White House
during the Vietnam war?
One rainy night, as Mr. Muste stood with his candle, a reporter
said to him:"Surely you don't think you can change the world
by standing out here in the rain with your candle?"
And Mr.Muste replied: "I don't do it to change the world, I do it
so the world won't change me!"
4
"Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable" this is absolutely true. My comment is a question , who are we and what have we become letting a small group of fanatics dictate the safety of our children ?
3
When Madison wrote the Bill of Rights the population of European immigrants in the United States was about one percent of our current US population. Families on the frontier relied on hunting for a significant portion of their protein nourishment. They hunted with single shot, muzzle loading shotguns and rifles. Madison would have written a different second amendment had he been able to envision Uzis, Mac-10s and AR-15s. The NRA is fostering terrorism under the guise of patriotism. Do we have to wait until the high school students who are dodging bullets to grow up before we elect legislators who have the guts to admit that. How many bucks, how many votes is a child's life worth?
3
You almost had me this time, until you threw in your comment about Obama. You know as well as anyone that LBJ was unique among all presidents in his abilities at managing legislation. He was also backed by a wave of public and congressional support to heal the trauma of the Kennedy assassination.
6
I am feed up and I am embarrassed at myself for not doing more. But, I am embolden by the survivors of this most recent shooting and the leadership that they are expressing. From the mouths of babes. This is different and so am I.
1
Sadly, mass killings have become a part of our culture and the American people are at fault. They keep electing paid stooges for the National Rifle Association who resort to fear tactics by repeating fatuous NRA slogans and hysteria about taking guns as a violation of the second amendment. This even though Justice Scalia said that the right to bear arms was not absolute. Nothing will be done about the gun violence until people march in the streets and oppose politicians who are marionettes for the NRA, tied to their purse-strings.
3
These young people (our kids) will have to save themselves. We have proven as adults that we are incapable.
3
Forget a federal solution. The states will figure this out now. They are closer to gun deaths, but the gated communities in Florida may or may not rise to prevent AR-15 guns sold like candy. Our nation's gun worship is important than our children, and with that, we will continue to pray to gun gods, and the fresh, red, blood of poor, black, Latino, and suburban children. This church has no color boundaries, and the cure requires an antidote of courage. For now, It's easier to bury dead children than lose Congressional seats. Their heavenly seats are more sacred. Are not 17 year wars the same, except loaded with the words honor and country instead of thoughts and prayers? We love death, and we love the deaths of innocents. As long they as their seats are safe, the rest of us must worship and sacrifice our sons and daughters, every day.
4
“But it doesn’t take any soul searching to know this: Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable.”
That would be true … if Americans hadn’t sold their soul to the NRA notion that the ceaseless slaughter – even of children – is an acceptable price to pay so any dotard can legally obtain a gun.
2
I agree with most of this, but calling Trump on his revocation of the EO "rolling back a regulation that made it harder for mentally ill people to buy guns" is misplaced. This wasn't an EO that just barred possession by people who had been adjudicated as dangerous (for example, in a competency hearing or by having an order of protection lodged against them). It held that anyone who designated a payee to receive disability checks for mental illness would show up in the background check database.
This should be an issue with anyone who opposes the right-wing's blaming of mental illness as an issue in these shootings since it smacks of the same danger of stereotyping the mentally ill as violent. This is why the ACLU opposed this rule. As they argued--"The thousands of Americans whose disability benefits are managed by someone else range from young people with depression and financial inexperience to older adults with Down syndrome needing help with a limited budget. But no data — none — show that these individuals have a propensity for violence in general or gun violence in particular."
Raising this as an issue plays into the hands of the ammosexuals who try to make mental illness, as opposed to the ready availability of guns, the problem.
Great piece, Maureen. As a Guardian ad litem, advocating for abused/neglected children in foster care, it was very clear, every day, that "children are our most precious resource" wasn't true. I always asked "what is the evidence for that"? It's not there. We are perfectly willing to accept beatings, rape, trafficking of children, protecting adults and sacrificing children. We are willing to undereducated generations of poor children. And, as you said, willing to accept 39,000 deaths a year to support our love for guns. Thank you for this piece. I sent it to my Missouri State legislators and my Congressman and Senators, but they won't do anything about it until we all vote them out if they don't. In Missouri we care much more about guns than our safety.
2
The truth is that America simply doesnt care enough about this issue to vote out congress that oppose rational gun control. Yes, the NRA has out maneuvered. Yes, gun manufacturers have money. Yes, there is 10% of the population that are single issue voters on guns. None of that is an excuse. The NRA spends about $10M per year in outside expenditures but only $3.5M since 1998 donated to all members of Congress. To put it in perspective, National Association of realtors, American Medical Association, GE, American Hospital Association, pHarma, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and AARP all spend between 1.5-2.5x what the NRA spends. This is a simple equation. Vote, vote, vote
1
Just as women (and men) are now doing with sexual harassment and abuse we now need to start doing to the gun industry. Calling them out. Specifically calling out the names of the manufacturers and the guns used to slaughter. Call out the names of their executives and the members of their board. Post their names, along with who was killed, on billboards, the sides of buses (and milk cartons), and on all social media platforms.
We need to call out the names and locations of the gun distributors, too, who sell the weapons responsible for the slaughter. We also need to loudly call out the complicit, sit on the doorstep of every elected official and NRA officer, who countenances them. Because I agree with Maureen on this; the sacrifice of children on the altar of the 2nd Amendment is not just unacceptable it gives lie to the idea of safety and security it purports to represent. This needs to stop and now is not soon enough.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
I hope that the kids from Parkland become roll models for the rest of the country in the fight for more restrictive gun control and saner laws. The picture included with this op-ed broke my heart. Living here in Florida 2 miles from where Treyvon Martin was killed, 20 miles from the Pulse nightclub massacre, and now two hours away from Parkland, I am acutely aware of gun violence and the failure of our legislators to address the situation under the guise of 2nd Amendment rights - "Well-regulated"? HAH!
My 7 and 9 year old grandchildren go to school here and have had "code red" drills since kindergarten. The day after Parkland my 9 year old granddaughter recounted, very matter-of-factly, that in the code red drill that day she had been on the playground and since "the closets were already full" they had to go to the art room and hunker under cabinets, making themselves as skinny as possible so that no arms or legs would be sticking out if anyone looked in the door. Why should any child in America, or elsewhere, need to worry about something like that?
How does anyone explain, especially adults who can do something about it, that money trumps safety in the lives of children and anyone else in the line of fire? Please, please, please make this time different...
1
Are we going to have to model our school buildings like the prison system? Put our children in "lockdown" each morning then releasing them at the end of the day? Drastic situations now call for drastic measures. Nothing else matters except protecting these beautiful human beings. As usual, most of our politicians and the NRA are silent. I have a new name for this organization---No Rights Acceptable.
2
"We can't even summon the energy to break the chokehold that the N.R.A. has on Republicans in Congress." Maureen, if you'll help me, I think there is something we can do to change this.
Let's establish a GOFUNDME account with the goal of raising $1 billion. Let Senator Chris Murphy propose sensible gun control legislation to Congress. Then you announce: "Any member of Congress who supports this bill and is subsequently voted out of office in the next election cycle will receive an award for 'Courageous and Meritorious Public Service' in the amount of $10 million." You or someone of your choosing would be responsible for disbursing funds.
If it's true that Republicans won't support gun control out of fear of losing their jobs to NRA retaliation, then this strategy will work. Ousted Republicans will no longer work in Washington, D.C., but they and their families will be set for life. Some may object that we're illegally buying votes, but we're not. We're rewarding backbone. Absolutely no money changes hands after the vote.
Some will call it an illegal campaign contribution. Giving money to someone who's already been drummed out of office with no future in politics is a "campaign contribution?" Absurd.
Let's put the NRA in the awkward position of making multi-millionaires out of the very people they think they can viciously attack. A creative little bit of political jujitsu, don't you think?
Let's stop pretending we don't have the power to change things. We can.
My father was a sniper. He was the best of the best shots during World War II. Further, he did occupation duty in Germany at the end of the war.
At the end of the war, as he was leaving the army, the army asked him if he wanted to keep his guns. He said no-that he didn't want anything that could cause so much human suffering in his home.
That is good enough for me. Hunters are not the problem--people who think they can settle personal grudges or protect themselves from imagined enemies are the problem.
Seeing photos of heartbroken Floridians reminds of my father--they have seen what guns can do!
3
Someone please tell me that where the "well regulated" militia was that forms the basis for the second amendment? We can debate what "well regulated" means legally, but clearly the shooter was not a member of any militia, more or less a "well regulated" one. There is a lot of constitutional room for gun control in those words. That is why the NRA consistently omits that clause when the quote the second amendment. All the is missing is for the those offering "thought and prayers" to develop a spine and act on the moral imperative that says children in schools can no longer continue to be innocent victims of legal and moral neglect by our elected representatives.
2
Florida is also known as the Gunshine State with a long history of NRA lobbying and NRA produced laws.
Rick Scott has a terrible record on gun control and signed one of the worst NRA gun laws, Docs vs. Glocks that was recently overturned.
And before being governor, Rick Scott had to step down as CEO of Hospital Corporation of America in 1997 for the biggest Medicare fraud case in history.
12
Dowd seems convinced that the way to salvation lies in the disarming of America, preferably in a great national bonfire, from which we will all walk away cleansed and redeemed. She claims that this (disarming) has been done in other countries that she deigns to specify. Others have called for something less universal, "sensible gun reform", but they similarly deign to tell us what that is. Still others tell us that the unholy alliance between the NRA and politicians must be broken. And of course there are those who can do little else but to lay the whole roiling debate on the shoulders of President Trump. But the fault, dear readers, lies not in the guns, but in ourselves, and in the very woof and warp of our singularly violent history and culture, that has thrived after countries, peoples, and races were left behind as "collateral damage."
4
Yeah, those are nice words. But tomorrow, I have to go back to my teaching job and look at 110 kids I have to worry about. So aside from just saying restrictive gun laws don't work, and this is baked into our DNA, what is YOUR elegant solution?
Guns have become religious objects, driven by a religious reading of the Constitution. Until legislators are willing to insist that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t specify “all” guns school children, their teachers, church goers and clinic workers will continue to die.
Aided and abetted by the gun makers, Wall Street investors and those who benefit from a society that is being continually militarized.
3
John Roberts and his court are soaked in blood. He said under oath before Congress that he would uphold precedent. He then voted to change 200 years of precedent concerning the 2nd Amendment saying it was not about arming militias. It was and had been interpreted that way until his court. How can he face himself each day with the blood of so many innocents on his hands?
8
The outrage against reasonable gun control, a Republican Administration, a Republican Congress, and their supporters is palpable, yet these disgusting plastic idealogues continue.
As a sportsman, the fix to the gun issue is simple: apply the same rules we use for a Drivers License and have accepted as a society. As a reminder, those rules are: training, registration, testing (mental & physical), periodic renewal, fees, state and/or national registery, the bigger the vehicle the more challenging each requirement (e.g. periodic drug testing for CDL, etc.), and if you violate the law your license is suspended or revoked. We seem to be able to handle these vehicle laws, ergo, the perfect model for gun control. Again, I’m a sportsman and would support this type of approach. Personally, I stopped supporting the NRA given their intransigence on supporting any reasonable approach to gun control and encourage others to do likewise.
As for the Republican Idealogues, that answer is simple too, remove them from office before more children and adults are needlessly slaughtered.
Save a Republic, Remove a Republican.
12
First of all, nothing will happen until the equation dead kids = rich politicians is changed. Millions of dollars will flow to dozens of politicians in the coming weeks to do the bidding of the gun industry.
Second, it drives me crazy when pundits say "nothing will be done". Yes, it will. Laws eventually will be passed to make guns EASIER to get and also mandated and publicly funded for certain people. Specifically, the "solution" that will be proposed in Florida will be thousands of armed guards in schools and armed teachers and administrators as well, with all of the weapons paid for with taxpayer dollars. The best that is likely to come out of this latest tragedy is "nothing".
Remember, dead children = rich politicians.
5
Gun violence is only one highly visible example of how our nation views children as "collateral damage". When our mean-spiritied politicians cut the safety net children are collateral damage. When we fail to provide schools serving children in poverty with adequate funding because "throwing money at the problem" is no solution, children are collateral damage. When we put the importance of shareholders over the well-being of families children are collateral damage. If we want to put the well-being of children front and center, we meed to put the needs of families front and center...
5
Ironic beyond all words that America can pay lip service to a deity taken straight from the Massachussets Bay Colony anno 1697 and yet permit human sacrifice in anno 2018. The Almighty Dollar is the altar that Congress worships at, and the emoluments from weapons manufacturing in which Massachusetts is not an insignificant player are simply more important than a child's continued existence.
4
Watch Trump and the Republicans propose making our schools into armed camps -- like our government buildings and our airports.
When the shooters move to their next "soft target," like churches and malls, Trump will urge us to fortify those places.
The choice is simple: disarm everyone, or arm everyone. Trump wants "arms for all."
3
There was a day around the time of the JFK, MLK,Jr., RFK assignations when the NRA, as I recall, wasn't powerful and the national will to impose gun control was pretty solid. Respected leaders in government, religion and business had no problem invoking the Biblical "beating swords into plowshares." The Second Amendment, now the centerpiece of the GOP's human and civil rights, was viewed properly as one of the least in the Bill of Rights, right alongside Bills of Attainder. The passage of the Brady Law energized the NRA with an epiphany that politicians, particularly Republicans, were for sale. Then, Fox News picked up the pro-gun crusade with 24/7 "fair and balanced" discussions, loaded with NRA propaganda. Democrats, fearing election defeat, became terrified and the push for laws banning guns similar to Canada and the UK morphed into a safer call to ban assault weapons and focus more on mental health. Thank you , Ms. Dowd, for a clear and understandable review of where we are and how we got here.
2
The subject of the sentence on arms in the Second Amendment is the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” in maintaining a defense against threats to this country. The “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is clearly subsidiary to that. Thus, as the Supreme Court has affirmed in a number of cases, the Amendment naturally does not bestow a completely unregulated right to bear arms, I’m still floored that almost no commentary or discussion mentions the priority our Founding Fathers gave to regulation and therefore so patently thought was necessary, even while saying the right to bear arms “shall not be infringed.”
2
The primary motivation for politicians is winning elections. For many it may be the only motivation. Winning takes money.
The NRA gives money. The NRA position on gun controls is clear---no compromise. If a politician wants NRA money to win an election, then support for the NRA stance is mandatory. No exceptions.
Even if your close friend and work colleague is riddled with bullets (Representative Steve Scalise), you don't seek compromise. Because, after all, you want to be re-elected, don't you?
The NRA position isn't going to change. The only way this ongoing and inexcusable tragedy is ever going to change is if more pro-compromise voters go the polls than NRA supporters.
5
Why do people want assault rifles? When we talk about gun control, we are addressing the symptoms, not the disease. Until we face the underlying reason people continue to buy assault rifles, no progress will ever be made.
Why? Hint: It's the weakness the Russians most easily exploited in their war on our democratic voting system. It's the issue that once drove this country to sacrifice 600,000 souls in a civil war. It's the compromise we made between the original 13 colonies that persuaded all to join the nation under one constitution.
2
In elementary school we used to have drills simulating nuclear strikes, and our teachers taught us to hide under our desks. It was a spectacularly unrealistic response, but at least the "enemy" was foreign. I can't imagine being taught to hide in my school from an American with a gun.
3
"Then I gave up. "
So did I. I realized, like you, that too many Americans, despite their often gaudy, self-congratulatory displays of generosity and compassion, care only about their rights as individuals and have absolutely no sense of social responsibility.
So I left, and for years now I've been happily paying my taxes to support a society whose members do recognize their responsibility to the greater good. And that makes me feel good.
3
" But it doesn’t take any soul searching to know this: Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable."
I would suggest a modest change to this thought:
But it doesn’t take any soul searching to know this: Treating "American" children as collateral damage is intolerable. However, it is not intolerable to treat as collateral damage those children killed and wounded in the Middle East countries, that we, and/or our proxies, bomb regularly. Not to mention those we leave homeless and starving.
Empathy stops at the water's edge.
1
What does your brother, the Republican and a prime example of how we got where we are, think? Still voting, supporting Trump and his GOP? Still dogma over what is right?
3
As a nation we are unable to protect our children and unwilling to try.
1
Unfortunately Trump's values are the values of about 40% of the population who support him.
2
So a pipe bomb that could kill a few people is a 'weapon of mass destruction' and rightly is illegal. But a semi-automatic rifle that as we continually see can kill many people too is a freely available & legal consumer product. Perhaps if we all started to call these weapons what they are, ie. weapons of mass destruction we could shift the gun dialogue in the direction of sanity.
6
Your point on Trump is well taken. The only consideration to change and channel his mind is money. So we need to give him more than $30 million and we'll get our way ? What do you think we are , a bunch of Russian Oligarchs ?
