by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
I wasn’t much impressed with President Obama’s announcement of his new gun control package, largely enacted by executive order, rather than by the constitutionally directed Congress. Apparently, most of the media wasn’t that impressed either. Some of the more traditionally anti-gun media thought it was too little, or too late. And even some of those anti-gun commentators, who usually back this president, didn’t think his much touted order was going to accomplish much in turning down violate crime.
I wasn’t much impressed by his CNN “Town Meeting” which aired in prime time on January 9, either. If fact, I was more impressed by some of the tough questions moderator Anderson Cooper pitched almost from the opening of the show.
But perhaps the most impressive performances were turned in by two women casualties of criminal minds: Taya Kyle and Kimberly Corban. These two women didn’t just challenge the president on the content of his action agenda on guns, but also the reasoning behind it. In a way, their questions were directed at all of the people who believe that the existence and possession of guns are the problem with our society, even though violent crime has been going down steadily since the 1990s.
Taya, the widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle confronted President Obama first, challenging the president on the effectiveness of gun control legislation and asking why he doesn’t more often note that violent crime has decreased during his presidency.
“The thing is that the laws we create don’t stop these horrific things from happening, right?” Taya Kyle said.
Obama responded that law-abiding gunowners like Kyle would still be able to legally buy guns, but that there is a way to “set up a system” where people “can have a firearm to protect yourself” but where it is much harder for some-body to “fill up an auto with guns and sell them to 13-year-old kids on the streets.”
The president listened to the two women as well the other guests who questioned the value of his proposals, but he stuck to the anti-gun playbook.
He frequently referred to the statistic of 30,000 people killed by guns as “30 thousand victims of gun violence,” lumping in some 17,000 suicides, about 800 accidental shootings, and police or citizen intervention as “violent crimes.”
But Kyle stuck to her guns (pun intended).
She blamed her husband’s murder on not the killer’s access to a gun, but because he was a paranoid “drug user.”
She argued that the federal government should not ban all guns based on the actions of a small number of people that desire to do harm to others. “Let’s start enforcing what we have before creating new laws.”
Obama responded with the claim that he was adding more ATF and FBI agents to enforce the laws, but didn’t discuss the fact that many who commit crimes escape punishment through the shortcomings of the entire justice system.
Of course, Taya Kyle and Kimberly Corban were not the only people at the CNN Town Meeting that challenged the president’s initiative, but from my viewpoint, they were the most effective. And they certainly shook up the media, much of which followed up with feature stories for both of these courageous women.
Corban, a victim of a brutal rape 10 years ago and now a mother of two very young children, said:
“I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen to myself or my kids. So why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun or take that where I need to be is just making my kids and I less safe?”
Again Obama insisted that he wasn’t taking anyone’s guns away, that people would still be able to buy, own and carry the guns, but he couldn’t stop there. He had to warn the mother of small children that the mere possession of guns posed a threat to those children, and that she stood the risk of having the gun taken away from her and used against here. Yes, straight out of the anti-gun catechism.
Although he was polite and benign in addressing Kyle and Corban, you could see that he wasn’t giving up because of what they or others, including law enforcement, had to say. If they didn’t convince him of the folly of his proposals, he didn’t seem to convince Americans generally
The day after the CNN Town Hall cablecast, a new Rasmussen survey was released that revealed that a majority of likely US voters do not approve of the president’s executive action on guns.
According to Rasmussen, 58% of those responding to a survey of 1,000 likely voters, taken Jan. 6-7, just days after he announced his latest orders were against them. Only 34% of those surveyed think the president should take action alone, and only 21% believe the president’s executive orders “extending federal government oversight of gun sales” will result in a reduction of mass shootings in America. Fifty-nine percent believe the new measures will not prevent mass shootings.
Rasmussen also reported that 45% believe the country needs stronger gun laws, but 50% disagree with that assessment. Surveys over the past several years indicate that a majority of voters “tended to oppose further gun control laws except during brief periods following high-profile shootings,” the Rasmussen report said.
Generally, in the gun community, the reaction of the president’s package, including what he can do by executive order, and what he must get through Congress, will have no beneficial impact on violent crime. They also view his approach as yet another attempt to chip away at the protections of the Second Amendment, even though many will be nothing more than inconvenienced.
One thing that stands out is that in the Clinton era they tried and succeeded in getting rid of tens of thousands of “kitchen table” firearm dealers. Now, what Obama is doing is to raise the number of FFLs just for their background check value.
Apparently, in the White House, whoever is the current occupant, it doesn’t matter whether you do anything right, but whether you appear to be doing something at all. Perhaps the nation needs a new motto.
