No Guns, No School Shootings Zach Ragbourn October 12, 2006
Zach Ragbourn is the assistant director of communications for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
On October 10 , President George W. Bush convened a nationwide summit to address the root problems of school shootings. Following the horrible events in a one-room Amish schoolhouse, in a rural Colorado school, and too many others to contemplate, the nation was going to finally figure out how to stop the disturbed and the violent from shooting and killing our students, teachers and children.
But how much discussion is really needed? Apparently, quite a lot. Because in the hours and hours of debate and debriefing, the panelists and the government never came to an obvious answer.
Societal violence affects us everywhere we go. Even if we believe it’s not something we can completely shield our children from, we will always keep trying. And until the human race can face and eliminate the demons that turn us against one another, we’re going to have to make it harder for people to victimize our children and our communities. That has to start with making sure that the criminals and the dangerously deranged don’t have unfettered access to firearms.
The president’s summit on school violence didn’t once address the fact that school shootings are committed with firearms, and that the shooters too often shouldn’t have been able to obtain firearms at all. There’s a lot we can and should do to make our schools safer. But first, America needs to be willing to ask some tough questions, and come to some obvious answers. Clearly, the president’s summit can’t be our guiding star.
Leaders at the highest levels of government seem unwilling to take meaningful action to stop gun violence. Sometimes, as we saw just this week, our leaders don’t even want talk about guns.
The unwillingness to have the conversation arises from many factors. Politics plays heavily, as do misconceptions and ideology. Some people believe they already have all the answers, and think the debate ended a decade ago. Nothing completely accounts for the kind of intentional ignorance Washington has shown on this issue, though. Two factors are very important in this lack of a national debate: the gun lobby and political inertia.
The gun industry has some powerful friends, and can spend a lot of money during the campaign cycle. They take scalps publicly, and tout their victories in every publication their PR firms can call. A small army of single-issue voters stands ready to cast ballots and sign checks at the behest of political organizations like the NRA. Industry lobbyists pretend that it’s an all-or-nothing issue, where you either want more guns, or no guns at all. Right-wing politicians court the gun lobby openly, while so-called “centrists” ignore the issue, hoping to avoid being tarred as a gun-banning liberal. In short, it’s the politics of fear and money, just like every other issue the country faces.
All issues move in cycles. It’s entirely likely that Washington will be ready for a true national dialogue in the near future. But with 30,000 Americans losing their lives to gun violence every year, it’s unconscionable to simply wait for politics to catch up with reality. The debate has moved out of the halls of Congress, not because of any grand grassroots strategy, but because things that are this important will boil over when ignored.
In September, thousands of people marched in Harrisburg, Penn., demanding real gun laws for their state. In Illinois, a ballot initiative supporting a statewide ban on military-style assault weapons is all but certain to pass in the fall. Voters in Maryland threw their support behind candidates who spoke frankly and forcefully about the need for meaningful gun laws. Even if neither the president, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales nor the Congress wants to have the conversation, it’s clear that the rest of America does.
The discussion we’re having outside of the White House and the Capitol may surprise the national politicians who’ve been afraid to touch the issue for years. It’s not a question of forcing an ideology on the country, or of taking a radical new approach. And no, despite what you may have heard, it’s not about banning or confiscating anything. What needs to happen is simple.
We must stop turning back the clock. Instead of chipping away at funding for law enforcement, or hiding the national crime-gun trace database, Congress should let the laws do their work. We already know that Brady background checks work—more than a million and a half criminals, domestic abusers, stalkers and mentally disturbed individuals have been denied guns since the Brady Bill passed. Now let’s make those background checks meaningful by closing the loopholes in the law, so that background checks are performed every time a gun is sold. And finally, the black market for guns has to be shut down. Anti-trafficking laws and strict enforcement of dealer regulations will put a stranglehold on the flow of illegal guns.
It’s not radical, and it’s not new. But the need for these solutions is clearer than ever. Whether the debate happens at neighborhood watch meetings or in the Senate Judiciary Committee, America needs the conversation.