Guest AuthorGuns. We are awash in them and words about them. Some of the latest came from Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal, which ruled that the University of North Florida could not ban students from keeping guns in their on-campus cars.
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Florida Carry, a gun rights advocacy group. Flushed with victory, it promptly warned all of Florida’s colleges and universities that it would sue any school that did not repeal similar rules.
Florida State immediately announced that it would rescind its policy prohibiting the storage of guns in cars. So what seemed like a perfectly reasonable restriction joined the growing list of reasonable restrictions on the trash pile.
The New York Times recently reported that of the 100 or so gun related laws passed since the Sandy Hook shooting, the vast majority of them actually liberalized access.
Another Times study pointed out a loophole in the laws restricting ownership of guns by the mentally ill. Turns out that in many jurisdictions, the mentally ill can get their guns back after an incarceration if they haven’t been judicially declared mentally ill.
President Obama had tried to pass legislation limiting gun access for the mentally ill. That effort got nowhere in Congress, which, like most legislative bodies, is in the grip of the gun lobby. Last week Obama announced an executive action to achieve the goal of the failed legislation. Stand by for a gun-lobby challenge to that approach.
For groups like the NRA, it appears there is no middle ground, nothing but an absolute approach to the Second Amendment. None of the rights enshrined in the Constitution is absolute. Think warrantless wiretapping and the latest NSA revelations. Yet somehow the Second Amendment is exempt.
The goal of the NRA and its like-minded groups is to nullify any limitation on gun rights, no matter how sensible. One state at a time they have successfully lobbied legislatures to liberalize concealed-carry laws, pass stand-your-ground measures, impose restrictions on cities and towns from passing their own regulations.
Guns and Ammo, the magazine for gun enthusiasts, recently did a state-by-state survey of gun laws, grading each state on those litmus issues. Washington D.C. ranked worst, Arizona best. Florida, hardly an inhospitable place for gun advocates, ranked 12th.
To get a better idea as to just how single minded the gun lobby can be, turn back to Guns and Ammo, where once readers found the thoughts of Dick Metcalf on the magazines back cover.
Metcalf is a lifelong gun owner, widely respected for his firearms knowledge and gun-rights credentials. Based on his qualifications, he hosted a TV show on guns. He made a decent living based on his gun expertise — until last October.
That’s when he wrote a column headlined “Let’s Talk Limits.” In it he observed that no constitutional guarantee is absolute. The response, according to an account in the Times, was swift and lethal. Readers were apoplectic, threatening to cancel subscriptions. Death threats were made. Gun manufacturers threatened to pull advertising.
Metcalf was fired. Guns and Ammo issued an apology. The editor who allowed the column to run lost his job, even after having made an embarrassingly abject apology.
The Times story went on to detail a number of other journalistic episodes in which legitimate gun-rights advocates were ostracized because they suggested that mild regulation wasn’t such a horrid idea.
Clearly, things are not going well for the forces of moderation.
Some of us find it befuddling in the extreme. How, after Sandy Hook and countless other gun-related tragedies, does the gun lobby continue to win? How do politicians who dare to suggest modest restrictions get recalled as they did recently in Colorado?
In the year-end wrap-up of news events on the PBS News Hour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields was asked about his prediction that gun laws would tighten after Sandy Hook, after babies were cut down mercilessly by a nut with a gun. He said then that the tide was sure to turn, absolutely.
Anchor Judy Woodruff asked what happened. Shields just shook his head. “I can’t understand it,” he said.
Neither can the rest of us.