The NRA has become an anti-government radical organization that speaks for the interests of a minority of citizens. Increasingly, it funnels Russian money to U.S. politicians. Trump received $30 million and promised the NRA he would do their bidding. The NRA has morphed from being a rifle and firearms safety group to radical political action group. Politicians who take NRA money have to answer for the increase in public mass shootings. Politicians' acceptance of NRA funds will also be a large factor in the midterm elections. It's an issue Democrats can take to the ballot box.
5
The problem is summarized in the mealy mouthed responses of Scott and Rubio the Republican governor and senator respectively from Florida. Two thirds roughly of Republican voters are fervent gun supporters. Turning these voters off is political suicide for any Republican. Florida not surprisingly has some of the most lax gun laws in the country. Scott signed a law that would have barred doctors even asking their patients about guns (it was subsequently over turned by the courts) but needless to say he started burbling about mental health after this latest outrage which comes on the heels of those in Ft Lauderdale and Orlando. If sensible Republicans want to do something about this scourge then they are going to have to start voting Democrat and get behind a serious nationwide agenda of gun control. Otherwise the shootings will continue indefinitely. It's a catch 22.
36
??? Maureen Dowd was right, it was Democratic controlled Senate that didn't pass any gun control legislation after Sandy Hook. Democrats and well as the GOP voted it down, even measures backed by the NRA.
@John
Washington
Yes it's well known the Democratic party is totally opposed to any efforts to substantially expand gun controls. They are great supporters of the NRA. Thanks for reminding us.
1
Below is an article on the Senate actions after Sandy Hook; clearly an assault weapons law didn't due to the action of Democrats too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.h...
Senate Blocks Drive for Gun Control
The assault weapons vote was 40 in favor and 60 against. The magazine ban fell with 46 in favor and 54 against.
Even a bipartisan amendment to impose stiff penalties on gun traffickers, which was supported by the N.R.A. and expected to be adopted by voice vote, instead was defeated, receiving 58 votes, as the partisan lines hardened.
The successive defeats left senators on both sides of the issue dazed and disappointed. Mr. Begich said the Senate could have united behind measures with broad support, like strengthening the existing background check system with more data about would-be gun buyers who have been deemed mentally ill, rather than expanding the checks to sales not now covered. Mr. Begich also cited bolstering school safety, criminalizing gun trafficking and improving mental health programs.
Did the money given Trump campaign by the NRA originate in Russia? WhAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN Russia AND THE NRA
36
The NRA has been infiltrated by Russian agents, even to the point of giving life memberships to some of Putin's oligarch cronies -- imagine the hypocrisy of giving life memberships in a gun rights organization to citizens of a country that has no gun rights -- and funneled Russian money to Trump's campaign. As such it should be labeled a subversive organization and banned.
2
Gun control is an issue will not be resolved with our current structure of government. Americans are no less distraught each time a mass shooting occurs, rather more resigned to the fact that our government cannot do anything to improve the problem.
The time has come for a new process to solve issues such as this and other intractable problems. We the people need to move away from Representative Democracy, towards a true Democracy. We live in a time when the President can talk to all Americans and Americans can speak back, quickly, efficiently and directly. From the 1780s to the dawn of the internet age voters needed "Representation." American Society has changed in unimaginable ways and yet our government is stuck in the mud of a bygone era.
I no longer want my voice heard once every two or four years! I want it heard every year, or month or whatever suitable time period that will allow us to move forward. I am not proud of my Democracy.
REFORM!
38
"The #MeToo movement has proved that spider webs of protection for predators can be ripped apart in an instant, that unspeakable things that have been tolerated for decades can suddenly be deemed intolerable."
As it applies to wealthy celebrities.
23
Sexual harassment/predation and our national gun abuse sickness differ in that, sexual harassment was declared illegal circa 1980. Our cultural gun abuse sickness was never.
The enablers and co dependents on all sides male and female in the sexual harassment era post 1980 let the predators come out of the closet until the recent uproar.
If we now continue to enable and co-depend, the same thing will happen again.
2
Maureen says: “[ We allow ] human sacrifices to the trigger gods in the interest of upholding this bizarre notion that the Second Amendment is inviolate or even really threatened.”
I doubt the Second Amendment has much to do with it.
A major factor is money: not just the NRA but arms and munitions makers pay lawmakers to do their bidding. Accepting this money is pure venality, and a violation of trust.
Another factor is that some people are very attracted to gun ownership - it goes back to the same instincts seen in cowboy shows and cop movies for generations. It’s infantile and it’s dangerous, but there it is.
Kristoff has presented the facts about reducing shootings in his recent NYT article “How to Reduce Shootings” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-sho...
It is stupid to ignore these proven actions to reduce gun deaths. But venality and childishness are strong influences.
66
We put gun rights above human rights. Our representatives in Congress care more about their political fortunes than our children. You can blame the whole rotten thing on the N.R.A; but, we are the ones that allow mentally ill teenagers to buy AR 15's, all the ammunition and high capacity clips they can fit in their backpack. We are the ones that elect these political terrorists. This isn't the last school shooting. We've had 18 school shootings this year, and it is only February. More children will die. More teachers will be murdered, and for what? The right of any American not matter how crazy to own a machine gun. It is sick, and we are all deplorable for allowing it to happen on our watch. Gun ownership should not be a right. Gun ownership should be a privilege. It is that simple.
103
The problem lies not in the stars, it lies with US. We the American people who have been duped, bamboozled, brainwashed, into buying the malarkey of the N.R.A. and gun manufacturers. When the United States has almost half the guns in the World, I repeat, the World, I wonder what the heck are we so afraid of? Ourselves, apparently, our fellow Americans, our neighbor. What a terrible price to pay. By buying into this Second Amendment mantra which is being pounded into people's thick skulls for so long we have become inoculated from common sense, the kind displayed yesterday by high school kids in Florida. I hope their enthusiasm does not fade because they are in for a long battle with the gun lobby, politicians, and old folks who have lost all perspective about what the Second Amendment means. Remember it has become meaningless to our children, many of whom will be inheriting this gun-happy country we've created for them. They have different thoughts about guns than old folks. We live in different times. These kids are learning that it is guns that kill people, people just pull the trigger, such as easy task, and easy cop-out. These kids are shouting to the rafters and warning US. If we don't do something about restricting guns, when they reach the majority age, they will. I wish them the best in their fight, and I support them completely.
DD
Manhattan
93
We need a 2018 National Day of Unity to march in every hamlet, town, city and state in our beautiful country to demonstrate how many of us also have a dream: that we ARE stronger than the NRA, and this gun carnage needs to and must be stopped.
43
Agreed! But we also need a national strike by teachers, doctors, mental health professionals, university professors, scientists, first responders and all anti gun violence athletes and regular moms and dads. Strike and march for a week across the country! The NRA and its political puppets, need a much stronger message. If not now, when?
2
We also outnumber them by about 345 million. We need a leader to organize a major protest and voter registration drive.
1
Sadly, more division, not unity has been spread since 45's candidacy.
2
Good article, Ms Dowd, however I feel that this scandal has far greater proportions than the other scandals you mention. They were largely secret and conspiritorial, admittedly connived in by some who suspected - and should have spoken out. But there is nothing secretive about these mass child murders, or the blatant acceptance by politicians of bribes ("donations") from the ultra rich gun lobby. This is the behaviour we associate with psychopaths.
Consider the vile wickedness, dishonesty and hypocrisy of Trump's GOP enablers who, like him, attract NRA support by putting military grade weapons in the hands of millions of Americans, and then immediately blame the law enforcement authorities when some crazy killer predictably, slips through the net. When Sessions: says “It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed....“We see the tragic consequences of those failures.” Sessions must know he is lying in his teeth for the sake of deflecting his own shared responsibility for the ongoing carnage. He must surely know that, but for GOP gun policy, the slaughter of these innocents could not have happened. It is surely time to call a spade a spade.
These politicians have put assault weapons in the hands of the gunmen. That makes them accessories to murder.
83
In Florida a 19 year could legally buy a killing machine. In That state or any other state, he could not drink legally at that age.
14
The Florida Dept of Social Services was aware of him, yet they decided he was not a risk -
The FBI got tips about him and unfortunately dropped the ball.
Now comes the editorials from the Left about the "daily massacres" that happen because of guns in this county
Yet the rate of gun violence has essentially been in a free fall since the the '90's
The number of guns sold set record after record during the Obama years
The media with it's 24/7 promotion of this troubled young man's story and its aftermath has basically guaranteed that we'll have another story like this in the future.
What is constantly lacking from the Left is any sane and or workable idea on how to fix the problem.
Mass shootings are primarily a mental health issue.
Yet the response from the Left is always the same -subvert the Constitution.
I've asked this before and I'll ask it again;
"Explain to me why I have to give up my basic human right to self defense because a troubled kid in Florida went off the rails?"
Explain to me how if you banned guns the day the ban went into effect would be the last day we'd ever have to deal with a tragedy like Sandy Hook, or the Pulse nightclub or the Las Vegas or the TX's church
There are approximately 300 million guns here NOW how long before you round up the last one. And after you've taken the last one can I ask just one simple question;
When that time comes and the next mass casualty event happens can I have my guns and my rights returned to me?
6
Because mind reading is so very hard, we need laws that make mind reading unnecessary. Repeal the 2nd Amendment.
5
A pretty good statement of the counter arguments. One question that sticks out to me is why some people feel very strongly that they need automatic weapons for self defense when I and most people i know feel reasonably secure without any firearms at all.
2
I'm not a lawyer but Scalia stated in Heller 2008 the 2nd amendment allows a handgun for home protection while all other weapons are subject to legislation. I interpret that as the 2nd stops at the front door. All other allowances are brought about through pandering via political bribes disguised as contributions. I have never needed a weapon of any kind but I could live Scalia's interpretation.
The slaughter of people by gun wielding maniacs and answers to the blood bath must go beyond politics. If human life is held so cheaply by our society we do not deserve to be called civilized.
the goal must be to stop the slaughter. Please those who must have guns, the goal is not to take them away from you. Most of us are not mad maniacs. We must control the spread and use of guns that are used for such violence. And we must work together to stop the scourge by identifying those with evil intent and Preventing them from getting the tools they use to create such meaningless carnage.
13
And so where are our leaders at this time of dire issues faced by their constituents? Home on vacation hiding out, of course. I vote to remove weapons scanners in the capitals and make federal and state legislators spend their vacation days in public school rooms, hospital emergency rooms, homeless shelters, deportation centers and detox centers -- by bus -- for one year before being eligible for any retirement pay
45
Show America pictures of the young victims....as they lay lifeless disfigured by bullets and shrapnel. It's an image I detest even suggesting, but I see no other way. Much the same as seeing destroyed vehicles driven by drunk, or distracted teens parked in front of high schools has the same effect.
We have become far too detached from reality and it's time to pull back those covers. If this does not work, nothing will...
27
You are absolutely right! Read the autopsy reports from Las Vegas. Chilling
"Trump often bragged about his skill as a negotiator."
"Good deal" means good for him and only him--as in "I Win, You Lose."
Some personality types can think any other way.
Yes they are "self absorbed"; also diagnosed as ---!
Maybe that also explains Trumpies too---"good" means "good for me".
A unified country is NOT one without conflicts of interest--they are as natural and inevitable as competitive sports--zero-sum.
Unity is "meta"--about how the games--economic and political--are played and referred and how challenges and appeals are adjudicated.
"Good games" are played fair, teams evenly matched. They are not Heads I win, Tails you lose.
Those are con games; "Trump games"--we might say--since he must always be trumps.
9
Let NRA members have all the front loading muskets they want. That was state of the art in 1789 when the 2nd amendment was written. The founding fathers were not stupid men. They had no inkling how their amendment would be twisted to allow for the ridiculous amount of fire power and magazines we have today. A top militia man of the 18th century would be lucky to get off 3 rounds in a minute, what with all the steps needed to do before actually pulling the trigger. How can an amendment written about that kind of firepower have any relevance to what is in the hands of civilians today?
58
"America is in the throes of great disruptions and anxieties"
America is in the process of tearing itself apart. The expectations (realistic or otherwise) of millions of people have not been met and failed expectations create more anger than no expectations at all. This opens the door to chaos. Angry people are willing to follow an angry leader. As Bret Weinstein said (perhaps quoting someone else) "tyranny is the endgame of prosperity". We are in the throes of the death of democracy and as with our numbness to school shootings and the other horrors of the age, we are numb to the destruction of our institutions. Has #metoo actually changed anything other than getting a few men fired? Ultimately it will just create more numbness. In fact it has probably already happened. Do we really care which celebrities or politicians are accused at this point? Maybe the accusations are true; maybe they're not. Who cares?
We are a nation in which people lust for the badge of victimhood because in victimhood is absolution. A victim cannot be an oppressor. We announce our victimhood as a shield: "as a woman of colour", "as a gay man", "as a cancer survivor" "as a single mother" "as a disabled person" . . . . preambles that turn dialogues into diatribes.
Can a nation of victims have any future other than a descent into mutual distrust and recrimination? Can a nation of angry, righteous victims not expect a descent into violence?
8
Maureen is spot on in pointing out the complete abandonment of the safety of children by the Republican Party as they pick up their checks from the NRA and worry about being primaried by an NRA backed opponent if they are not insane enough in protecting their guns for everyone policies. Republicans prefer to collect their NRA money with the implicit agreement that they block any gun control laws that might protect school children. Talk about selling your soul to the devil NRA. These Republicans are complicit in the murder of children by failing to do anything to restrict the insane sale of military assault weapons to 19 year olds with years of mental problems.
28
Democrats are just as much at fault. Below is an article on the Senate actions after Sandy Hook; clearly an assault weapons law didn't due to the action of Democrats too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.h...
Senate Blocks Drive for Gun Control
The assault weapons vote was 40 in favor and 60 against. The magazine ban fell with 46 in favor and 54 against.
Even a bipartisan amendment to impose stiff penalties on gun traffickers, which was supported by the N.R.A. and expected to be adopted by voice vote, instead was defeated, receiving 58 votes, as the partisan lines hardened.
The successive defeats left senators on both sides of the issue dazed and disappointed. Mr. Begich said the Senate could have united behind measures with broad support, like strengthening the existing background check system with more data about would-be gun buyers who have been deemed mentally ill, rather than expanding the checks to sales not now covered. Mr. Begich also cited bolstering school safety, criminalizing gun trafficking and improving mental health programs.
“That’s a lot,” he said. “Is it perfect? No. But it’s a lot.”
Those modest steps, however, were sacrificed because other Democrats did not want to see further-reaching provisions fail at the expense of a package that the gun rights lobby wanted, aides said.
1
This is what happens when the Democratic Party recruits conservative "Democrats" in the name of having numbers. There are so-called "Democratic" legislators from gun-crazy districts who will never vote for any kind of gun control because of geography. There is not much that the Democrats can do about this, other than learn how to frame an issue and use language to counteract the GOP narrative and framing -- something they have proven completely and utterly unable, or unwilling, to do.
1
40% of males who are Democrats are gun owners, including almost 60% of Democrats in rural areas and 60% who are veterans. I guess some Democrats are wiling to burn at lot of other Democrats ate the stake.
Anyone looking for an ounce of human decency or humility from Donald Trump is bound to be disappointed. His track record is one of bowing to cold, hard cash, and only cold, hard cash, usually someone else’s. Trump tweets tough, but turns a blind eye, deaf ear and weak knees toward genuine threats facing our nation from within, while Congress bends its spineless back of complicity in deference to the NRA.
Trump took an oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend,” yet, given any opportunity, he blatantly fails to protect those who need protection and defends those unworthy of it, while seemingly caring only to presrve his White House sinecure.
Americans are capable of greatness, even if its present leaders are not. We need leaders who will summon the courage to act on our behalf and in our best interests rather than in their own. We need leaders who end their obiescance to the NRA and summon the obedience and human decency necessary to defend the defenseless.
Simply put, we need leaders who actually lead. Merely invoking the name of God while sending hope and prayers doesn’t cut it. Bowing to the “trigger Gods” needs to stop. America needs, once again, to make “appeasement” a four letter word.
22
It's high time we make it clear to those running for office - they can protect children or accept donations from the NRA, but not both. And vote accordingly.
33
"Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable.". this is obviously not true. you meant to say "Treating children as collateral damage SHOULD BE intolerable.
16
I feel the same exhaustion of outrage. If the slaughter of 20 six year old didn't cause change, why would the death of teenagers in FL?
I'm not the kind of person who wishes harm on others, but I do wish that the NRA headquarters, a gun show, and/or Congress would get a visit from an active shooter. Oh, wait, that wouldn't happen because unlike the public spaces where we live and work, they don't allow loaded guns in their areas. They are safe while we get killed
33
Suicide aside, the statistics are clear. If you are a white man with a gun, you are umpteen times more likely to carry out a mass shooting. If you are a man with a gun you are umpteen times more likely to shoot somebody period. Suicides aside, mental illness is an insignificant factor.
The facts, however, are simply irrelevant when it comes to Mr. Trump and his Trump Congressional Republicans. Congressional Republicans have said that Sandy Hook is a hoax. The NRA gave them gobs of money some of which we now know originated in Russian. Trump's own statements are self-contradictory lunacy. For instance, he blames gun deaths on mental illness but is did everything within his power to kill the ACA.
