President Obama’s campaign for his package of gun control proposals has uncertain prospects in Congress. But a day after he surrounded himself with children and family members of the victims of the Newtown massacre it’s clear his purpose is not so much to ban assault weapons as it is to energize liberals and demonize the National Rifle Association. The emotional nature of his presentation made it clear that if he has his way the upcoming debate on the issue would center on whether you want to keep 1st graders safe and not on whether a new assault weapons ban or any of the other ideas would actually do anything to prevent another Newtown, or similar shootings. The open question is whether gun rights advocates can distract the Senate and the public from this dramatic talk about dead children to the more sober one of how any of this will actually make Americans safer.
At the core of the answer to that query is the group that is supposedly leading the charge against Obama’s proposals. For decades the NRA has used its mass membership and clout on Capitol Hill to maintain a firewall of resistance to any infringement of the rights of gun owners. There is no reason to believe that support or clout has evaporated, but the fate of the president’s gun campaign may hinge on whether the NRA has become more of a liability to opponents of limitations on gun ownership than an asset. Liberals speak of a changed dynamic in the national conversation about guns after Newtown, but that may have more to do with the way the NRA has unwittingly played into the hands of the president over the last month. From its initial post-Newtown press conference, which turned into a public relations disaster, to its equally foolish ad that mentioned the president’s daughters, it has rapidly become clear that the NRA has become the president’s best ally in his effort to bulldoze opposition to a new assault weapons ban. While the chances of the president being able to get his way in Congress remain slight, every NRA blunder makes them seem a bit more realistic.
The NRA can point to the fact that its membership has grown in the weeks since Newtown. Its advocacy for more security for schools is popular as is its attempt to divert attention away from guns to video games even though that makes it look as if it is trying to save the Second Amendment by throwing the First under the bus.
The NRA’s efforts to persuade Senate Democrats not to back another assault weapons ban will also be strengthened by the confusion over which rifles fall under that rubric. As the New York Times noted in a feature today, the differences between most standard hunting rifles and those that might be called assault weapons may have more to do with cosmetic features, such as grips, than an ability to fire rapidly. Gun control advocates don’t want an assault weapons ban that will be drawn so narrowly as to leave out lots of weapons (Connecticut’s assault weapons ban did not include the AR-15, which was used in the Newtown murders), but if the law is written broadly it will be easier for the NRA to paint it as an effort to take legal sporting guns away from law-abiding citizens.
Like its counterparts on the left that support abortion, the NRA has often opposed even the most reasonable of gun control ideas because they saw them as the thin edge of the wedge of a movement to ban all guns. Though both the president and Vice President Biden continue to speak of their support for Second Amendment rights, far-reaching legislation will still be seen by many Americans as a manifestation of liberal disdain for gun rights rather than a reasonable attempt to limit weapons that are strictly military in nature.
The divide between urban and rural America about the role of guns in American culture and history has always been so great as to confound any attempt to make this a partisan issue. Gun control is doomed while Democrats and Republicans who represent districts outside of cities and suburbs are united in their desire to get “A” ratings from the NRA.
But the wild card in this equation is the president’s ability to demonize his opponents. If the conflict is between a Democratic president and the average American gun owner, the president will lose. But a standoff between the president and an NRA that can be depicted as the heartless foe of child safety and the cat’s paw of profiteering gun manufacturers is one the White House can win. That’s why the NRA’s decision to run the ad that mentioned Obama’s children was such a crucial blunder leading up to the president’s news conference yesterday. It played right into the White House’s talking points about their insensitivity and made the group seem like a bully.
The president can’t get his way on assault weapons so long as the debate is one that rests on logic and the facts about what will or won’t stop mass shootings. But so long as the focus is on the NRA, the president has a chance to win this battle. The switch from using the strident Wayne LaPierre as the group’s point man in the media to the more reasonable David Keene was a good decision. But even with Keene in the spotlight, it should be understood that the group is a natural piñata for both liberals and the media that may do their cause more harm than good.
Every PR blunder and misguided ad from the NRA is a gift to the president, as he successfully manipulates the nation’s emotional reaction to Newtown. As difficult as it may be for the NRA’s supporters to accept this, their best chance of prevailing in the Congress is to move out of the media spotlight and concentrate on low-key lobbying. The alternative will be to go on helping Obama by providing him with the straw man he needs to win a ban that gun owners feel will be only the first step toward the undermining of the Second Amendment.
