Tim Donnelly, who thinks that gun ownership has God’s approval
I wrote some months ago about America’s love affair with guns drawing attention to how, in recent years, state legislation in particular has made it easier for people to own and carry guns. The National Rifle Association and its supporters have been increasingly successful in arguing against any legislation that could be seen as infringing the right of American citizens to bear arms. Not any longer.
In the wake of the dreadful massacre in the elementary school in Newtown Connecticut, in which a young man used an automatic rifle to shoot six adults and 20 children aged between six and seven, President Obama has finally decided to act.
Congress will be asked to pass legislation controlling both what kind of weapons can be bought and who can buy them. The 1994 ban on the sale of Army-style assault weapons, the renewal of which the NRA successfully campaigned against 10 years later, will be tightened up and reintroduced. Magazines will be limited to 10 bullets. Background checks will become universal for firearms buyers, and there will be stricter scrutiny of buyers with mental health problems.
Predictably the NRA is up in arms. (Naturally we assume this is only a metaphor. Unfortunately extremist fringe group supporters are already arguing that patriots should prepare for armed conflict to ‘re-institute the basic tenets of the Constitution’.) The organisation’s vice-president responded to the White House proposals in typically hyperbolic style: ‘I warned you this day was coming and now it’s here. It’s not about protecting your children. It’s not about stopping crime. It’s about banning your guns…period’. (The organisation’s own reaction to the Sandy Hook school crime was the suggestion that every American school should have armed guards or armed teachers.)
It’s highly improbable that a version of fortress America will be imposed on the American school system, but how good are the chances that the gun controls now favoured by President Obama will be passed by Congress? My guess is about 50-50. At the moment public opinion polls are quite strongly in favour of the proposed legislation. But is that anything more than an emotional reaction to the Newtown outrage? The president’s opponents will be hoping it is, and thus will try to delay any decision by Congress for as long as possible. The longer the debate drags on, the more likely the pro-gun lobby will be able to water down or even defeat the changes proposed.
The successes which that lobby has enjoyed in recent years prove just how powerful, well-funded, and well-organised it is. Many sitting members of Congress owe their seats at least in part to the financial help their campaigns received from the NRA. They will find it difficult to be seen to be favouring the introduction of new gun controls. Then consider what is already happening in some Republican-controlled states.
In Wyoming a bill has been introduced in the state legislature designed to block any federal government-supported legislation on firearms. Incredibly, any federal agent seeking to enforce, say, a ban on assault weapons, would face a five-year prison sentence. A similar bill has been filed in Tennessee, making it a crime to enforce federal gun legislation. Texas is jumping on the same bandwagon.
In Mississippi, Governor Bryant, claiming that Washington has no jurisdiction over weapons made in Mississippi, has announced that his state will block all federal gun measures. Of course none of this madcap legislation is likely to be enacted or enforced. But it serves its purpose. It sends an unequivocal signal to pro-gun voters, pro-gun lobbyists, and the NRA, that these Republican legislators remain firmly on message.
It’s also true that in recent years in the US there has been more in the way of deregulation of existing gun laws rather than any increase in gun controls. Nearly every state has now made it legal for citizens to carry guns concealed or unconcealed, with little in the way of background checks or permit requirements. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative organisation of state lawmakers, supported financially by the NRA, formulates these more permissive laws that individual states can pick up and proceed to pass into legislation.
More troubling still in the context of President Obama’s decision to throw all his executive power behind the push for new and significant gun controls is the attitude of those many Americans who believe that the right to bear arms is the only ultimate guarantee of their individual freedoms.
Republican Tim Donnelly in the Californian legislature goes so far as to suggest that gun ownership has God’s approval. ‘Guns’, he says, ‘are used to defend our property and our families and our faith and our freedom, and they are absolutely essential to living the way God intended for us to live’. When a duly elected representative of the people of California can articulate such views, perhaps it is not surprising that there is evidence of a growing tide of misinterpretation and dangerous misrepresentation of the new legislation the president has in mind.
Of course I know such views are not those of a substantial majority of ordinary Americans – including most of those who recently voted to give President Obama a second term. New York State has already passed new gun control legislation. Illinois, Connecticut, and New Jersey are moving in the same direction. California, which already has stricter controls than most states, is introducing more far-reaching proposals – specifically in relation to the sale of ammunition.
The governor of Colorado, reversing his previous position, is proposing universal background checks, and the use of the state’s mental health system, in determining gun ownership. So there is some momentum in favour of new gun controls. But it is equally clear that there are those both inside and outside Congress who will never agree.
Saturday 19 January was declared ‘Gun Appreciation Day’, and thousands of people attended pro-gun rallies across a range of states. As this debate intensifies in coming weeks, one thing we can be sure of: those responsible for the president’s safety will be on high alert.
Andrew Hook is a former professor of English literature at Glasgow University