26
We have a stupid system of government. Other countries do not have elections that go on forever and other countries actively restrict the amount of money in the electoral process. Not the stupid USA. Anyone who thinks that government represents the people and not the money and business class needs serious therapy. The example of the NRA dominating government decision-making, contrary to the will of the clear majority, is Exhibit One.
25
trump and each and every person in Congress is complicit in the murder of our children and citizens. They are spineless cowards who trade money for the lives of children. The misrepresentation of the 2nd amendment is beyond comprehension. When each and every congress person receives millions into their campaign fund(remember they take this money with them) they refuse to act as an intelligent rational human beings. They will someday be held accountable for their actions but do not know how they will get word back from "down there."
11
Ms. Dowd,
I am upset about the latest school shooting too. I hear it is mass shooting number 41 or 42 of this year so far (kind of hard to keep track these days). Who are you trying to win over to the side of fighting against this type of injustice? You talk of the Catholic Church and Hollywood. But the ones who ignored or are ignoring the damage are, "the community." Both of these heinous crimes have been justly pilloried in the press and in public opinion. Criminals are being brought to justice after public outcry. You are using a rather broad brush, "the community shrugged." The difference this time is there is no cover up. Pedophile priests were quietly transferred. Weinstein and other "players" were enabled and their crimes covered up. This latest shooting is in plain sight. The majority of responsible gun owners, much less the rest of us, want to see justice done and reasonable gun safety laws in our land. Who are you asking to stand up with you against this intolerable collateral damage?
6
To begin ripping apart this particular spider web, I invite everyone to join your local Democratic committee and begin the struggle there. Last Tuesday, not 24 hours before the Florida shootings, I almost gave up too, Maureen. In our local Democratic committee meeting here in the Shenandoah Valley, the chair, a former state senator first elected back in the days when Democrats resembled white nationalists, rambled on and on about how we have to convince voters here that we are not out "to take away their guns." There was talk, barely pretense and fun, about having a few members strap on their guns and have pictures taken. The last few meetings I've been to this topic emerged; Democrats have to prove they love guns too. I bolted from the room and considered never returning. But I'll be back. We can't assume Democrats will take care of this matter. It's our responsibility to make sure all interested parties act fast and decisively. Please start on the local level because even if we get a few key people to speak out, the locals will undermine the effort. Start at the bottom.
13
Bravo, Ms. Dowd. Perhaps you can follow up by getting to know some of the teenagers who survived, and support their plan for a nationwide school walkout in upcoming weeks...Maybe the children can help us find sanity again.
10
You say you were "disgusted" by Obama's failure to pass gun control laws after Sandy Hook. "Disgust" is a strong word. How do you feel about the Republican minority in the Senate that blocked Obama's efforts, or the House Republican majority that made it clear they wouldn't pass it? How do you feel about Mitch McConnell's statement upon Obama's election that his highest priority was to limit Obama to one term? McConnell's brazen theft of a Supreme Court seat?
There are reasonable criticisms of Obama, but yours is not one. Your lament about "the nation's conscience" is meant to frame you as morally superior to "the nation." You're not. Ms. Dowd, more than a year into Trump's Presidency, and you're still giving the Republican party cover, blaming Democrats for Republican policy. You're not above the problem, you're part of the problem. I think "disgusting" is an appropriate term.
64
Maureen Dowd is right, and you need stop drinking the Kool Aid. Below is an article on the Senate actions after Sandy Hook.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/politics/senate-obama-gun-control.h...
Senate Blocks Drive for Gun Control
The assault weapons vote was 40 in favor and 60 against. The magazine ban fell with 46 in favor and 54 against.
Even a bipartisan amendment to impose stiff penalties on gun traffickers, which was supported by the N.R.A. and expected to be adopted by voice vote, instead was defeated, receiving 58 votes, as the partisan lines hardened.
The successive defeats left senators on both sides of the issue dazed and disappointed. Mr. Begich said the Senate could have united behind measures with broad support, like strengthening the existing background check system with more data about would-be gun buyers who have been deemed mentally ill, rather than expanding the checks to sales not now covered. Mr. Begich also cited bolstering school safety, criminalizing gun trafficking and improving mental health programs.
“That’s a lot,” he said. “Is it perfect? No. But it’s a lot.”
1
I agree with you 100%.
The Republicans exploited Senate rules on cloture/filibuster to defeat numerous bills. Please explain how that was Obama's fault.
1
No meaningful gun legislation will be enacted until Scalia's "Citizens United" campaign financing gift to the corporations and American oligarchs is repealed. The NRA is a stooge organization for Remington, Colt, Winchester, Browning, etc. gun and ammo manufacturers and nothing more. Nothing will change until campaign financing comes from the taxpayers' US Treasury not corrupt billionaires. Candidates would receive equal funding and a limited time for political campaigning. This approach would improve significantly our chances for a functioning democracy.
9
If you look at the Natl Acad of Science study, improving emergency response systems and providing first aid training can save tens of thousands of lives.
Arguing about which flavor of attack approach should be banned/regulated is a distraction. There are lots of ways to attack & kill.
Congress could easily propose the following plan:
1. Develop school safety standards
2. Fund school security guards
3. Fund emergency planning & response systems. There are some brilliant automated systems that could be developed.
4. Fund universal period 8 first aid training
5. Fund regional emergency exercises
6. Develop & fund emergency planning training programs, perhaps within Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC).
Prayers, good thoughts, memorials, posters, and flowers don't change things. What it important is that 148,000 die every year from trauma. Many of those can be saved. Focusing on the attack method de jour ignores the fact that the 'enemy' will change tactics to accomplish their goals.
Nice try. You forgot #7. Ban assault rifle sales. #8. Require permits for all semiautomatic weapons and handguns.
2
Three words: Campaign Finance Reform.
11
As we mourn the innocent school children and teachers, Trump doesn't have the mental capacity to care. He couldn't even utter two words of sympathy. Why should he as you pointed out, our children are just collateral damage to the NRA and the gun lobby and all the politicians who take money from them and are scared to go up against them. Trump and his family are safe because of the secret service, so why should he care.
7
Maureen writes that after priests were continually caught preying on children, after Weinstein and his protection network were shown to be repeatedly sacrificing young women for the huge sums brought in by hit movies, and after almost 20 years of frequent mass killing of our children to protect the rights of people wedded to a hobby with a deadly protective shroud around it (also for money when it comes down to it), "The community shrugged."
That really is it, and what it shows is something few people really want to face: that we as a country have segments of the population, including our Congressional representatives, who value protecting the reputations of their religious leaders, protecting continuing money streams, and protecting a macho, largely unnecessary hobby more than they do our children.
We all find it easy to enough to (eventually) condemn child abuse perpetrators and enablers even if they happen to be our religious leaders, and we find it much easier (eventually) to condemn perpetrators and enablers of systemic misogynistic abuse and behaviors, but for some reason, when it comes to guns, we cannot bring ourselves to condemn that segment of our population that, through their vehement opposition to anything resembling sane gun control policies and their strong support of the NRA, perpetuates a culture that enables continuing horrific mass killings of our children.
The gun culture in the US is a public health threat that far outweighs the right to a hobby.
14
We have to have common sense gun control methods now in this country including the banning of assault weapons, background checks on private sales, ban on under 21 year old owning guns, safe storage methods, banning of bump stocks, and research on smart guns.
9
Don't hold your breath.
1
When Mitt Romney spoke of Trump's candidacy, he called Trump a fraud and a charlatan; that his campaign promises were as good as the "degrees" from Trump University.
That fraud is nothing compared to the hucksterism and hypocrisy of the NRA. They have succeeded in advancing the myth that any restriction, however trivial, is equivalent to the repeal of the Second Amendment. They continue to assert, in the face of history and existing laws, that every citizen has the RIGHT to buy, carry, display and use any firearm at any time in any place of the owner's choosing.
Forget that every amendment of our Bill of Rights is limited and restricted in some fashion. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater to assert your 1st amendment rights; you cannot assemble to promote violence (see Charlottesville.) Rights forbidding search and seizure of you and your house/car and double jeopardy, providing assistance of counsel, knowledge of the charges against you, and a jury trial are circumscribed by rules that promote an ordered society. Indeed, the Supreme Court's Heller decision is notable more for the restrictions it allowed than its limited holding: i.e., you can keep a gun in your home for self defense.
What is missing is the collective political will of all/any politicians at the state and federal level to refuse NRA blood money, reject the false premise that no limits apply to the Second Amendment and fix this scourge. Connecticut did it and the NRA could not stop it.
13
Ducks, geese, and even some deer have better odds than children.
For years, federal waterfowl law has limited hunters to guns with a maximum capacity of three shells, and this regulation is routinely enforced by game wardens in every state (magazines with a larger capacity must be plugged).
Most states limit the capacity of semiautomatic rifles used to hunt animals to five or six rounds. Maine, for example, bans ownership for hunting any semi-automatic rifle with more than five round capacity has no limit on capacity otherwise (Note: Texas, where the deer are typically the size of small dogs, proudly refuses any limits.)
Reason for this limit: fear that bigger magazines would enable unscrupulous hunters to kill more than legally allowed.
10
So it would seem that humans are not so lucky as deer and ducks.
2
Sometimes commenters vigorously and unequivocally state various scientific, statistical or legal "facts" and "truths" which, in fact, are nothing more than wishful thinking and willful ignorance. Some of those are more blatant than the pig-headed, obnoxious proclamations coming from Stephen Miller, Sarah Sanders or bot feeds on facebook. Sometimes they outdo the tweets from our dayglo weasel prevaricator in chief. Thus, when I read that deer in Texas are the size of small dogs, I felt compelled to offer a correction for the record. This kind of disinformation is largely what got us into this mess in the first place, politically, and I'm rather sensitive to it when it concerns hunting and shooting.
Whitetail deer, here in the southwest, tend to be significantly smaller than their cousins in the north. There's less vegetation, less water, more predation and far less "aren't they cute" regulations, though by no means no regulations. Mule deer, on the other hand, grow large, as large as any northern whitetail. In any and all cases, deer over the age of 1 will weigh in at around 60 lbs */- and adults around 120-150, for whitetail, and rather more for mulies.
While I too scoff at the regulatory zietgesit in Texas (lack of building codes, hunting from helicopters) I have equal or greater contempt for that of the people's republic of California, home to the author inspiring my reply. Too much wheat germ on your sprouts, Mack, nobody hunts small dogs.
Most privately owned guns in the U.S. could qualify as assault weapons in that they are firearms capable of rapid fire, which includes semi-automatic and automatic weapons of all types on the high end and even revolvers at the low end. However, semi-auto/auto weapons that accept removable high capacity magazines are the most damaging in mass killings, and these include most pistols and military-style rifles.
The only serious question about what to do about assault weapons, and one that our society must consider, is whether to amend the constitution to provide a more limited right to private gun ownership. If it is not exactly time for this yet, the carnage that we face as a nation in the future may make that time hasten its arrival.
And yes, if a sufficiently limited right to possess and use firearms could be agreed to, there could also be a gun buy-back program (not necessarily confiscation) to help disarm the population accordingly. Australia did this and cut their overall firearms death rate by around 50%. Barring that, and for some weapons anyway, confiscation and criminal penalties might be the only way to rid our society of the most lethal of these weapons.
At this point, can there really be is such a thing as a responsible gun owner, especially one who supports NRA politics? How responsible can gun owners be who continually vote to keep firearms in the hands of criminals, terrorists, and of otherwise unstable or unsafe people?
8
Looking at the FBI UCR for 2016 we see that rifles of all types were used in a bit over 3% of firearm homicides, and assault weapons are subset. Hands and feet were used much more often. Almost everyone ignores handguns which are used in majority of firearm homicides, and at the time of Sandy Hook the majority of mass shootings.
The situation is worse than you think because of the top 50 counties for firearm homicides in the US 46 of Democrat. State totals effectively 'hide' such data as most occur in concentrated areas, which are low income urban neighborhoods. The NRA and GOP don't make Democrats buy guns, and they don’t make them shoot people.
15070 Total
11004 Total firearms:
_7105 Handguns
__374 Rifles
__262 Shotguns
__186 Other guns
_3077 Firearms, type not stated
_1604 Knives or cutting instruments
__472 Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)
__656 Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)
_1334 Other weapons
There is an undeniable utility to firearms. However that utility is fully served by bolt-action rifles, revolvers, and traditional shotguns. The sophisticated weapons so widely available now to private citizens are the fetish-objects of people with serious control issues. In their violent fantasies the cruel mechanical beauty of their incredibly powerful weaponry enables them to be the masters of the deadly circumstances conjured up in the privacy of their minds. A significant few however are unable to contain their fantasies and they act out their their conviction that deadly force is the most elegant solution to the conflicts that they have come to believe deeply in.
The politically active membership of the NRA is best understood as a cult. The leadership of the NRA in D.C. is best understood as a professional for-profit lobbying organization that has become the embodiment of Upton Sinclair's observation that "it's hard to make a man understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it". Most disappointingly, the Supreme Court through the combination of it's 2nd amendment and Citizens United decisions has simultaneously rejected its own responsibility to provide a check and balance and destroyed Congress's ability to do the same. It's not the 2nd amendment per se, it's the way it's read. For most of our history it was interpreted as the fundamental law permitting gun control.
5
Such flowery prose! Seldom have I seen such a scathing indictment combined with incisive diagnosis phrased with a mesmerizing eloquence that rivals the writings of Vonnegut, Freud and Thucydides. I doubt Mark Twain, Lisa Sanders, Jeff Toobin and Drs. Phil, Oz and Zeus could have done better. Unfortunately, albeit a possible grain of truth here and there, it's all quite wrong. Stopped clocks and blind squirrels, as they say.
It amazes and baffles me how so many here feel free to comment with "expertise" on matters they have little understanding and next to no knowledge of. If I remember correctly, the imposition of one's personal reality construct on the empirical reality the rest of us exist in is called having ideas of reference. It may be phrased differently in today's DSM 5.
Though sorely tempted to indulge in a complex and verbose diagnosis of my own, I recognize I'm not qualified. As someone once said, a man's gotta know his limitations. Thus I'd recommend this and other writers first take a good look in the mirror while walking a mile in my boots, and tell me how hard it is to carry that fully auto nuclear machine gun while talking to the martians.
Assault weapon slaughters are good for gun stock prices. And weapons sales. And increasing the weapons' prices.
If we allow the slaughter of perhaps 100 children a month (wait we are doing that already) , maybe a week, then the prices and profits would go up like bit coins did.
With that kind of blood money industry lackeys could legislate that every teacher in primary school and secondary school be armed with their own M-4.
A version that would be fully automatic. Not semi. Good guys need an edge until an unsecured weapon is stolen out of a trunk.
The following scarcity of weapons and ammunition would cause profits to further skyrocket.
And perhaps an increased carnage to the tune of 1000 more children murdered a month.
It makes me weep that this scenario is more likely than meaningful gun control legislation.
6
Everything the columnists write, everything the Democratic members of Congress say, everything the country (and especially the family members of the slain and wounded children) wails about, is just "blah, blah, blah" because the Republican majority in government has all the power to change things but chooses not to. Nothing changed after Sandy Hook, bump stocks are still legal, it's easier for the mentally ill to get guns than it was before Trump took office, and the banality of it all is such that this US citizen feels much safer in Montréal.
6
Too often the views of ordinary NRA supporters are ignored and all gun policies are attributed to the NRA. But the common views of gun owners have much to do with our gun policies and require attention. Most notably, whenever there is a suggestion that gun control advocates will target a particular weapon, a run on that weapon follows. That tells us that gun owners view themselves as being on the defensive under pressure from gun control advocates who tend to focus on a single piece of hardware at a time. I believe they view their gun rights as essential and under attack from an unpredictable and irrational public. Ordinary people trying to protect a basic right from an attack they deem irrational become a force that is difficult to deny. Ms. Dowd has a lot of big bad wolves that she targets. But she ignores the real people who are the key to the gun rights movement and the power of the NRA.
3
This is the truth of the matter, plain and simple. I doubt anyone will take it to heart.
1
Since cowardly and corrupt Republican politicians--and some Democrats as well-- are so beholden to the alleged power and "money" of the evil NRA, us 80 percent of the American electorate (and 100 percent of our children) want more stringent gun ownership laws, then we can demonstrate this by asking each of our representatives one single question: "What legislation will you support regarding gun ownership?" If you don't like their answer, then say "I will vote against you." We live in a thriving, vibrant democracy, and when our representatives do not reflect our wishes and aspirations, then we simply--and LOUDLY--vote them out of office.
5
I know longer have the patience to even "debate" this issue. As far as I'm concerned, Congress and the President are either with us, the American people, or they are against us. As of right now, I think it's obvious whose side they are on, and it isn't we, the people.
