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How to Pass New Gun Control Policies

Posted at 8:45 a.m. on Dec. 21, 2012

As President Obama and members of Congress develop a response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Jonathan Alter explains how to “build a smarter, more effective movement for common-sense gun laws than we have today.”

“Doing so requires reframing the debate with new language, always an essential weapon in politics. That means retiring ‘gun control’…and replacing it with ‘gun safety,’ ‘anti-violence regulation,’ ‘military weapons for the military only’ and — on every occasion — ‘common sense.’”

“The gun lobby likes to point to the elections of 1994 and 2000, when several Democrats who backed the assault-weapons ban lost their seats. No federal gun laws have been passed since… But U.S. politics is in a state of transition. Obama won a solid majority in November. His army — not the NRA’s — is the one that’s on the march.”

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  • http://ClientSidePolitics.Blogspot.com/ JeromeKJerome

    Repeal and Replace 2nd Amendment
    The time has come to change the 2nd Amendment and replace it with something stronger. A revised 2nd Amendment could work to reduce the senseless gun violence in America and at the same time protect the right to bear arms.

    Constitutional guarantees over the right to bear arms should be entrusted to the states and not the federal government. A revised 2nd Amendment would guarantee states’ rights to control guns within their own borders. The federal government would be prevented by the revised 2nd Amendment from infringing on those rights.

    The 2nd Amendment embodies a great deal of what is valuable in the American character – the right to freedom, the right to defend one’s freedom, and the desire to do so. It goes hand and hand with the 1st Amendment, the right to free speech. Yet the 2nd Amendment has become an anachronism in the modern era of drone strikes, extrajudicial killings and global terror. The kinds of weaponry needed to arm a state militia are far different today than they were in the 1700′s. Wako, Texas, provides an unfortunate illustration.

    Americans find themselves in a conundrum now. How many toddlers and other loved ones need be gunned down, en-mass, 20 at a time, before we look this problem squarely in the face?

    Repealing and replacing the 2nd Amendment will be difficult and lengthy. The argument will have to be framed in a way that does not attack the right to bear arms that we so cherish. Most people who are strong on gun rights are also strong on states’ rights. Local control allows for the various social and geographical characteristics to define the extent of those rights. What might be acceptable in a rural state like Arizona may not be acceptable in highly-populated New York. Texas can arm its teachers and D.C. can ban handguns entirely. This is certainly a framework within which we could discuss repealing the 2nd Amendment and replacing it with something better for everybody.

    JeromekJerome at Client-Side Politics

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