Editor’s note: This commentary is by Tim O’Connor, who is a retired Vermont public school teacher and adjunct instructor for the Community College of Vermont.
[W]ith miles to go and promises to keep, President Donald Trump has walked back his recent promise to embrace sensible comprehensive gun control. According to a March 12 New York Times article, “Conceding to N.R.A., Trump Abandons Brief Gun Control Promise,” after the Parkland massacre the president called for comprehensive gun control legislation to include expanded background checks, keeping guns from mentally ill people, and restricting gun sales for some young adults – all measures opposed by the NRA. He even went so far as to suggest a conversation on an assault weapons ban; a ban that was in effect under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 and expired in 2004.
The president’s promises were reported on Feb. 28, 14 days after the Parkland mass shooting. Incredibly, that was only 12 days before we felt the aftershocks of yet another seismic shift of values. His promise, now, is to harden schools, arm teachers, and make incremental improvements to the existing background check system – all measures supported by the NRA.
President Trump cited a lack of political support for his walk-back. Does he mean a lack of political support or a lack of political will? I’ll go with a lack of political will. Here’s why.
If it’s a lack of political support, consider the 5-4 majority opinion for the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision securing the Second Amendment right for individuals to possess firearms for lawful purposes.
In the court opinion the notably conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th Century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Justice Scalia continued:
“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
If the president’s walk-back is a lack of political support consider that students are planning a mass march on Washington and sister marches around the country on March 24. If these students, the future voters of America, are to have a voice, it will soon come at the ballot box.
If it’s a lack of political support consider that public opinion polls strongly favor supporting stricter gun laws in the United States. According to a Quinnipiac University poll taken between March 3 and March 5 of this year, 63 percent of registered voters in the sample support stricter gun laws, 32 percent oppose stricter laws, and 5 percent were unsure or no answer.
Not surprisingly, for Republicans, the results were 39 percent in support, 58 percent opposed, and 3 percent unsure or no answer. For Democrats, the numbers were 88 percent, 11 percent, and 1 percent respectively, and for independents, the numbers were close to the national average with 63 percent in support of stricter gun laws, 30 percent opposed, and 7 percent unsure or no answer.
If it’s a lack of political support consider the Feb. 15 updated Washington Post article, “Have Your Representatives in Congress Received Donations from the N.R.A.?” in which the Post states that, “Since 1998, the National Rifle Association has donated at least $4.1 million to current members of Congress.”
So is it lack of political support or a lack of political will that keeps our president and our Congress from doing the right thing? I’ll go with a lack of political will.
Political and popular support are on the side of sensible gun control. Congress is in shackles. Until it is able to break free of beholding commitments to powerful outside forces, our best recourse lies with state governments and the people.
Change will happen in state legislatures, in the courts, through non-violent social movements, through our rising youth, and – you heard it here – the voting booth.