7
"News", the parade of events that passing through television screens and read on smartphones, is largely a spectator sport most of the time. It happens somewhere else, to someone else. Like the often deadly police chases across the vast spaces of Los Angeles, news is entertainment. Even as we are deeply horrified by shootings in schools, unless it happens to us or in our neighborhood, there is still a regrettable entertainment aspect. We feel shock and pain, but it doesn't impact us directly.
We need more direct contact with what actually happens in these sickening situations. We need to face the awful truth, head on.
The column states:
"If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?"
Thing is, we didn't see the horror of Sandy Hook. We only saw outside the school, people and mothers crying, a community in agony.
If we were actually had seen the sight of little children blown apart, it would be different. While the families of those killed would consider this adding to their suffering, it would actually force the nation to understand more completely what is happening again and again.
This might be possible: use the photos of the aftermath to re-create what happened with mannequins, don't show the actual bodies of children. Put these photos out for all to see and/or in a traveling exhibit. It might be the best thing those parents could do to save others, to shock the nation into awareness that something must be done.
2
I have heard that there is an effort being made to organize a nation-wide boycott of school by high school students sometime in the upcoming weeks. I wish them well. Our adult population, especially the political class, has become utterly morally and ethically bankrupt around the situation. We are lost in an old paradigm, one that has little utility yet will not die, propped up with the money of vested interests, and the invested egos of so many "red-blooded" Americans lost in a fever dream of old Western movies wedded to modern firearm technologies. Perhaps the kids can teach us something about doing the obviously right thing. Jesus invoked the natural sense of fairness in children as he exhorted his listeners to developing a more moral life, in his famous "suffer the children" teaching (Matthew 18:1-10). I was quite surprised when my son, as a very young child, showed an astonishing emotional intelligence. Even as a 5 year old, he could read people quite well (unlike his father). And the highest compliment he could confer on someone was to say "Daddy, that man is really nice". I hope this high school walk-out happens, and that our children will stand up and shame us all into finally beginning to deconstruct this madness we live in. And I hope they keep at it in the years ahead. FWIW, I say this as a life-long gun owner, avid hunter, and non-Christian.
1
This is TERRORism. Those who rail about protecting their corrupt interpretation of the 2nd amendment are as guilty of the carnage unfolding as if arming foreign agents this nation has spent trillions unsuccessfully trying to defend itself against. Democracies, governments, societies do not end because of coup, natural disaster, or similar cataclysmic events. They die because the institutions on which they are built and rely die. And there is no turning back, there is no solution. Vigils, protests, and then back to business as usual. We have neither the will nor stomach for change. The institution of government is too corrupted, too broken, to accomplish anything meaningful other than the fail. And it does, on a daily basis and on every level. This is us. And this is never going to get better.
4
Treating children as collateral damage is now the standard We'd like to make them free from gun violence, but how about seeing to it that every child has a doctor, dentist, orthodontist, good public school, etc. Instead we pass a tax cut for the rich and now we have to beg them for donations.
3
Eloquent piece and eloquent comments. But who in power is even listening? We in India have to get a licence to buy a gun. And getting that licence is difficult, we have to go to police stations and government departments to prove we need one, we have to show specific risk to our lives. In India we have several problems of our own. but mass shootings is thankfully not one of them. The problem in the US is intractable because there are way too many guns out there already
3
It should (at least) be just like cars and drivers. Licenses for both. And no one needs a semi automatic weapon beyond a few rounds to protect themselves.
3
Obama didn’t succeed in jamming through gun limits after Sandy Hook. The NRA won, but the defeat was both Obama’s and America’s. (LBJ would not have done better. And LBJ gave us Vietnam, the country’s greatest tragedy since the Civil War.)
2
Ms Dowd:
Not sure where you have been, but trump has been notorious for changing his position willy-nilly. So quoting his past positions is irrelevant in the fact that he blows in the wind and has always blown in the wind. trump's motto.
"I want what I want when I want it". And his wants can change daily with his mood. No one knows what trump wants from one minute to the next.
2
After Sandy Hook with those angels and their teachers, and nothing was done, my belief in good America faded. My tears have followed me through these shootings and today in Florida. Perhaps more so because of being a retired teacher with an educator daughter.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." --Pogo
4
We elected Donald Trump and his $30 million payoff from the N.R.A. And we elected Rick Scoot governor of Florida and $4 million N.R.A. and Marco Rubio as a Florida senator with his $3.3 million N.R.A. payoff where they have the most lax gun laws in the country. Until we stop electing those who refuse to regulate gun ownership and ban weapons like the AR-15, we will continue putting the lives of our children in danger. We all have their blood on our hands, and it's time to show we love them and cleanse sone of the blood away by voting all the gun-loving politicians out of office. They are certainly not serving us but the gun manufacturers and are not protecting our children from weapons no civilian should own.
4
Just copy Australia's strict gun laws, legislated about 30 years ago under the staunch conservative government of John Howard. It's not that difficult. Meanwhile, America will remain a "sick" country so long as we don't act.
5
After each tragedy, you hear all the major Republicans call for thoughts and prayers, and suggest we should wait for the right time to talk about gun control. But I think there is an underlying current that isn't being written about. Most writers are laying a lot of blame on the NRA, calling their political donations "blood money". Can't disagree, but I think their donations really amount to peanuts in the big trillion dollar picture of what's at stake in every election.
None of the Republicans is so stupid that he or she can't see how gun violence is successfully limited in every civilized nation. It's right there for anyone to see. Give them that much credit. There's no point repeating over and over what would seem to be sensible steps to limiting it, which is what the press keeps doing.
What's really happening, in every district and every state, is that candidates know that they have to align with the voting bloc keeping them in office. Every Republican, without exception, would't dare alienate the rural gun advocates who make up the base. The death toll is just the price that has to be paid for the freedom to confront anyone at our door with a lethal weapon. That's our American male macho ethos.
There's nothing we can do about it. It's not going to change.
1
Having shot an AR-15, courtesy of the US Army many years ago, I can attest to the wickedness of this weapon. It is made to kill people fast. I thought you would like to see a portion of the response from my Congressman Tom McClintock, when I wrote to him about the shooting. It certainly speaks to the problem we have getting a Republican Congress to act. I responded, but I won't belabor you with that. Whatever comes to mind, I probably said it.
"Thank you for sharing your thoughtful proposal regarding the safety of children in our schools.
"Protecting Second Amendment rights is a critical component to maintaining a safe and secure society. Laws that aim to restrict or eliminate the ownership of firearms are often justified by arguing that we need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The problem is that criminals don't follow laws; as a result, such measures only leave law-abiding citizens disarmed and defenseless against criminals and madmen.
"The result of these laws is that in places like Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut, innocent men, women, and children were denied access to the only means they might have had to protect their lives and the lives of those around them from assailants. I support repealing the federal ban on law-abiding citizens carrying weapons in schools and other public places in order to secure for these individuals the right to defend themselves against attackers.
Sincerely,
Tom"
5
Gun deaths are just the cost of doing business. Strange that an auto manufacturer cannot produce a vehicle that kills indiscriminately, but gun manufacturers are allowed to do so. We simply let our politicians make the excuse that the owner/operator is "mentally ill" and then blame the FBI.
It is always someone else fault.
6
The Fake President's resorting to a violent, grotesque image, that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and still have the support of his devoted base, revealed much about his fundamental personal devotion to a uniquely American, asocial, machismo gun culture. What a twisted way to posit the presumed loyalty of his electorate. What type of leader would ever desire the support of people who would tolerate such conduct?
3
Trump is preparing his ineptitude defense for when Mueller finally gets around to charges. Trump will continue to be illogical and inept as much as possible. He hopes people will think he is just stupid and not bright enough to actually commit a crime.
Nothing Trump has ever done or said could lead anyone to think that he would do anything for anyone else. This is exactly why conservative love him. He is one of them.
2
Its clear our gun experiment with guns for anyone is a nightmare. As I read the comments on various sites, it has become apparent that many hard core gun lovers don't care at all about the ridiculous death rate in this country or dead kids. Many of the hard core gun lovers are anticipating some dark future and a need to use the guns and really don't care to hear any arguments against guns.
We now have so many guns out there and there is such deep serious resistance to life without guns, that we now are entering uncharted waters. Its not clear how this is all going to end. We may be at the point of no return with this gun issue and maybe we all now should arm ourselves in case a crazed shooter is near by. Thats crazy, of course, but may become reality. The NRA seems to suggest that kind of future.
I don't think anyone has any idea how to now turn this around.
4
I think this piece's example of the Catholic Church is not entirely accurate- yes, there was complacency among a shocking number of clergy members. But the scandal remains a deep wound for the Church- it caused many people to leave the church in dissaproval and it remains a difficult subject for many lay-people.
The kids who shouted their warnings to Trump and a compliant Republican Congress to do something about gun violence in this country was a shot heard across the bow of the N.R.A. and the entire gun manufacturers establishment. These kids, the youth of today, the voters of tomorrow, are going to take names and kick some be-hind when they reach majority age. At least I hope their threats to these weak-kneed politicians will not lose steam as time passes. They can be sure of one thing. More and more of this kind of mass murder will continue. And the blame must be laid squarely where it belongs, on Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress. This also should effect many Democrats, folks like Bernie Sanders, who has supported gun owners because of the preponderance of hunters in his home state. This nonsense has to end. Congress has the right to create laws which heavily restricts the rights of gun ownership. If they do not act it is because they fear the N.R.A. and losing their exalted positions more than the people. If the people, especially the youth, make gun control a one-issue litmus test, for or against, as have other one issue advocates, and persist, then maybe politicians will take heed. They will do anything to stay in power. Not until one threatens that will anything be done.
DD
Manhattan
5
So an 18 year-old can't buy a beer but can buy an assault rifle. That's just insane. Clearly it comes down to money. The gun manufacturers (aka the N.R.A.) versus rational people. Here's a thought. What if the celebs/rich people of the world basically bought the contracts of the Representatives who take N.R.A. For example, Marco Rubio takes three million or there about. Three million dollars is nothing for, say, Bob Iger. Bob writes a check to Marco's PAC for 3.5 million on the condition that he votes in favor of gun control. It is literally going to take a Gates Foundation type movement to pay the Republicans to vote like human beings. But it is doable. Jeff Bezos, are you listening? Think about being the guy who put an end to put an end to assault rifles.
3
I too lost hope after Newtown. As a teacher I feel so sad for all those who had a typical school day and their lives turned upside down by gun violence. This latest shooting has shaken me again and I hope this time something will happen. Hopelessness is not the way; we must follow those who continue to try like Gabby Giffords. This time we must not let the anger die down; we must truly rise up and fight against guns in our communities.
4
The photo accompanying Ms Dowd's piece, sent shivers down my spine. To see these young girls, surrounded by red lockers, with the shiny hair of youth, crouched in cowering submission, is heart breaking. I am a grandmother of two teenagers and I refuse to believe that my grandchildren's lives are less important than some gun owners right to bear arms. We must fight harder for our children.
5
In reference to the school walkout planned on the day of the Columbine tragedy I fully agree, but it should include more than just teachers and students. It needs to include every Mother and Father, brother, sister and relative in all professions. America needs to come to a grinding halt and show the world that safety is what the people are demanding from their leaders.
3
A veto proof Democratic majority is the only road to reasonable gun control.
3
I used to think Americans had some standing to opine to the world on what is right, how to govern, and how to make choices on divisive issues. With guns as an example, and there are many more now, we have lost much of that moral authority. If we are a shining example, then the lights just got dimmer for 17 heartbroken families, classmates, and fellow teachers--to say nothing of millions of Americans who quietly think how lucky they are that their kids came home from school safely today.
3
Sara D below says: There are plans for students and teachers to walk out on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting. The rest of us should join them.
I like that idea but I like the idea more of every child walking out of schools until the government takes strong action against owners of such weapons. No one should be able to buy military quality armament.
3
We have all watched the mass murders in this country with growing horror. Each horrible event worse than the last but I believe we have reached a tipping point. We need sensible gun laws and as Jimmy Kimmel said, congress works for us not the NRA and it's time for some sanity around guns or we may as well start over with different lawmakers because this lot is worthless.
3
In 1994 my 16 year old son died from a gunshot wound. The searing pain in my heart was ever present for more than 5 years. 24 years later my heart is still broken, how does one find their way in a world that no longer makes sense after the loss of a beautiful child? I was the proverbial "mother bear", my greatest fear was that something would happen to me before my son was grown leaving him without his mother to protect him.
For those that have yet to lose a precious child from gun violence there is still time, join with those of us that have lost a child to repeal the second amendment. Weapons today bear little resemblance to those of 1791; unfortunately our society bears little resemblance as well.
The meaning of democracy "the people hold the power", we can still affect change; if we don't protect our children who will?
We cannot protect our children from everything, but we together can make a difference here. Put your phones down, look in your children's beautiful faces, what would your life be like if you could no longer look at them, hold them, love them? You just don't want to know!
821
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" - is one sentence. Militia and right to arms are connected. In today's terms, this means we can have the National Guard and they can carry weapons. The Constitution does not guarantee a right to own guns nor does the Constitution prohibit the possession of such. State and federal legislators may act in this regard.
4
"Each time, the outrage seems to fade faster."
Outrage? Outrage at a president whose every utterance is either an exaggeration or a lie? Outrage at a republican congress and supreme court that does lip service to religion and patriotism but has no notion of the meaning of either?
Outrage at a sizable portion of the population that cannot tell the difference between a Russian disinformation campaign and reality? Or a cable news channel that takes advantage of the stupidest of us for the benefit of a few American oligarchs?
We are being slaughtered in service to a paragraph which has little application to our century. We are a nation of laws, but there is such thing as a bad law and we don't have the will to change it. At the very same time that the amendment which precedes it is under full scale attack by the same charlatans who are exalting the second.
Outrage is a very strong word but it doesn't do justice to the soft blanket of ignorance that has stilled our conscience and allows a few to corrupt our collective souls.
If Trump has done anything for us, he reminds us that democracy is fragile and precious. When we no longer value it, pay lip service to our principles and turn over our country to incompetents, we reap what we have sown.
7
Really have to stop bothering with the surprise that Trump's policies are unrelated to his earlier promises. He is in it for the money and the glory, and that sense of achievement that comes from confounding everyone's expectations.
3
Perhaps those who are complicit should be indicted for depraved indifference.
"To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime."
3
The "right" claims to be "pro-life." But that's only when they want to control a woman's right to choose when to give birth or not. What about the formerly fully grown or worse young children and teens who are killed because of the insanely lax gun laws in the United States? The G.O.P does NOT care that 13,000 people a year die in firearm assaults. Another 20,000 commit suicide with guns. So 33,000 people a year DEAD. Might some of those people harm others or themselves without guns - definitely. But the number would be drastically reduced. And mothers wouldn't have to worry about something as simple as sending their children off to school. The soulless men and women who are supposed to represent us care more about the campaign money they get from the NRA. Maybe they each have to lose a loved one to gun violence to wake up and smell the coffee. In the mean time we need to vote them OUT of office.
4
Obviously, if a law that 90% of the people wanted didn't pass, the problem is not the 90% people.
It is the NRA and their bought politicians.
In addition, with Gerrymandering many of the right are more afraid of a Tea Party or NRA lead primary opponent than a Democrat in the general election.
And the Democrats lost that gun reform vote with 54 votes, a majority but not enough to override a filibuster.
Don't blame the people or the Democrats.
Blame the NRA and their followers and Republicans and Mitch McConnell, king of the filibuster during Obama.
If they believe in God, don't they think they will have to answer one day?
5
Some of the comments are going after Maureen for criticizing Obama, but I agree with her. That was a great opportunity to accomplish something and he let us down. It doesn't matter that Congress opposed him. The President has the power and the responsibility to act and act forcefully. Liberals must realize that Obama's impotence in this and other areas is linked directly to Trump's election. Now we have someone who is capable of acting forcefully. The only problem is, he uses that ability to serve his own self-interest instead of the nation's.
How much easier it is to live in a sane country that does not worship guns and that has a natural respect for life affirming values.
By becoming an expatriate I did not surrender to the selfishness and greed of America's aggressive capitalism. I simply got on a plane and within a few hours symbolically travelled backward in time to my childhood in northern Ohio where only one of my neighbors owned a gun.
Here in Europe many multinational expatriate retirees congregate into villages where we can express mutual respect in waiting rooms by greeting each other upon arriving and saying goodbye when departing.
This spontaneous humanity to strangers captivated me when I first moved here fifteen years ago. Today, all these years later the same behavior remains unchanged.
Every time there is another gun fueled tragedy in America I say a quiet thank you to all my neighbors for their unwavering decency!
2
I find the references to mental illness to be particularly unfortunate. Diagnosed mental illness is no more a risk factor for killing with a gun than no sign of mental illness means a person won’t kill. The problem is a culture in which so many people are convinced that problems can be solved by ending a life (yours or someone else’s) or by threatening to take a life.
A person who tells me they keeps a loaded gun nearby or even has no gun but thinks it’s ok when people do is saying they think killing is a solution and is far more likely to try and solve a problem that way than someone who believes harming others is never a solution; even if that person has a gun in the house that they use as a tool for hunting or other non violent purposes.
