"God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline," 2 Timothy 1:6-7 says. The senseless murder of 20 children and six other innocent individuals at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut compelled us to display that spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. After all, for far too long, we succumbed to that spirit of timidity.
As mass shootings accumulated and more and more American men, women, and children fell victim to the scourge of gun violence, we cowered. Nearly ten years, the assault weapons ban of the Clinton era expired in 2004. Despite President Bush's surprise recommendation that the ban be renewed, Congress ducked. In the following year, violent crime, including gun crimes involving assault rifles, rose. Congress did not batter an eye. In April 2007, a gunman shot dead 33 people on the campus of Virginia Tech in the deadliest mass school shooting of all time. For a few days, elements of the national media discussed whether stricter gun laws were necessary. Senator Barack Obama, a presidential candidate with an aggressive record on gun control in the Illinois legislature, chimed in to say yes. Congressman Tom Delay, a House Republican leader, told PBS' Charlie Rose the shooting meant we should have looser gun laws. Regardless, the media quickly forgot instead obsessively focusing on Don Imus' firing and the impending, sure-to-be Rudy Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton 2008 election contest.
The next year, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the former being a supporter of tough gun laws in the Illinois Senate and the latter being one of the central authors of the 1994 assault weapons ban bill, were elected President and Vice President. There was hope amongst gun violence prevention advocates like the Brady Campaign that they would push for tougher gun laws. Congress instead expanded gun rights through a provision tucked into Obama's 2009 credit card reform law. Obama was largely silent on the issue both in rhetoric and in actions. When Attorney General Eric Holder in 2009 suggested the administration would pursue an assault weapons ban, he was reportedly told to "shut up" by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who also urged Obama to abandon his push for the Affordable Care Act. The mass shootings continued, including at Fort Hood, Texas and in Tucson in January 2011 when Rep. Gabby Giffords was nearly taken from us. There was some hope Obama would embrace the opportunity to push for gun control. His administration punted even at tougher enforcement of existing gun laws. In 2012, a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora again inspired that same hope. Nothing happened.
It seemed like the horrific shooting in Newtown was different though. The President, famous for his ostensible lack of emotional display, broke down in tears at the White House press podium. Public opinion polls showed a stunning uptick in support for an assault weapons ban and limiting magazine clips -- and even 90 percent support for universal background checks. The country was ready. President Obama signaled he was ready too. He aggressively made the case for a wide array of stricter gun laws, including proposals for an assault rifle ban and closing the background check loophole at gun shows and on the Internet, and he signed into law 23 executive actions aimed at gun violence prevention. In the next several months, the President barnstormed the country, making passionate speeches in which he made a deeply emotional and strong, compelling case for gun control. The energy of gun violence prevention advocates, including those who work at the Brady Campaign and others, was equally strong and they knew this was their best chance at meaningful change. Sandy Hook families met with legislators who were moved by their stories. NRA-backed, gun-owning senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey even teamed together to go after the gun lobby and drafted a universal background check bill.
Then, it all came crashing down on April 17. Thanks to a GOP-led filibuster, a minority of the Senate was successfully able to block several legislative gun safety reform efforts, including the Manchin/Toomey bill. An angry President Obama, flanked by Gabby Giffords and the families of Newtown victims, scolded Washington for its "shameful" behavior and he accused the "gun lobby" of "willfully lying" about his proposals.
We collectively sympathized for and sought justice for the families whose loved ones were killed in Newtown. We had the power to do something about it, to make our country safer. We said, in poll after poll, that we embraced the self-discipline necessary for the sake of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and the mentally ill. It has seemed to vanish too quickly even as 90 percent of the public still supports universal background checks. The impetus, the passion, and the yearning to do something - anything - on a broad and serious scale to prevent gun violence are seemingly gone. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit of timidity has overtaken that spirit of love, power, and of self-discipline. Certainly, a spirit of timidity took over the senators who blocked the passage of Manchin/Toomey on April 17.
Fortunately, some serious change has happened and there is cause for hope. The White House recently released a progress report indicating significant progress on the President's 23 executive actions, including research into the causes of gun violence, improving state reporting to the national background checks system, and banning the reimportation by private companies of military-grade rifles originally sold to our allies abroad. At the state level, states like Maryland, New York, Colorado, and Connecticut have enacted stricter gun laws. For the long term, there is now a stronger, larger, and more dedicated gun control movement, embodied in organizations like Americans for Responsible Solutions, led by Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, and the Sandy Hook Promise. President Obama continues to extoll the necessity of gun violence prevention and he recently secured the confirmation of a permanent ATF director, B. Todd Jones. Senate majority leader Harry Reid says he'll bring up the Manchin/Toomey amendment again in 2014. There are 186 cosponsors for similar legislation in the House. In November, I attended the national summit of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and they are as enthused, determined, and organized as ever and they even ended their conference by organizing in a day of lobbying. All of these developments point to hope for real progress in the coming years on this important issue.
More Americans have died of gun violence than in all of our wars combined. We know this is a problem that has gone unaddressed in recent years even as mass shootings have continued. We know that in states where there are stricter gun laws, there is less gun violence. We know that in countries like England and Australia where gun control was enacted after mass shootings, gun crimes dramatically went down in number. We know that a universal background check system would close loopholes that allow dangerous criminals to get their hands on guns at gun shows and on the Internet. We know that the existing background check system has prevented 1.5 million people from buying a firearm thus potentially stopping horrific shootings. Indeed, we know the facts, we know what we can do to prevent gun violence, and yet we cower. We resort to a spirit of timidity. We cannot accept this. For a society to be free, it must be free of fear. For a society to be free of fear, it must be well-ordered. Part of being a well-ordered society includes having the collective courage to mitigate the powerful industries and special interests that fight against the people's interests -- something James Madison understood well in The Federalist Papers. We have proven ourselves to be that kind of society willing to do hard things. We must have the stomach to do it again. In preventing gun violence, we must show a spirit of love, a spirit of power, and a spirit of self-discipline.
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