This is entirely an inside the beltway, north eastern urban perspective. Millions of firearm owners are not members of the NRA, but that doesn't mean they will accept any kind of gun ban vote by their representative in Congress. It is a mistake for you pundits to focus on the NRA. They are relatively weak among gun owners, but support for the second amendment is not. Whatever their PR blunders, they won't change one opinion on the matter. This isn't an election.
"…that doesn't mean they will accept any kind of gun ban vote by their representative in Congress." n nGreat! Observe only those laws you approve of — that's the Wingnut Way!
Wrong. By not accepting I mean they will not vote for the Congresscritter again. Thought that was obvious. You seem to hyperventilate very easily.
No, it means move heaven and earth to defeat the schmuck and to support his/her/its opponent in the next election, no matter how otherwise reprehensible you may consider the opponent to be. The Dems know this — they know that the gun issue cost AlGore the 2000 election, he lost both Arkansas and Tennessee — both Dem states that are pro gun.
It is the American Way. See Prohibition, Alcohol. See Prohibition, Drug. Or if you want to go back a ways – see Tax, Tea. n nIt is in our blood. n nWhich leads me to ask. Are you an American?
It seems to me that we see the same hand wringing by the pundit class over the NRA's campaign as we did over the Tea Party. My hunch is that people outside the timid punditry class appreciate that at least some organization is rising to the fight instead of cowering in fear of The One. We're already seeing our professional worried class now prematurely surrendering the debt ceiling fight – the good fight a few weeks ago. The truth is that for the hand wringers there's never a good time to oppose Obama and certainly don't be aggressive about it. During the early days of Obama V1 we read the same stuff – gotta let him have his way since he won – don't dare oppose Obama too stridently or most of the right wing press will get upset.
What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? — Thomas Jefferson n nThe spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. — Thomas Jefferson n nThe majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society. — Thomas Jefferson n
I agree with bcub. I am a New Jersey conservative who has never owned or fire a gun and do agree with some measures of gun control. However there is a pundit tonedeafness on how this plays out. n nI never saw the Wayne Lapierre newsconferenc, Looking at twitter and facebook responses from facebook friends, sports reporters, pundits etc , you got the impression that this man was the most evil person on earth even though a large majority of Americans agree with him. n nThe gun culture is so foreign me, but it is foreign to many in the northeastern corridor political leanings notwithstanding. Therefore I take the above opinion with a grain of salt. Interesting article by SE Cupp this morning on how gun control pundits have no clue about the terminology they use.
The add was effective, that is why the Obama Regime is complaining so much about it.
This is just another example of the many Commentary writers listening too much to other elites who graduated from the "best" schools. I have zero problem with the NRA's ad involving Obama's daughters. It is very appropriate—and accurate.
The press and the Democratic machine would have slammed the NRA no matter what the NRA said. And if the NRA had said nothing, the press and the Democratic machine would have pointed to the silence as evidence of guilt and complicity.
Mr. Tobin, i realize you graduated from an "elite" school, and you consider yourself a "New York Jewish Intellectual". And you have some very interesting, insightful things to say, leveraging your learning and natural aptitude. n nOn this subject, my dear urbane metrosexual, you have next to nothing to comport or transport. It is a basic, straight ahead proposition that only requires open eyes, knowledge of the The Left, and unambiguously admitting that they overarchig aim is to render the citizenry a permanently demoted, easily controlled variation and hybrid between farm animal and lab rat. n nStraddling the fence, mish mashing, equivocation, "nuanced" circle mental masturbation, and legal casuistry are not appropriate here. This is a full frontal assault, Alinsky style, not about guns, but CONTROL. n n
Tobin is merely indulging in sappy anti-intellectualism. Facts and evidence do not matter. We should instead capitulate to the ill informed mired in mushy sentimentalism. Most pro-gun people have their act together. They have actually studied the issue.
So,Jonathan, ads calling Romney a felon, a heartless killer of women, a factory rapist, all that is just "politics", but ONE ad by the NRA and they are disqualified from any reasonable discussion? Poppycock! The ad was very much on the mark and this is why the White House had to fight it of, squealing like stuck pigs (please excuse the remark on a jewish blog), beccause it hit the mark. nWhy indeed, should the President's daughters deserve better security than other children? Are they public officlals? Have they been threatened? MInd you, I don't begrudge them their protection but I would want to have adequate protection for our children too. Would one armed guard at a school be such a stupid idea? politics in this country is fast approaching the tiem when it is not Democrats v. republicans but the people v. the govt. employees and the eilite commentators. In other words, Beltway people v. common people.