Keeping a hammer in the garage and maybe even another in a kitchen drawer for hanging pictures or something is perfectly normal. Keeping my hammers hidden around the house so you always have one handy if you need to protect yourself is not normal. I think most people would agree with that because we have not grown up in a society where lots of people believe the violent use of hammers against other people is a way to solve a problem.
I would never give a gun to the guy who keeps hammers for protection because he has already shown me that he is willing to use it. Guns become a huge problem because they were designed for quick, reliable lethality even at great distances.
3
Very sensible.
When discussing the influence of money in politics, let's not forget that the NRA is the prototypical popular movement, financed mostly by small membership dues. If you want average citizens to have influence in Washington, sometimes this is what you get. Unfortunately.
This is blatantly false. Gun manufacturers have photos of them giving multi million dollar checks to the NRA. I doubt if the NRA's finances are due to their individual members.
2
Next comes censorship.
If we can’t censor gun ownership then the alternative is to stop covering the shootings.
Most of the shooters would not do it if their blaze of glory wasn’t shown on the television and other screens.
If only the 'stable genius' (co-) author of The Art of the Deal could pull together all the CEO'S of the corporations that just got 'the biggest tax cut ever' from him. They could form a Gun Reduction consortium. The likes of Walmart, Amazon with help from Wall Street could offer gift card or financial incentives for people to turn in extra guns they don't need for self defense or for hunting. You know, those impulse purchases they just couldn't resist while browsing a gun show. That's a baby step but it's something, and doing something is better than doing nothing.
Mr. Trump and other NRA-funded flunkies claim that Newtown, Parkland and other uniquely American Tragedies are a function of the mental illness of the person shooting the assault weapon, not the weapon being shot. The illness is an all-American one. It's source may be in a mis-reading (or the incessant reading) of the Second Amendment, but it's protagonist is the NRA.
In the state of Tennessee, it is legal now for students to carry concealed firearms on state-affiliated campuses, even in bars. On the where I teach campus, there is an unknowable number of handguns in our classrooms, hallways, dining halls, and dorm rooms daily. And Tennessee is not alone; it is one of many states with such biased laws, favoring the rights of the few who fetishize gun ownership, over the rights of the many who simply wish to remain relatively safe in an unsafe world. Were one caught with a bottle of distilled spirits on campus, criminal charges would likely follow; as long as your Glock remains out of sight, you're good. The NRA of 2018 has virtually nothing in common with the NRA of 1918, nor 1871 (when it was founded to promote marksmanship).
Through its lobbing, and its directly funding a plurality of political futures in this country, the NRA is permitted to underwrite the deaths of far more American citizens each year than ISIS and al-Qaeda combinded. Why then would the NRA not be treated just as we treat ISIS and al-Qaeda? Guantanamo Bay is an excellent place to one's marksmanship.
2
It's impressive watching the young students participate in the gun control conversation. I just hope that they don't get too disappointed that politicians don't listen to them. They'll not be ignored because they're young, they'll be ignored because politicians ignore everyone that can't get them reelected or give them money.
2
Thank you, Ms. Down, for your continued voice in the fight for sensible gun control. As a resident of western Kentucky within 20 miles of Marshall County High School where the previous mass shooting took place, I can tell you from personal experience the devastation that such senseless acts wreak on a community. That these deaths continue, almost on a daily basis, says more about our country's moral turpitude than anything. Unless we act to stop this insanity the blood of our children will be forever on our hands.
2
Quite so. This feels like the tipping point moment. Everyone's hackles are up for so many reasons, and activism is proving to be effective the way it hasn't been since the 1960s. I do take exception with one of your sentences: surely you meant "The American We Deserve" the book GHOSTWRITTEN on Trump's behalf. The man cannot manage to string together a sentence, let alone pen one. He makes the men of the Bush family look positively eloquent, and that's saying something.
4
Thank you, Maureen--I don't think you are quite fair to President Obama here, as I think that the opposition he faced was implacable. Still, I share your aims, and appreciate your ardor.
As a side point, I find the recent uproar about the FBI flubbing a tip misplaced--given our gun laws, what was the FBI to do about Mr. Cruz even if they had made a more thorough investigation? We live in a country where even if they had found him to be mentally unstable, it seems unclear that they could have stopped him from purchasing an arsenal. Were they supposed to keep him under permanent surveillance in advance of a crime? Commit him in advance of a crime? (There is certainly no public money available from treatment under the GOP regime.)
There are plenty of mentally ill and violent people well known to law enforcement because of domestic abuse and protection orders that are allowed to purchase guns and later use them for slaughter. Why would this have been any different? (Oh, I get it - it wouldn't have been, but the point supplies Trump and his minions with handy lip service.)
1
I fail to understand why so many citizens react with dismay to isolated minor tragedies that, after all, merely reflect a fundamental element of the nation’s historic culture: specifically mass murder in the schools as a peripheral development, along with other random public massacres, issuing from the statistic of 15,000 or so firearms-related deaths yearly. What with 270 million guns in private hands, we should simply learn to accept the situation as a sad, though logical situation. Fortunately, however, our President and our Republican leadership are not allowing this phenomenon to distract them from the nation’s true concerns: namely, the terrifying menace posed to harmless and peace-loving U.S. citizens by murderous illegal immigrants, hence the critical necessity to build a wall along the southern border and protect the fortunes of the nation’s highly vulnerable billionaires.
1
Trump's new mantra--for a few minutes--is "making our schools safer." (He could call it MOSS, sort of like MAGA). Absolutely, great idea. But what about the shooting in the nightclub in Florida, the church in Texas, the outdoor music festival in Las Vegas, the office party in California, the movie theater in Colorado? Don't these venues deserve to be made safe from mass shootings too? Do we need airport style security at the entrance to every public building in the country? Evidently so, when anybody can get a high-capacity shooting machine.
1
Maureen, I'm glad you focused on our collective abilities to move on from these mass shootings. If Congress and the president thought they would ever be held accountable for their inaction, they would act. But, we're not holding them accountable. The NRA and second amendment zealots make it their number one voting priority and they always vote. Polls show that the rest of us care about jobs, the economy, healthcare etc. Gun safety doesn't even register while the "second amendment" does. If Congress getting shot and Newtown didn't move us, what will? Those teenagers in Florida have every right to scream at us, but I'm not sure we parents have the right to scream at Trump or anyone else. Unlike Maureen, I never thought Trump would do a darn thing and we all know it is a non starter for Congress ("Now's not the time." "Thoughts and prayers.").
I don't want to "pile on" to Florida's grief, but maybe they should start with their own back yard: repeal Stand your Ground law, tighten up your laws and stop electing the likes of Rick Scott (never understood how a state full of Medicare recipients elected a Medicare Fraudster...) and Marco (now's not the time to discuss guns) Rubio.
2
Use of an assault weapon must require membership in a state's national guard. All assault weapons must be controlled by the guard armory. Firearms for hunting, home or personal protection must be limited to revolvers, pump action shotguns, and bolt-action rifles.
1
Our President spent his weekend Tweeting his disappointment with this most recent school shooting by blaming the FBI. He also blame President Obama. He seemingly thinks that there is a connection between the infamous Russian election interference and this school shooter investigation.
Consider the thought processes that the President goes through (or doesn't go through) to write his Tweets. Soon he will Tweet that it was MS-13, an immigrant, or the Democrats, generally, that are at fault. We have elected a whiner in chief to lead a candle lighting, praying, whining Congress to protect us from mass shootings.
The fact that our Congress is so paralyzed that it cannot deal with gun control, trade issues, the national debt, health care, or immigration is amazing to me. It can hand out huge debt driving tax cuts to its benefactors, but deal with the tough issues? Never! Is there no one with moral authority, or intelligence who is left to lead this nation? Maybe you shouldn't answer that.
2
The only answer is to throw the bums out, but that's never going to happen. Not as long as money speaks louder than the will of the people. The gun issue is but a microcosm of what's gone so terribly wrong with what was once intended, in a galaxy now far, far away, to be a government of, by and for the people.
2
As with almost everything, follow the money. Why is the NRA so powerful? Because of their unlimited funds available for campaign contributions. Why do all state and national campaigns need so much money? To pay for TV ads. If we can ban TV ads for cigarettes, why can't we ban all TV political ads? Who knows what our congressmen and Senators could accomplish without the daily drudge of fund raising to buy TV ads that are universally hated. Without a market for TV ads, the NRA's stranglehold might be broken. Who knows how many politicians secretly hate guns but are forced to accept NRA money?
2
Follow the money-always! Greed Over People isn't a cute acronym for the Republican party. Greed controls too much. Trump received significant contributions from the NRA and now he says nothing about guns. Gun manufacturers do well either when the NRA scares the public that a Democrat will take away their guns or the laws make it easier to purchase weapons of mass destruction (AK-15, etc) or bump stocks or maybe soon silencers.
Of course, someone who wants to kill others has mental, moral, emotional, and spiritual issues. We will never determine every potential murderer. We reduce the threat and the human carnage by doing what every other nation has done - reduce the availability.
Greed is a very different illness from killing people, but it is a sickness affecting this democracy to our core. We cannot ignore killers nor those who in the name of making money cause damage to our air, water, land and make available instruments of human destruction.
3
As citizens we should not allow members of congress and the senate to make rules about who can carry guns and where they should carry them until there are mandatory guns in their chambers.
Why should we be the only ones who are at risk at work?
1
We, as a society, would be fine and dandy without AR-15's.
Another thing we don't need is cotton candy.
AR-15 owners: Would you be willing to give up your right to eat cotton candy if it would save the lives of innocent school children?
I would.
If there was even an infinitesimal chance that banning cotton candy would save the life of one child, I would give up my right to eat cotton candy.
Cotton candy is yummy. Cotton candy is fun. Cotton candy makes us feel good.
But it would be a matter of which I valued more: my Constitutional right to eat cotton candy (which is, admittedly, yummy) (and, admittedly, if cotton candy was outlawed, only outlaws would have cotton candy), or the lives of school children?
I know, I know - I'm a softie. But I would gladly forsake my right to eat cotton candy if there was even a chance it MIGHT save the life of one child.
Since AR-15's are no more necessary for human well-being than cotton candy - why not take a chance?
How much worse would life be if your gun only shot one bullet at a time?
Ultimately, what's more important to you? The lives of school children, or your precious right to own any kind of cockamamie technology, no matter how catastrophically dangerous it is?
What rights would you be willing to give up to protect kids?
I know that many AR-15 owners will say your right to own a gun is more important, because it is about your right to defend yourself.
I would just ask you to think about what you're saying.
2
Listen to the voice of powerful brave teenagers who are speaking out against the government officials, Senators, Congressmen and particularly to Donald Trump.
There is only one way to have restricted gun laws, vote tho gun lobbying loving people OUT.
Please Vote that is the only solution to stop this easy access of guns .
3
"But then the NRA spent 30 million on him."
You hit the nail on the proverbial head with that statement, Ms. Dowd. Can someone please explain to me--I am a physician--why I would never accept a slice of pizza or a pen from a pharmaceutical company and my elected Congressmen see no problem accepting millions of dollars from the NRA? Can they not see the clear conflict of interest in their actions? The NRA donations to Congressional members and their voting records on gun issues should be plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country between now and the midterm elections.
2
"Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable." Yes, I certainly agree. What I suggest is million children March on the 15th of April. Parents from across the nation should bring their children to Washington D.C. for a march up Constition Avenue. At this point in my life with a very successful daughter, I worry about my grand-children, they too should march against this senseless violence.
life with a very successful daughter, I worry about my grand-children, they too should march against this senseless violence.
2
Two of the most destructive factors in American life in this century have been the Citizens United ruling and the power of the NRA. NRA money is tainted, because candidates who receive it can no longer vote according to their consciences but must follow the organization's guidelines. That's as good a definition of "bought and paid for" that I can think of.
I am one person, and I can't do much--but what I can do, I will. I vow not to vote for a single candidate who takes a single dollar from the National Rifle Association.
What if a majority of voters took up this vow?
2
"The America We Deserve". I think we have it... our craven politicians are so enthralled by the gun lobby, and we've been distracted, 'wedge-issued' and Russia-trolled into partisan tribes, and the inability to do anything while guns facilitate mayhem and murder everywhere is the result. Until Americans recognize that the safety of everyone is tied together, that more guns will NOT make things better, until Americans see our nation as more than just their own tribe of Republicans, evangelicals, progressives, or 'I don't care' know-nothings, and do something together to protect everyone, we'll face massacre after massacre. And there's a daily un-remarked upon toll of 90 'onesie-twosie' ordinary gun deaths churning. If it were "radical Islamic terrorists" doing the killing of 90 Americans a day, everyone would unit to do something, our politicians would jump to spend Billions and invade countries. But passing any gun control legislation (or anything else) to prevent even some of those 90 gun deaths a day is beyond our capacity. I think we have right now today "The America We Deserve". And Trump is just the icing on that cake.
2
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I believe this time, it is different. The children slaughtered were in a blue state area whose parents, though valiantly attempting, could not break the stranglehold the NRA has on this warped nation. But the kids victimized this time are young adults, apolitical in a fairly purple state, who have had enough and know how to challenge and shame their elders on social media. They may not even be able to vote yet, but their parents sure can and right now, they all have contempt for the politicians defending a military rifle over human lives. The NRA and Trump can hunker down all they want, but the young lion has been awoken
1003
If I were a teacher at Stoneman Douglas High School, I'd ask each student to write letters to Senator Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott then cc a copy to the New York Times. Rubio and Scott will be forced to address questions regarding the thoughts and experiences of victims. If there's a better lesson for young adults in civil empowerment, I don't know what it might be.
17
I would just add, Mixilplix, that while many of those young Floridians can't vote yet, a certain number will be able to vote in November, and most of them will by 2020. And they won't forget...
15
These teenagers from Parkland are wonderfully articulate in their pain and their outrage; adults would be wise to listen to them.
10
Since adults seem unable to act, maybe it is time for the children to show the way. I hear there are the seeds of a movement by high school kids to boycott school fearing for their lives. What if this idea gains traction, and the high school students are joined by college students and even middle school aged children. I think K thru 5 kids need to be sheltered as much as possible - the hope for the innocence of youth.
If supposedly 90% of the adult population supports sensible gun laws, and do nothing, maybe our children can become a beacon for action. Nothing else seems to be working.
2
At this point, one should be compassionate. But compassion doesn't excuse culpability.
In the scheme of things, Lucy Richards is a pawn. She is a Florida woman who used to harassed grieving parents of Newtown shooting victims and got sentenced recently. But who are behind this zombie army of conspiracy theories about school shooting. (NYT should do an expose on them. Are People like Jones and Lim-bot a front of something more sinister?) The chicken is coming home to roost.
Scott is rumored to have his ambition on being a congressman. But how many mass shootings happened on his watch? It is incredulous to see Trayvon Martin died an innocent death just the same. And the so-called "stand your ground" law just got weirder. It is a surprise NRA approved congressmen & women haven't come up with some "arm every kid" idea, like Gohmert said after Aurora shooting or NRA arming every school. With nutty ideas like these, forget about gun control.
So blaming President Obama and the so-called Democrat majority senate is just silly when many of Obama's prudent ideas were effectively obstructed by the Grand Obstruction Party. Not just guns but also finance and other life sustaining stuff. Now, America has handed her future Trump, Republicans and the regressive judicuary lock, stock and barrel. Sorry, Ms Dowd, perhaps the America Conscience is barking up the wrong proverbial tree
26
Regarding Obama and the Democratic senate, everyone seems to forget the filibuster.
The Democrats lost that with 54 votes, a majority but not the 60 needed for the filibuster.
280
Our problem is not the N.R.A. or spineless politicians. Iit is first the people who buy the N.R.A.'s illogical propaganda, and second the people who do not buy this propaganda but continue as members for other reasons.
29
Nah, it's the NRA. They support everything that puts more guns in to more hands, and they have plenty of cash to shove at yonder lean and hungry Republicans, who shamelessly line their pockets with blood money. Who got the biggest donation? Why, the sitting President himself.
2
Maureen has now Trump on her sights and no one will criticize her for that. But it is time she acknowledge to herself that her attitude towards Obama has little to do with Obama's deficiencies and more to do with something in her psyche, She could not resist blaming Obama for not single handedly overcoming the GOP opposition and the red state Democrats on this issue. I am surprised she did not include Hillary and Bill, another pair of rascals in her firmament.
545
NRA and military guns must go. we are on the edge.
the nation must rise. if congress is owned by the NRA we must
overcome. votes- revolution- whatever.
