As many have pointed out, when we have mass slaughters involving guns, the first thing we're told is it's "too soon to talk about gun control laws". Often it's the Beltway media that enforces the "too soon" rule, enabled by professional gun proliferation advocates. Here are two takes on the situation written on Friday,
one from progressive political operative Robert Shrum, and the other
from conservative writer David Frum:
"We as a society are hostage to the thugs of the NRA—which actually stands for the National Rampage Association....Republicans who claim to defend the 'right to life' profit politically by defending the moral wrong of a wholesale arsenal of death inflicted on the already living.... And on the other side, politicians who know better, including most Democrats, cower before the threat of electoral retaliation—and invoke the rationalization that it is too hard to pass anything in Congress, even a ban on assault weapons or closing the gun-show loophole that lets criminals and the deranged shop for firearms without any background check....Let us resolve that half a century and more of this country as a killing field is more than enough. Let us refuse to let this day of dying fade into memory and the malaise of resignation to things as they are. Let us stand against the odds so that countless others who otherwise would never even know the cause of their slaying or the name of their executioner may instead live, laugh, and find love and not hate." -- Robert Shrum
"And I'll say: I'll accept no lectures about 'sensitivity' on days of tragedy like today from people who work the other 364 days of the year against any attempt to prevent such tragedies.
It's bad enough to have a gun lobby. It's the last straw when that lobby also sets up itself as the civility police. It may not be politically possible to do anything about the prevalence of weapons of mass murder. But it damn well ought to be possible to complain about them - and about the people who condone them."-- David Frum
If the duo of (yes) Shrum and Frum can agree that it's time not only to talk but to act, will it ever be a better time?
