Just a brief diary.
President Obama has written a terrific Op-Ed in The New York Times entitled “Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility” in which he takes the NRA to task as well as the craven leadership in Congress and in state houses for refusing to deal with the crisis that we face with guns in this country. He talks about how we demand safety and accountability from the manufacturers of all other consumer goods, but Congress has allowed the gun manufacturers to get away with almost no responsibilities for their products:
Thanks to the gun lobby’s decades of efforts, Congress has blocked our consumer products safety experts from being able to require that firearms have even the most basic safety measures. They’ve made it harder for the government’s public health experts to conduct research on gun violence. They’ve guaranteed that manufacturers enjoy virtual immunity from lawsuits, which means that they can sell lethal products and rarely face consequences. As parents, we wouldn’t put up with this if we were talking about faulty car seats. Why should we tolerate it for products — guns — that kill so many children each year?
He says that not only is he taking steps “within my legal authority to protect the American people and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people”, he is going to work as a private citizen to do everything he can.
One of the promises he makes, which I did not hear in his speech the other day cheered me considerably:
I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform. And if the 90 percent of Americans who do support common-sense gun reforms join me, we will elect the leadership we deserve.
Obama is shaping up, in his last year in office, to be the kind of bold leader we were hoping for. It’s easy to lose faith, reading the rabid commentary about his every action—especially these latest gun safety measures. But it is my fervent hope that these actions will finally begin to turn the ship around on this issue. If he can embolden our candidates, and strengthen the spine of enough members of Congress, some progress might be made.