150
@AUNTY W BUSH:"Et vous cherchez midi a quatorze heures, n'est ce pas?" Take the profit out of war and you will end war. Sales of guns are too profitable for there to be any successful effort to ban any type of weapon.1 must recall that domestic sales r related to our 40 percent share of the int, arms market, and will not end any time soon.Dems. and GOP r on board with NRA if not doing so means a loss in voter support. Never owned a gun, never hunted innocent animals and despise those who do.However, it is ironic that those who advocate gun control inevitably surround themselves praetorian guards "armes jusqu'au dents!"Moreover, there r sound reasons for "port d'arme," especially if u r living alone in dangerous neck of the woods,perilous "quartier." Irrefutable that if among victims at San Bernardino there had been 1 with a weapon, carnage might have been prevented.Consider also violent actions by government, siege at Waco in '93 when negotiators were on verge of a breakthrough with Koresh, but FBI and ATF were given green light to storm the compound, or assassinations at Ruby Ridge.Too much distrust between the sides for there to be a compromise.Consider irony in O's advertising himself as anti war, yet was more aggressive than Bush in assassinating American citizens abroad labeled "enemies." Read Skahill's articles in "The Nation!"JFK was assassinated because he sought to pull out of VN.Should that not teach us futility of opposing all powerful gun lobby?
So, what is it going to take for American citizens to say that enough is enough and vote with your feet. You can come to Australia and bring your knowledge, skills, experience with you. It matters not what the colour of your skin is or what religion you practice, we will welcome you.
The only thing you will not be able to bring is your guns. You won't need them. We have very strict gun laws and only those who actually need a weapon can get a license subject to strict vetting procedures.
Our gun laws violates nobodies rights. They do offer vast protections and security to our people though. We are one of the safest nations on earth and our children thrive in a gun free environment. If you can't change your gun laws maybe it is time to change your country.
438
Trevor, there are way more American accents heard down here at Melbourne University over recent years than previously. Gun laws and Trump are overwhelmingly the two reasons given for the move down under.
Woe betide anyone mistaking a Canadian for an American; the Canadians take it as a particular insult. Have had to become attuned to the softer inflexions of Canuck accents.
It is a total mystery why the American people fail to grasp how destructive and futile their obsession with their 1st and 2nd amendment rights is, but perhaps not - it's all about rights (of 6 million NRA members) but not about the nation of 320+ million's responsibilities. Just look north across the great lakes and see how free your North American neighbours are of this scourge. All so depressing.
5
As a Yank in Australia, your point is well taken as you juxtapose well the situation in the US versus in Australia. But to abandon the efforts and flee solves only one person's problem, not the U.S. problem. Get active. Unite. Resist.
4
One of the reasons Australia is so safe is that it doesn't have any Americans. So be careful what you wish for.
3
Tax cuts, deregulation, or imposing conservative religious sexual mores must be more important than strangers' lives to those millions who poll in favor of gun control, but who vote for Republicans anyway.
88
Perhaps this is actually working for the GOP and their long term goals. Make public schools unsafe. Shut down public schools. Educate poor and middle class children via online, for profit with no accountability institutions. Save good education for the 1%. Isn't that where we're going anyway......like Russia?
185
I would love to see a one-day country-wide walkout by American high school students. Even just a few hours would do. Let your elders know you will not accept being live targets and demand some form of gun control NOW. Given your generation's extensive and intensive use of social media, that cannot be so hard to organize. Say Monday Feb. 26th at 10 AM. Just do it and shame your elders.
230
There are plans for students and teachers to walk out on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting. The rest of us should join them.
356
Until now, I felt that student walk-outs are counterproductive. However, what is an education worth if you are going to be shot dead before graduating? BTW, another walk out was called for March 14th.
5
They have a walkout for Apr.20, nationwide..maybe the adults will be shamed into action.
5
There is no word base enough to express the visceral, soul-killing, reality of those in power continuing to treat school age children as disposable fodder for the 2nd Amendment.
307
It isn't really the Second Amendment. It is the twisted view of the Second Amendment that has devolved over the last 30 years.
3
In the days since the FL school shooting, I have tried to consider both sides of the gun debate. One side seems totally intractable.....even when the bullet riddled bodies of children are the latest evidence of a need for legislative change. The other side, equally dug in, is howling for the heads of congressional members beholden to the NRA. Then something struck me. Where have I seen this type of ideological rigidity before? In what issue has the fear of ceding an inch to the other side seemed equally anathema? Where in the past have constitutional rights been the fulcrum of the argument. Try 2nd amendment and "privacy". The parallel between gun rights and abortion rights is too close to ignore. Much like a ban on partial birth abortion has the left screaming about a "slippery slope" leading to back alley operations; NRA members deem a restriction on assault rifles the beginning of an attempt to confiscate all guns. The left has been forced into the position that a baby on the 30th day of the 9th month is not a person and can be tossed away The right can't even see clear to ban "bump stocks" that modify otherwise automatic rifles into machine guns. The country has backed into respective corners and seems incapable or unwilling to take an honest look at the others' rationale. Politicians are gutless on both sides... spew the party line and keep that precious seat. Babies are indeed dying....at the hand of a doctor and at the end of a gun. Why can't we do something to stop it
5
I have never seen anyone support abortion up to the 9th month. Where is your source?
160
The left's only rigidity is negative, against the rigidity of the right. The left is positively for a reasonable discussion about both guns and abortions, and will suport whatever emerges from such a discussion while not regarding this result as set in stone. The idea that the left and the right are equally rigid is a myth of the right, and its widespread acceptance is skillfully used by the right to cover and excuse its unwillingness to compromise, and also to move the goal posts between which a compromise is reached. The right takes an extreme position, the left takes a moderate one, and a compromise wil be conservative rather than moderate and the formerly moderate position becomes extreme and out of bounds. Universal health care, labor unions, and comunity development used to be mainstream Democratic. No more.
52
When I was a kid, I knew the name of the head of the AFL/CIO, it was one everyone knew, right up there with the President, and unions were a major force in any dialogue. Now, I'm not even sure if the AFL/CIO still exists and the two political parties now are the Republicans and the Republicans-lite.
5
Thank you for the reminder about Trump's former opinions on gun laws and how they've changed since he raked in all the NRA cash. The comparisons to the Catholic church and Weinstein are right on, too.
Maureen Dowd is so much better when she's angry than when she's snarky. I gave up on her a few years ago, when I got sick and bored with her constant jabs at "Barry" and Hillary, but over the last year or so I've been peeking in now and then. This time, it's really worth it. She's getting her mojo back.
52
Bravo. So glad you're with us on this. Hope your brother is too, we could use his help!
33
The mass shootings aren't collateral damage to the gun business plan. They ARE the business plan. All this killing and death - you better buy guns! The schools better buy guns! Shopping malls! We need guns everywhere, toted by everyone, all the time!
This week is a personal tragedy for some but another great triumph for the NRA. Nothing at all will happen. The NRA wins! Politicians will declare that only more guns will help us. The NRA wins!
There is a way to make the NRA lose. We need to see the victims of gun violence, whose loved ones were killed or maimed, all around us every day. There are 30,000+ gun deaths per year, more than a million in a single generation, many millions of loved ones who remain gun victims for life. Where are they all?? I walk around town and never have to see them. Every stricken home should bear a respectful signpost. All the victims-for-life should display bumper stickers, pins, T-shirts and other wearables reminding us that they lost a loved one, some showing a bloodied NRA logo, some showing a photo of the deceased, as often as they can bear it. We should never go a day without seeing that gun tragedy is everywhere, all around us, not just statistics but that mother and that husband and that child and him and her and her and her and him....We need a visceral association between the NRA and death and personal, individual tragedy, all around us every day.
That's when politicians will fear an "A" NRA grade. That's when we win.
113
Kan is right - US citizens do need a visceral reminder. Even mass shootings are becoming so routine in your country that lots of people have to die before they make the national news. I was inspired by some of the survivors of the latest shooting. If this generation decides enough is enough and starts voting that should hopefully be a tipping point. It has occurred to me that a GUN DEATH CLOCK-rather like the Debt clock once beloved of Republicans, should be ticking away on some tall building - Mr Bloomberg might help.with that.
1
This is a good idea. Have you promoted it on twitter?
In WWII people who had lost sons or husbands or fathers put gold star sign in their front window. I wonder if someone could design a logo that could be used country wide? Bumper stickers is also a good idea.
I imagine some parents, spouses would worry about retribution - but hopefully this is a time to have courage.
2
The most startling event in this whole sorry episode has been the President's refusal to either express regret or propose to change the law that allows lunatics among us to buy portable machine guns.
They are beyond hope, especially President Trump. The result of our lack of any controls on weapons is the mass murder of innocents. Since this has now become a key plank in the Republican Party, the solution is to recruit schoolchildren to refuse to ever vote for one of their candidates, and to persuade their parents to make the same pledge.
There are ways to reach these children, both through social media and via ground campaigns in school boards. Otherwise, we will devolve into a fossil fuel loving, weapons obsessed, and internally weak nation that will end up failing in other areas as well. The Republican Party is creeping into Nazi territory, and as soon as the President declares a war they will match them.
58
It is now clear that no school is safe, no movie theater or music festival or church. A person with a war machine can easily, easily, ever so easily step in and snuff out lives. The wonder of it all is that the people running the country prefer this fearsome anarchy, willingly walking their citizens into a place of blood and fear and despair.
64
American loves it guns more than its children.
1
Your best column since you knocked out Ken Starr. But the topic is much more important. Children must never be collateral damage. But this is the same society where discrimination against is perfectly legal (they are not even allowed to live in certain communities). It is also a society where children born out of wedlock are often called illegitimate children. But there is no such thing as an illegitimate child.
25
I truly hope the Dems are ready to be brave when we get our majorities.
59
They better be brave and put the gun restrictions on the table, passed by Democratic majorities. If there are those among the Dems who don't, they should be "primaried,"by candidates financed by billionaires like Bloomberg, Zuckerberg (you owe us), Gates, etc.
That's right out of the Republican playbook and that's why the Rs are the majority party. Democrats need to be the majority party in Congress to take the wind out of the NRA's sails.
2
It is sad to think of the number of kids that will be shot until we can get back in control this coming November with Trump out and tweeting alone from his tower.. Being re-elected to most Republicans now in congress is more important than the lives of our children.
38
Trump went to Florida primarily to spend the weekend at Mar-a-lago. Perfect excuse! By the way, did he work it in to tell grieving parents that there was no collusion?
105
No, but he did tell them he had 'the biggest electoral college win and largest inaugural crowd EVER". (Snark). But I'm sure he was a great Consoler-In-Chief (Snark).
3
Yes, Trump is going to Mar-a-lago, but he is not playing golf out of sympathy for the fallen. Talk about a tremendous sacrifice! What courage! I bet even his boss, Putin, is impressed!
5
One day he'll get his crutch phrases mixed up, and start blabbering about "Nocohontas" and "pocalluson."
2
re "Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable":
The word "intolerable" has become as meaningless as the more popular "unacceptable." It's an end itself. Empty. Without any follow-up.
We tolerate the mass slaughter of schoolchildren and other innocents with military-style, rapid-fire assault weapons legally (but not morally) in the hands of civilians. We accept it. And we have allowed it to become routine.
So who's to blame? We are. A presumably civilized society. By continually electing spineless lawmakers who sacrifice their consciences -- in exchange for blood money -- at the altar of the National Rifle Association and its willfully cynical misinterpretation of the 18th-century Second Amendment.
As we've been saying to ourselves at least since Columbine ... and Sandy Hook ... and now Parkland ... not to mention the likes of Las Vegas, Orlando, Blacksburg and Sutherland Springs ... and ... and .... and ... "Until next time." And there most definitely will be a "next time." Many of them, in fact.
For shame.
Where else in the world does this kind of tragic condoned carnage persist with impunity? Nowhere.
It's a wonder that we're able to face our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren without getting down on our knees and begging their forgiveness. Every time we see them. Because, as the people of Parkland just found out, there's bound to come a day when we won't.
58
Missourians could start by discharging Senator Roy (Blunt by name, Blunt by nature) Blunt, the champion of accepting NRA donations and loose change. Don’t expect congress to do anything.
56
Treating Trump as a reasonable negotiator is intolerable.
He's a clear and present danger to everything decent in our society and politics; an evil role model for children and adults. We the People should encourage him and his crime family to self deport to Russia.
70
Perhaps an effective strategy would be to call out the top recipients of NRA contributions (BRIBES would be more accurate) and keep the pressure on them. We need to relentlessly target them! (Pun intended.)
I guess I haven't been paying attention to how much the NRA gives to politicians, probably because I've felt hopeless and demoralized by the hold they seem to have on Congress. But I'm paying attention now. I was so uninformed that I had no idea Mr. McCain was the recipient of the LARGEST BRIBE from the NRA. It flies in the face of everything I have believed about his character. I haven't always agreed with him politically but I always thought he was basically a good and decent man. That respect is gone forever.
Mr. McCain you will go to your grave unmourned and unhonored by me. You have sold your soul and your sacred honor for $7 million. You will be remembered by the legacy of shame that was purchased with the blood of innocent people. Was it worth the price?
99
Yes, I was so surprised, also, that John McCain received 7.7 million, the largest in the Congress. But the NRA/Russia gave Trump 30 million for his campaign, so he's really the Big Winner.
My respect for McCain plummeted when I read that this week-end. Immoral people who pretend to be moral. That's the GOP.
3
Ms. Dowd, I went back and read the comments on your shame article on President Obama and not passing gun control laws. You were a bit naive in your assessment of what the president could do during that period of time. The NRA lobbyists and congress people beholden to them were not going to let gun laws of any kind be passed.
The majority of people in this country voted for Clinton and yet Trump was elected. Case closed.
115
Where in the heck are our pro-life people?! If there was a gun shop next to a Planned Parenthood, the protesters would not cross that line, if not oddly supporting the gun shop. This is an issue where the Progressives could use a little help in numbers. Clergy - can you really not convince your flock to feel as guilty about owning handguns as other guilty pleasures? I guess losing that warm body in the pew isn't worth the risk.
Like talking to divorced parents - do it for the children!
42
We've met the enemy and he's us. When poor family dynamics, social isolation, social media immersion, early childhood trauma, meet free access to assault rifles you have dead children, churchgoers,concertgoers.
It's a unique American sickness. The world is shaking its head.
35
And expelled high school students aren’t disarmed from the firearms they should not have been able to buy in the first place.
1
Assault rifles such as the AR-15 were banned, briefly, under Bill Clinton. Bush 43, caving to the G.O.P. base, allowed the ban to expire.
Even Justice Scalia, writing the Heller opinion, stated that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to "weapons of war." Machine guns, fully automatic arms and RPG's are banned throughout the land, despite the N.R.A.
The reason the base and the N.R.A. will not budge on AR-15s and other assault rifles is that they do not buy them to hunt...game. Like the maniacs in Waco and Idaho, they stockpile these weapons because they foresee a day of reckoning between themselves and the federal government of their country.
Kind of like 1861, with bigger magazines. Theses people and their leaders must be stopped.
70
Sorry, but I use mine to hunt game. I have three, a .22 version for squirrels, a 5.56 version for coyotes, and a .308 version for hogs. They are perfect for hunting: Light weight, impervious to moisture, customizable to the hunter, and relatively inexpensive.
I hunt with a 30:06. the rifle used in WWI . I still use the original stock. It is heavy but impervious to moisture and really inexpensive because I got it from my father who never used it. Hopefully I only need one bullet to be successful. Semi automatic assault rifles are ridiculous as a hunting rifle and should be banned.
3
You probably mean the Second Amendment. The Fourth is on an entirely different subject.
The one you most often criticiszed during the 2016 campaign was Hillary Clinton. She argued for ‘sensible’ gun laws, including restrictions on the kind of weapon used this week at the high school in Florida.
Perhaps it must be a broader discussion about rights and the fact that no right is absolute, even those derived from the 2nd Amendment. Justice Holmes argued the point when he referenced falsely shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.
Ms. Dowd, don’t let the dialogue end with this column. How many Columbines, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook and Orlando shootings does a columnist for a great newspaper need to make this a national debate about the unwillingness of one governing political party to ignore the wishes of the American people.
30
My sentiments exactly! Love all the people, like Ms Dowd, who just adored the antics of "The Donald" during the campaign and now we are all living with the horrible results.
2
Mental health and security are not the key issues in mass shootings.
America’s addiction to guns and violence is a disease. Too many innocents have died. But the fact remains that NOTHING has been done on the issue of gun related violence.
The key issues are the proliferation of and the easy access to guns. There are an estimated 357 million firearms . An estimated 31% of households, or one in three Americans, own guns. And what are guns used for ??? Guns are used for no other reason than to kill !!!
The high and unacceptable incidence of gun related deaths in the US is not only a scourge and cancer in America it is a National Security and National Health risk issue adversely impacting all Americans.
But debates in Congress and the Senate continue to be focused on peripheral issues, like magazine size. But the facts remain that the culture of gun violence is out of control !!! and NOTHING has been done !!!
The reality is that all of the debates on the need to improve controls on guns and gun ownership are DEBATES ON THE MARGINS. Any new legislation to strengthen gun controls will affect only new purchases of guns. Any such new legislation will leave the remaining guns already owned unaffected, grandfathered by earlier laws. Tinkering on the margins has not and never will work. There is only one solution to solve the issue of gun violence and deaths.
The Second Amendment must be repealed.
The new law should be called: “The Innocents’ Law.”