It seems to me the NRA ad is right on target – one standard for the elites and another for the rest of us when it comes to the protection of our children and grand-children. Putting armed guards in schools is presently being done by 1/3 of all schools and advanced by no less a liberal the Senator Barbara Boxer. And unless I missed it, it's part of O's 23 Executive Orders. So I have no idea why Tobin is going off on the NRA.
Hey Tobin, if the commenters here are any reflection of Commentary readers, the problem goes way beyond the NRA. Say anything reasonable about guns and you get deluged with abuse about being a northeastern, "metrosexual," Ivy elitist, Volvo-driving, red wine drinking, weak-kneed, thin-blooded, pointy-headed intellectual RINO who doesn't understand the heartland or its red-blooded patriotic folk. n nThe damage done by the NRA is serious enough. The NRA was founded in 1871 and existed quietly for a century as a group of sportsman who promoted riflery, hunting, and marksmanship through such mundane activities as sponsoring ubiquitous high school rifle clubs (which not incidentally were as common in Connecticut as Wyoming) and Boy Scout merit badge programs, and rarely engaged in politics or public controversy. Then, in 1977, the group was taken over by a small well-organized claque of "gun rights" radicals who proclaimed from the start — against all evidence of 200 years of American practice — that the Second Amendment conferred an untrammeled, unrestricted right to own, use and carry any type of gun anywhere, anytime and that any and all gun regulations, however reasonable or necessary, encroach on this inviolable "right." Some 35 years of NRA propaganda has persuaded two generations of the gullible that this is so, even though it is transparent nonsense. Taken to its logical extreme, some have begun to contend that one has a constitutional right to "concealed carry" even on someone else's private property. n nOf course, the constitutional situation is far different from this crackpot belief. The recent Supreme Court decision in Heller did affirm that the Amendment confers an individual right, not just the right of states to organize militias, but that decision is much closer to the previous two centuries of law and practice than to the NRA's fantasy. It rules out sweeping bans on all gun ownership even in one's home but leaves plenty of room for just about every existing gun regulation scheme. Beyond doubt, the Court under Heller would approve every single one of the major proposals advanced since Newtown — a ban on certain tyoes of semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, more extensive and thorough background checks, and even New York's new broader registry requirement. Much like First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections, that Second Amendment individual right may be subject to a wide array of reasonable limitations. n nBut here's the thing: increasingly, if you make an effort to point out any of this to your readers, you will be denounced as an Establishment pussy who doesn't care about "our rights." Good luck. n nFull disclosure — I have owned various firearms in my long lifetime, beginning with a .22 when I was a member of one of those high school rifle clubs and I became all too familiar with guns during Army service, 1965-69.
My, you're a cranky laddie.
My, you're a cranky lackey.
Civilians need military weapons. How else will you get a well regulated militia? n nIn America we have the right to resist our government. If we fail we will get hanged. If we prevail we will get a new government under new management. n nSerious business. Not to be undertaken lightly.
I have to agree with the majority of posters. This article is why the GOP keeps losing elections. We whine about how dishonest and mean-spirited liberal attacks against us are, but then when it comes time to hit back we can't go too far because that will make us seem crazy or damage us. I'm not suggesting going so far as birtherism or any of that lunacy, but the NRA is not letting Obama and the MSM set the terms of the debate or being scared off by calls for civility (when liberals feel free to break those rules whenever it suits them). Keep up this attitude and keep putting up guys like McCain, Romney, and Dole who don't really hit back and we'll keep losing elections and respect.
So pointing out that Sidwell Friends school that the Obama children attend has 11 armed security personnel at two campuses, in addition to a Secret Service detail that is armed with automatic weapons (necessary in an age of terrorism), is outrageous? How about pointing out that the Newtown school district has hired armed guards so the survivors of the attack can feel secure in their new school? How about pointing out that armed guards, including Secret Service, Capitol Police, and US Marshals, guard the White House, Capitol Building, and Federal courthouses, demonstrating what politicians do when they are SERIOUS about preventing armed attacks. n nEvery school board in the country should be asked to make a public decision about whether they are going to provide real security against insane armed attackers, or are going to tell parents that the risk to their children is not high enough to justify the only known effective method of protecting them, the one that government officials use for themselves, and that Sidwell Friends uses to protect the children of government officials like Barack Obama.
God, Commentary is useless.