Bring peace to America.
23
Trump is not much of a negotiator. That's why his presidency is a mess. That's why his businesses so often had to use bankruptcy and breach of contract as their modus operandi. The only things he's negotiated in the last few decades are divorce settlements, play-for-pay money laundering schemes with Eastern European criminals, non-disclosure settlements with his sex partners, and the price to be paid for the use of his last name.
If we're going to get sensible gun control in this country, it will have to begin at the grass roots, just like any other movement. If the people lead, the leaders will eventually follow. How about a March on Washington for an end to gun violence!
35
Republicans: pro-life, until it gets in the way of THEIR ‘beliefs’ yet, they are willing to risk our kids lives.
Republicans: Anti-socialist; believing regulating gun ownership equates to some form of socialist plot. What lies they tell themselves to please their masters. To hold tight to their power.
Republicans: ignoring a Russian plot against America. They do and say one word that their fearless leader abrogates his responsibility to protect the USA. Using him as a convenient fool, a battering ram against progressive, civil society. To push their agenda and risk our democracy.
26
'The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS.Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn't reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.'
From a passionate young woman, Emma Gonzalez, who speaks about the insane proliferation of guns and school killings. She is a student at the high school in Parkland, Florida, where this latest horrific mass killing took place.
It was estimated in 2014 that there are 240 million adults living in the United States. The NRA boasts membership of 5 million which is roughly 2% of the adult population of America. Why does such a small percentage of American adults control our populace with its fear tactics?
254
Turns out you and President Trump have more in common than you'd like to believe, Ms. Dowd.
You both have an intense dislike of President Obama. With Trump it's pretty obvious why he dislikes Obama given that the birth of his outright animosity was birtherism. With you, I'm not sure?
The other thing you and Trump have in common is your lack of understanding in how legislation is passed in this country, as well as a lack of understanding about filibusters.
Republicans controlled the House and the Democrats did not have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate when Obama tried to get gun-control passed in 2012.
You can't pass a gun-control bill with this scenario.
Yet you can write an entire column about guns, placing blame on Trump where it definitely belongs, and Obama where the blame doesn't belong, but not even mention the spineless, feckless Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
Look at his responses after Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland. The same disgusting non-action, offering meaningless prayers.
That bill Trump signed last year? Both Ryan and the House and the Senate passed that pro-gun bill a year ago last February, H.J. Res 40, revoking an Obama-era regulation, signed by Trump without a photo, in private? The Obama measure blocked some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns.
It was a measure passed by Obama in response to Sandy Hook, Ms. Dowd.
Why don't you go after the people who really are to blame for this American carnage?
1854
You should include Mitch McConnell in a triumvirate of complicity with the NRA. They all bear responsibility for the shooting in Parkland. Time to nullify their power in November.
10
Americans - who are 5% of the global population - own roughly half of the world's 650 million civilian guns.
Americans own far more guns per capita than 2nd-place, 4th world Yemen, which is still stuck in the 12th century.
America is the world's leading gun insane asylum, with a bumper crop of mental defectives, misfits and walking time bombs waiting for their fuses to go off at a theater near you.
Republicans like to offer thoughts, prayers and more guns every time there's a new massacre....nothing expresses sympathy for a gun murder better than making another gun murder more likely.
That would be like handing out more kerosene and matches to members of the community every time an apartment building burnt down instead of mandating smoke detectors, an emergency fire/police telephone number, and fire education and safety.
"We don't need that damn, stupid regulation of fire 'free-dumb', says the National Fire Association, their Grand Old Pyromaniac Congress and their match-lighting voter base....this is about the freedom to burn down whatever building we want as ordained by the God of Fire."
The merchants of gun death in America - the gun company owners, the NRA, the Guns Over People party, and their propagandized gun-fetishizing voter base, have delivered their deranged tyranny-of-the-minority verdict to America:
Schools full of dead children are the best that America can do.
The country's children must die, so our guns can live.
Nice GOPeople.
Vote November 6 2018.
903
Another great cpomment. Thank you!
8
Socrates - Your best to date! Thank you.
5
"The business of America is business," declared President Calvin Coolidge. Such a statement pretty much summarizes the NRA and the politicians who have sold their souls to them, as they run and hide behind the 2nd Amendment.
Until we the people critically assess the failures of American capitalism and acknowledge that not everything needs to be for sell -- including our politicians --, we may likely have to continue to witness such horrors in our country.
On that note, our politicians who talk about individual rights seem to conveniently forget Thomas Jefferson's provision in the Declaration of Independence that if our government becomes destructive, we the people have the right to alter or abolish it and institute a new government.
42
Ms. Dowd:
This is a beautiful column. It is direct; it marshals facts; it weaves them together eloquently with argument and analogy, and uses the analogy to find hope in the bleakest of landscapes.
I hope it does as you intend and indeed mobilizes the vast majority of Americans who believe this is intolerable but, at least until now, have seemed paralyzed.
45
I see a bleaker America, now that children are killing children. We call the former 'monster' and the latter 'angel.'
Paul Ryan's mantra is "this is not the time..." Funny - which is dead serious - that you mentioned about the rescinding of social security's information sharing rule, Grassley and Rubio, among others, were on the high horse just a couple of days earlier proclaiming America should do something about mental health, but the neglect to mention they were the ones who voted to reverse the rule.
If America can approach guns like substance abuse, say alcoholism, perhaps there is a chance. A lot of people got into drinking because of other problems. Then drinking itself is the problem. So, whatever problems plaguing the alcoholic, s/he needs to stop drinking first. Take away the booze and you deal with other issues.
So why is it so difficult to apply to the same logic to gun violence? The only plausible explanation is that that is a demonic cult at play here. It requires blood sacrifice. The more innocent the blood, the more it likes it.
38
"When societies try to protect a malevolent status quo, they become warped."
Maureen has seen the greater truth behind the absurd notion that Americans have the right tote guns everywhere and anywhere. But why should we have to engage in this debate at all? The answer is we are indeed warped, not just about guns, but about mental illness, social justice, science, education, health care and any number of markers of advanced civilizations other countries addressed long ago.
Does anyone doubt this president is capable of calling out his gun-toting supporters if it looks like he might be jeopardized by the Mueller investigation? We're at a crossroads in American history and unless some prominent Republicans take the lead against our "malevolent status quo," we won't just be warped, we'll be broken.
98
Seventeen empty lockers, 17 empty desks, 17 empty beds and 34 parents and spouses grieving over children and partners they will never kiss, hug, laugh with or see again. Additionally, thousands more children around the country will now need therapy and counseling because, as one teenager shared with me: I'm tired of being afraid of simply going to school.
At some point a man's "constitutional right" to own an AR-15 has to be outweighed by a mom's "pursuit of happiness" to simply kiss her child good bye each morning without wondering if that'll be the last time she does. If that sounds like exaggeration and hyperbole there's 17 moms in Parkland who would give anything, anything to wish that it was.
Enough. Those of us who oppose this madness have to finally stand up and say that we will never again vote for a politician who supports the availability of, and access to, semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 in its present form. It should be the first question we ask, and if they reply in the affirmative, the last answer we hear.
437
I would like to see a nation-wide school boycott that would not end until Congress passes sensible gun control legislation, barring assault weapons, making it illegal to own one, forcing their manufacturers to buy back every assault weapon they sold.
And on top of that every gun should be registered and insured just like every motor vehicle must be.
5
And speaking for the dead, life, liberty, . . . and the pursuit of happiness. Unalienable rights. Unalienable rights.
5
Sometimes simple is best.
Ban ALL semi-automatic weapons.
6
A nationwide strike by teachers and parents, along with a coinciding massive march on Washington and more significant lobbying efforts might be a good place to begin. What is standing in the way?
299
Include a mass march on Washington by lots of kids playing hookey, with signs that say "I deserve schools where I can feel safe."
1
Hey, I'm with you. I might bring my walker and join the march. How about a Million Geezer March on Washington featuring canes, crutches, wheelchairs, and walkers?
4
i think it is time to sue Mitch McConnell for his dereliction of duty to protect the american people from assault weapons and other guns, like bumstock, etc. he has refused to bring about a vote even though the majority of American believe and want gun control. perhaps a suit would show him to do his job and serve ALL the people in this country. we must do something! to be silent is complicit!
135
And Paul Ryan, as well.
2
maureen, if you and other journalists had saved your criticism of HRC for after she got elected we might not be in this awful situation. surely some of the blame for the FBIs failure to act on the information about the shooter in this instance can be laid at the feet of trump and the disarray he has caused in the bureau.
122
Senator Chuck Grassley: "And we have not done a very good job of making sure that people that have mental reasons for not being able to handle a gun getting their name into the FBI files and we need to concentrate on that."
This from the man who sponsored the same bill that you mentioned which makes it easier for "mentally ill" people to obtain guns.
But what about Las Vegas? Is every shooter "mentally ill"? I think not. This is the same old excuse to allow assault weapons to be sold to people who are not in the least interested in self defense.
Grassley and trump and all similar "politicians" are on the "take" from the NRA. Here is hoping that the FBI is able to link Russian campaign contributions being funneled to candidates through the NRA. We will then see how many "Manchurian Candidates" we have who are compromised by Russian money and hopefully rid ourselves of the NRA.
119
Thanks for reminding us of the Russia connection even beyond Trump. Funding the NRA gets a certain kind of voter for sure.
3
"Then I gave up." For once I sympathize with Maureen Dowd--despite all of these mass shootings which are now happening on a regular basis America just can't make any headway when it comes to gun control. Innocent gun owners resent being stereotyped as heartless thugs for owning firearms. Presidents of both parties are reduced to making canned speeches and some clucking noises reassuring nervous citizens that a solution to gun violence will be found soon. But nothing ever comes of it. There are the usual touchy feely OP ED columns calling for the Second Amendment to be repealed--something that the Southern and Western states will never agree to.
I've decided to give up too. What's the point???
10
These "innocent gun owners " who "resent being stereotyped as heartless thugs" need to face the fact that their worship of assault rifles and large capacity magazines makes them somewhat responsible for these weapons and their accessories being available to many would be shooters. It's the weapon of choice for the child killers. Heartless? Maybe but surely indifferent.
1
if congress will do nothing let the staes begin...
6 minutes ago
Many states sell alcohol through tightly controlled state stores...Let’s do the same with guns, and staff them with knowledgeble sales people not out to make a quick buck, and highly trained screeners who would conduct required interviews with buyers. In addition buyers would have to hold state gun licenses renewed every 5 years and submit to both background checks and a one week wait before completing the transaction. This will, for the most part, eliminate impulse purchases. While we’re at it, no one under the age of 21 will be permitted to buy a gun or ammunition of any kind. Private sales must be conducted at a state store with both parties present. All guns will be registered and must be kept under lock and key. This will be a huge inconveniance for some....that’s good.
It will also save thousands of lives, address the mental health question, while supporting responsible owners and protecting the public at large.
44
Our politicians are beholden to NRA because they donate heavily to those "elected" officials who do their bidding, meaning doing nothing about gun control.
The only way this stranglehold NRA has on politicians can be broken is to have those with money and who care about the country, the Warren Buffets and Jeff Bezos of this country, step up, as they did to address the healthcare challenge.
"Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable," said Warren Buffet regarding the cost of healthcare.
We need to have a coalition of the rich and powerful to address the scourge of gun violence in this country with similar sentiments: "do not accept it as inevitable."
37
You want Congress to do something?
Pass a federal law that ANY crime involving a gun (even selling or possessing a gun illegally) is a federal crime with a mandatory minimum of 20 years. Second offense, mandatory Life, no parole.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) can build more prisons to house the inmates. It may be advantageous to build “gun prisons” specifically in very remote areas to house the 20 year minimums. Certainly, there needs to be a gun Lifer prison in the most desolate place we can find. This will be an expense, but the cost will be offset by a precipitous decline in gun crime with the associated cost savings from crime reduction. There should be planned and built an additional supermax, just so that there is a jail that even the hardest cases dread https://youtu.be/JVCRjdN3UTM
This is terribly harsh, I understand, and that is the whole point. A percentage of gun criminals will be deterred from the start, but over time, as criminals see associates go away, the reality of being involved with a gun will set in. If you cannot get a gun legally, you’ll stay away. It won’t stop crime, but it will stop gun crime.
Enforcement will be simple enough: Local police will work as usual and notify the feds when they have a gun criminal in custody. After the local process has ended, the gun criminal will face federal charges (this is the way the UCMJ works).
Owning legally would not make you Teflon, if you break a law with the gun, 20 & Life.
This is worth a try, no?
12
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These are the fundamental Rights upon which Our Constitution is based. Twenty-seven Amendments have been enacted to protect these Rights. The Second Amendment is just one of the twenty-seven. It is merely a means to an end, not an end in itself.
It is painfully clear that these Rights are being blatantly violated, especially those of our children. We must find the courage of our forefathers, and dissolve the obvious cause.
33
There are simply too many guns out there already, gun control and gun but back that worked in other countries are not likely to work here. Instead of gun control, we may try ammunition control. If there’s are no ammunition’s for AR15’s sold in this country, we will have rendered AR15’s useless.
21
Ammunition is relatively easy to make and its done by many as a hobby. I'm also sure that Mexican cartels would be happy to mass produce it and smuggle it here for a price.
Parkland's students refuse to allow themselves to be the collateral damage you describe. They are emerging as the most courageous and charismatic voices in the country.
Don't give up on the kids. They need us now. We cannot let them down. We cannot be prisoner of our own disappointment. Don't let vanity get in the way of love.
79
We compose a nation that seemingly is looked downupon by many if not most because of the d issue.
If Connecticut did not effect reform, then it is futile to change.
If I have any insight that helps reform, then I should offer it publicly
rather than to wife only.
I fear many things, and civil unrest is a major fear.
We are afraid of internal destruction, and that means me and ye.
That is reality as I subjectively perceive reality.
Guns are part of our DNA, so to speak.
We fear violence, we obtain guns, pepper spray et what have you.
Of course these phenomena including fears are not politically-socially correct, and e I am running-in where angels fear to tread I
In our naked city- nation e, we exist in jungles of paranoia, don't we?/
2
"In our naked city- nation e, we exist in jungles of paranoia, don't we?"
A few of us do.
Not that many.
Not enough to set a weapons policy policy for the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens.
Don't look to Trump for answers. The man never did a thing for anyone but himself or (occasionally) his benefactors, and that won't change. He is, as when he says he could shoot people on Fifth Ave. and not lose supporters, part of the problem. Imagine, the president is worse than a non-entity...
We need to change our culture and our laws -- nationally, but statewide and locally too if that's a more productive starting point. We can all refuse to vote for anyone who accepts NRA contributions. Here's an interactive list of NRA handouts to Congressional reps in every state. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/nra-donations/?utm_term....
Luckily, a lot of outraged teens who grew up with lock-down drills are reaching voting age. They're unfairly stereotyped as wanting things their way, but if that image holds true on this issue, we'll all be better for it.
We can also support (with time, money or phps. both) organizations that seek to supplant the NRA in influencing gun policy. https://everytown.org/ is one. https://giffords.org/ is another.
Most important thing now is to show our so-called leaders that the NRA is outnumbered. Their dollars may buy campaign ads, but individuals still cast ballots. America has a history of enacting cultural change, and making previously acceptable norms unacceptable. It's overdue, but a tipping point feels near. Join an organization. Vote in November.
40
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." Edmund Burke
The delusion the gun rights absolutists are under is that their guns are the only thing stopping the evil Feds from taking away their freedom and that their adolescent Rambo fantasies are not diminishing the very liberties they believe they are protecting.
Time for the gun rights absolutists to wake up:
You do not protect liberty by electing ever increasing anti-democratic authoritarians willing to subvert the will of the large majority of Americans who support reasonable gun control.
You do not protect liberty by calling for the very government you fear to put guards armed with military grade weapons in every school.
You do not protect liberty by sacrificing the freedom to gather in schools, or clubs, or concerts without fear of being murdered.
You protect liberty in a democracy by working together to solve problems. Try it. You may find that the freedoms, and children, you save may be your own.
44
Best article yet, Ms. Dowd, and most unfortunate that it's due to the atrocities explored. Thank you for your service to journalism and holding these bought/paid-for Congressional enablers feet to the flames.
5
The NRA raises and spends about $250 million every year.
America had 33,000 gun deaths last year. If it had the same gun death rate as the average of all other OECD countries, that number would be less than 3000. So, roughly speaking, every time the NRA raises $8500., another American dies.
.
Think about that:
.
To the NRA your child's life isn't even worth $8500.
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The first duty of government is to protect its citizens from harm.
.
When 58 people are slaughtered and almost 500 wounded in Las Vegas, and America's governments do nothing, it is an absolute failure of governance at an institutional level in respect of the most basic, foundational duties of the state.
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What level of institutional insanity does that require?
.
Why isn't the NRA subject to criminal investigation under RICO?
Why isn't the NRA subject to criminal investigation as the primary enabler of repeated acts of domestic terror?
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Those children, and those teachers who gave their last full measure of devotion to protect them, are, and were, valued at nothing by the NRA.
.
To the NRA, your child's life isn't worth anything.
72
I agree with your comments regarding children being collateral damage. I have long believed that for whatever reason many in this country find it tolerable because the idea of giving up their guns is worse than dead kids.
Perhaps safe in their bunkers surrounded by weapons and ammo they feel nothing like Parkland, Virginia Tech or Las Vegas would happen to their kids.
And we cannot expect anything close to Obama's healing words from Trump. He doesn't feel it nor does he empathize with the parents and loved ones. He took the NRA money and adulation. So did most of the GOP and they will never give up their ridiculous excuses.
As someone suggested why not take the prayers and condolences and use that to build Trump's wall.
What this country is learning to tolerate is beyond me. What a majority of people want falls on deaf ears.
It is time to rid ourselves of the Congress that cannot seem to find their souls when their election coffers are looking so good.
Vote them out and appease the other God, you know the ones they claim they worship.
22
There can be no other issue in coming elections -- not for civilized people. Every single legislator, federal or state, who stands in the way of strong reform of our gun laws must go. No matter how long he/she has served, how personable, "nice" and accommodating he/she may be. Throw them all out, summarily. Demand effective change!
40
Maureen, you fault President Obama for not being visceral enough to force through gun legislation. But that's not accurate.
President Obama did voice what the majority felt and thought in the wake of gun massacres. He wept openly after the Newtown killings, described it as the single hardest event of his time in office, and kept mementos of the slain children so that their deaths would not be in vain.
President Obama would go on to say, after the gun tragedies in Oregon, South Carolina and Florida, that 'thoughts and prayers' weren't enough and that he was sick and tired of having to go through the motions with no end in sight.
Our legislators, unfortunately, are mouthpieces for the NRA. The gun lobby is the most dominating bully in Washington D.C. Their money, vindictiveness, and absolutist position allow them to intimidate Congress into toeing the line. President Obama alone could not erase their influence - but he was one of the few voices of reason. The NRA bought an echo chamber in Congress.
125
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Until the money comes out of our political system nothing will change.
The GOP only cares about maintaining power, for the pure sake of power, and has no shame.
37
Good for the teenagers who took the cell phone videos of the shooting, and posted them online, and who continue to call out cowardly politicians. Good for the mother who raised her voice to President Trump on CNN, right after she spent two hours planning her daughter's funeral. Good for the teacher who confronted Paul Ryan at the Republican fundraiser in Miami. And good for the group who says to politicians, "You take one dollar from the NRA, and we will oppose you." Our children are being slaughtered, and many of our political leaders are accessories to the crime. This is not time for polite, intellectual arguments. It's time to take the gloves off, and allow our anger to drive change.
73
Our school children are learning "active shooter" protocols. Think about that. They go to school to learn math, science and now, how to avoid getting shot if a lunatic with a gun shows up. Forcing teachers to take up arms in an effort to do their job safely is likewise appalling. Recall how many times in the last several years that we have seen an ostensibly well-trained police officer kill a yet-to-be adjudicated suspect because he "feared for his life." If a person whose chosen profession requires training with a gun can make these kinds of mistakes under the pressure of a real life situation, imagine the potential for chaos with armed teachers in schools. It is difficult to believe that a species with a very large prefrontal cortex, the site of executive function and reason, cannot understand how ludicrous our gun fetish is. Second amendment absolutism is no virtue.
24
I have more faith in teens getting guns off the streets than in adults. I certainly hope they can stay mobilized and keep the heat on.
63
Agreed. We treat children as collateral damage.
But how can that be? If you were to ask 500 political and business leaders whether our children are our greatest resource, 500 would likely say: "Yes".
The answer is tragic is long-standing; and it reflects divergent views of what constitutes a "great resource".
Some view children as having the potential to transform society for the good - bringing their creativity and vitality to the great challenges of improving humankind.
Others have a more "resource-extraction" template, and view American children as cogs in an economic engine. It is great if they achieve success, but it is fine if they don't; because they effectively serve us coffee at 7-11s, serve food at restaurants, and make our hotel beds. As these persons would have it, it matters not if our "best and brightest" are taught in US schools, because we can always give work visas and import the work force for our skilled jobs.
And, if many of our children live in cycles of generational poverty, and die in a hail of bullets every few days - well, so be it. These folks pause this great economic and governmental dehumanizing maul for a few seconds to offer hollow "thoughts and prayers", and then get back to work.
12
The USA is a country born and bred in a culture of armed hostility and warfare.
Born in armed rebellion against a foreign power, the USA has continually celebrated its armed warriors and indulged itself in an unending cycle of wars to train its young men to use weapons of death.
The War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria - and on and on.
The inevitable result has been the unavoidable psychological connection between guns, masculinity, assertiveness, control, and power.
It’s no wonder that insecure, socially inept adolescents (of all ages) are drawn to and become obsessed with the most potent symbols of masculinity and power.
The only definitive solution would be repeal of the Second Amendment - which will never happen because the problem is too deeply imbedded in the dark heart of the American psyche.
21
Trump said "I could shoot someone and not lose voters" while he was campaigning. It's too bad that he didn't test that theory out, but is it any surprise he too has fully embraced the perverse interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that the NRA has been allowed to peddle with the help of bought off politicians, that include Trump himself? Let's hope (not pray) that the voices of all the young, brave people speaking out in Florida in the aftermath of this most recent tragedy are more loudly heard than the spineless politicians, the politicians who aren't the least bit invested in our safety.
23
Yes, Ms Dowd, you summed it all up with passion and anger..."Treating children as collateral damage is intolerable." And I suggest that if we can begin to make a dent in these massacres by deranged White (for the most part) men, we must take on the passion and anger as written in this piece. What is going on in our country is beyond intolerable. It is criminal. This administration, its sycophants in Congress, its gun-totin' bigoted electorate, and last but certainly not least by far, the NRA, might as well put guns in their own hands and start shooting. They are just as guilty and culpable as these loonies who acquire with ease assault weapons.
Saying prayers is not doing the trick. Moments of silence and flags at half-staff aren't the answer either. This is now the time for a new version of a Civil Rights Movement as in the 60's, fast forwarded to 2018. The rights we are facing now are to allow are kids to grow to adulthood, to live lives to an old age with peace and security, to allow their mothers, fathers, relatives, friends - old and young - to share in that to which every one is entitled. We can not any longer sit and take this. We have to take action together and fight this amoral force until we win the war.
18
Remember how Trump said he was not just another politician and so wasn't beholden to special interests like other politicians? That was yet another lie. Trump has been every bit the NRA mouthpiece, no better than Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz or Jeb "stand your ground" Bush.
Trump soon boasted of getting an early endorsement from the NRA. And what bidding he did! Gun-free zones, said Trump, made people into sitting ducks (never mind that his own properties were included, so that was not a long term position). The solution to every potential gunman, said Trump, was to arm more people who would somehow be able to identify and shoot the assailant in the chaos.
When Trump addressed the NRA last year, he disingenuously invoked people wanting to end private gun ownership - as if that were the only alternative to the status quo. Trump also talked about his sons loving 'the beautiful outdoors' - as if appreciating nature meant going out armed to the teeth.
If there were any swamp to be drained, it would be that created by the NRA. But Trump is just another creature in it, not the solution.
21
Obama wasn’t inactive on guns. He signed two bills expanding gun rights: one that permitted access in national parks and wildlife refuges ; the second that permitted guns to be checked in Amtrak baggage.
He proudly wrote:
“In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that's handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners - it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges."
12
Mo, mostly good column, but you're taking heat in the Comments for your return to Barry bashing. And deservedly so, if the truth be told.
Pray tell, how was Obama going to get a gun control bill past a Republican House of Representatives still operating under guidelines originally promulgated by a child molester, Dennis Hastert. Was a majority of the Republican majority in the House prepared to support meaningful reform of our gun laws? The answer is a resounding NO. Might a minority have supported it, alongside their Democratic colleagues. Thanks to Hastert's successor, "The Crying Man", John Boehner, we'll never know.
Did the Hastert rule exist back when LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights bill? Not that I know of. Back then members of both parties were still free to vote their conscience - as James Madison originally envisioned.
Mo, your heart is the right place in this column - but you've got to still somehow get beyond the mindless Obama bashing. He may have resembled the cinematic "Black Panther", but he was merely a man, whose presidency Republicans were hell bent on destroying at all costs; and you can't fairly expect him to have acted there like a superhero.
The failure to get meaningful reform passed after Sandy Hook was solely due the persistent influence of Hastert. Apparently, the evil some men do extends far beyond their day.
1314
It's fascinating how much denial there is around Obama's failure as a leader. Even if he couldn't pass anything, he still could have tried. he still could have inspired. The sad truth is he failed us in many ways and eventually the denial will fade and liberals will see it clearly.
You found a way to blame Obama because he was outnumbered? Really?
Moving on, the right to not be shot is more "sacred" than the right to buy a machine for killing a lot of people in a hurry? Don't call yourself a Christian if you support AR-15s for ordinary citizens (what would Jesus do?). Even the police and the military are upset about that. I wouldn't be surprised if you, like the Bundys, are planning to threaten to shoot anyone who disagrees with you and blame the victims ("second amendment solutions", thanks Trump).
Helping the NRA help arms sellers make a profit is not moral, quite the reverse. Even Putin got in the act; he'd love to have us all shoot each other.
I'm all for letting people keep their ordinary guns. But it is time for a total ban on military-grade weapons for ordinary citizens. Way to make a tantrum or a social sickness into a massacre, don't you think?
169
All Presidents are outnumbered. Some could outmaneuver, out flank, outthink, and outsmart any opposition. Obama found it easier to blame others.
I personally favor a total ban on guns, any kind.
3
Mo, the NRA cartel will control GOP'ers until the entire country has an 'anti-NRA' day that forces a show-down between GOPers' big pockets donors and the NRA leadership. On the work-day in the middle of the week that everyone who can, stays home and refuses to buy anything online, or purchase fast food, buy gas, or otherwise engage in commercial activity whatsoever, things will change - the GOP'er donor base will be split, and the NRA isolated.
It is well known that the problem is the NRA leadership, since polls show over 80% of gun owners, over 80% of GOP'ers and a majority of NRA members themselves, want the stronger back-ground checks NRA leadership is against:
https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2015/11/17/125618/release...
The problem is that NRA leadership is beholden to gun manufacturers, as well as new findings that Russia is helping fund the NRA:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/the-nra-is-part-of-the-trum...
which may very well mean Russian funds have made their way into NRA support of elected politicians.
All in addition to Russian bots - following the Parkland tragedy - flooding Twitter with messages against gun control.
The only way to effect change is appeal to GOP'er donors' greed, through an anti-NRA day.
77
The way to affect change is to VOTE THEM OUT! Don't vote for anybody that the NRA has donated to, don't vote for anyone with a higher grade than D!
But your idea is also great and should be done. Money (or lack of having it) always interests the GOP.
3
Perhaps we would have more impact if we did a better job framing the issue. What the N.R.A. is protecting is not the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms, it is the right of the gun manufacturers and sellers to continue unrestricted operation and profitability. That is where most of the N.R.A. money is coming from, not the gun owners. So far the N.R.A. has done a very effective job of convincing us that it represents the gun owners when it really represents the gun industry. If we frame the issue as a choice between children's lives and the profits of the gun INDUSTRY we might have better luck.
275
Absolutely the point!!! and I wish we could get enough people to recognize this so maybe, just maybe there could be a shift in the way the issue is addressed.
3
Ah, another MoDo column giving 45 a pass while blaming it all on 44.
1002
In 2013, the Manchin-Tooney amendment was undone by 4 Democratic Senators from gun-friendly red states who wouldn’t cross the NRA, as well as by a much larger group of Republicans. Only one of those Democratic senators, Heidi Heitkamp, is still in the Senate. Earmarks are a thing of the past, so it’s hard to imagine what sort of leverage Barack Obama’s would have had with the dissenters in his own party—other than an appeal to their consciences, assuming they each have one.
78
"And I wrote in disgust about President Barack Obama failing to marshal the L.B.J. mojo to push through a gun control bill after Sandy Hook even though he had 90 percent of Americans on his side and a Democratic Senate."
I remember that column well because I found it to be one of the most unfair, despicable columns Ms. Dowd wrote about President Obama, loaded with the false equivalencies that favored Republicans and that dominated MSM coverage of the Obama era and still does for Ms. Dowd today.
LBJ had a Democratic super majority in both chambers of Congress from 1965-1967 and there were many Republicans from blue and purple states who supported civil rights legislation. My father's Republican Party is nowhere to be found in today's GOP.
Obama had a Republican controlled House and Democrats did not have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The NRA was not the most well-funded contingent of lobbyists that funded every Republican in Congress in 1965 as it is today.
Republicans own our inability to pass gun safety legislation since Sandy Hook, not President Obama and the Democratic Party and that is why they all need to be voted out of office in 2018.
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I like Dowd's column but Mary Scott's serves as a necessary corrective. Most gun owners could keep their guns but they would need to register them, account for them and for the ammunition, and would only be allowed to take possession when they have passed a gun safety course and psychological screening. This would bring gun owners in line with the "well regulated militia" part of the 2nd Amendment as well as promote gun safety. The regulations would be much stricter and ongoing for semi automatic and automatic weapons.
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With every gun purchase I have made, the serial number of the weapon is written on a form. I have been fingerprinted and have my application for purchasing a gun is sent through an additional background check to approve the purchase. I had to take a course, which included gun safety and knowledge of applicable laws, for my concealed-carry permit. Other than two traffic violations over a period of 55-years of driving, I have no criminal record.
Shooting guns is one of my hobbies. I self-train most of the time, but I do not hesitate to hire a certified trainer if I need additional expertise.
4
It's nevertheless true that Obama, despite his many attributes, was decidedly not a fighter. He all but vanished during the middle four years of his presidency, opting instead to sulk while occasionally floating "grand bargains" that of course went nowhere.
Obama is a model of sensibility and decency in comparison to the mound of soulless flesh currently inhabiting the White House. But when it comes to the ever-important bully pulpit, Obama was certainly no LBJ, and history will note his habit of deferring to the opposition.
7
Who in Congress will have the backbone to draft meaningful gun control legislation, who will have the backbone to join that effort, and when that effort is thwarted by the Republican majority in either house, who will have the courage to publicly call the opposition out, name by name while identifying the amount of blood money each received from the NRA?
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If I had the money and could afford to stay in D.C., I'd be on those Capitol Steps every day with the names/money of those owned by the NRA, held high for all to see. We need to SHAME THEM! And VOTE THEM OUT.
Someone paid for a sign behind an airplane shaming Marco Rubio. We need stuff like that from all of us, every day. Shame them.
3
It wouldn't make any difference. You cannot shame spineless. self-interested morons into doing the right thing. There needs to be an enormous turnover in Congress and the majority of craven individuals who are sitting there need to be VOTED OUT.
4
Let's be honest. This has less to do with the second amendment and much more to do with money. How much in campaign contributions is one child's life worth? That's the ugly question that nobody wants to answer, but it is the REAL question.
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Hopefully a child's life is worth the effort it takes for those of us who support gun controls to get off our rear ends and go to the polls and vote - and not just every four years. The NRA's power in Washington thanks to donations and lobbying is real, but their real power comes from the fact that the people who do support them get out and VOTE. They vote all the time and they vote on this one issue. Until the rest of us do the same we will keep losing and they will keep winning.
4
The Democrats support more gun control and the Republicans support pro life sanctions for the unborn. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Republicans were willing to agree to more gun control measures and if Democrats were more willing to enact pro life laws in congress. Both political parties would be saving precious lives before and after birth. They should at least sit down and discuss their differences on two of the most important issues of the day. It must be done to safe lives. What do they have to lose? More innocent lives will be lost if both horrendous acts against humanity continues.
4
In other words, you think the price for controlling guns is to take away the rights of women to control their own bodies. That's about on par with demanding money for a border wall before doing anything for the DACA kids. It's a phony choice between two unrelated things and your argument is designed to do nothing but shut down the conversation and make sure that nothing happens. If you believe in gun control than support gun control. And if you don't support gun control it's a cheap and cynical ploy to use it as a weapon against the human rights of women.
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Recently, I had a conversation with an American student at my university (here in Canada) that I found very illuminating. This was in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings. We were discussing the insanity of American attitudes towards guns. The young woman told me that she had not even realized how much she took gun violence for granted until she was attending a public lecture at the university. After the featured speaker's talk, she and her friends were milling around, talking, getting ready to leave, lining up to speak to the guest. Suddenly, there was a loud bang. She immediately hit the floor, a reflex, assuming that some disgruntled person might be shooting at the speaker. Her friends wanted to know what she was doing; she was the only person who had reacted in this way. The noise, of course, was caused by something falling; it certainly was not caused by a gun. My student realized, at that point, that coming from the US, she had become conditioned to anticipate the possibility of guns everywhere. She had not realized what it was like to live in a place where the possibility of gun violence is not perceived - even subconsciously - as a constant threat.
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