But rather than despairing, which is usually the appropriate attitude when it comes to tangling with the gun lobby, let’s try to look on the brighter side. In blocking an extension of background checks that has overwhelming public support, even among gun owners, the National Rifle Association and the politicians it holds captive may have made a historic blunder. Rather than settling for a compromise measure that would have given gun nuts almost all they wanted—no ban on assault rifles or multi-round magazines, no background checks on private sales between families and friends, no restrictions on carrying guns across state lines, no national registry of gun-owners—the N.R.A. decided to go for an all-out victory, making a mockery of representative democracy.
In the long run, this outrage could easily backfire on the N.R.A. and its allies. Like the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, it may come to be seen as a moment when the forces of conservatism went too far. As President Obama noted in his remarks, yesterday was just “round one” of the post-Newtown battle over gun control. And far from scoring a knockout, the gun lobby has given its enemies ample reason to get up off the canvas and fight back.
To begin with, it has given up any tiny patch of the high ground that it might still have been holding. In N.R.A. folklore, gun control is an elitist conspiracy carried out against the wishes of a majority of God-fearing Americans. In this instance, though, it was plain for all to see that the conspiracy was against the supporters of stricter firearms legislation. According to an Associated Press opinion poll carried out over the weekend, fifty-six per cent of Americans support a ban on assault weapons (forty-two per cent are opposed) and the same percentage support a ban on high-capacity magazines. Cravenly bowing to the gun lobby, Congress had effectively ruled out these measures weeks ago, leaving the White House and the families of the Newtown victims to concentrate their efforts on strengthening the existing system of background checks.
In a properly functioning democracy, passing such a measure would have been a breeze. Even before Newtown, polls showed about nine out of ten Americans support mandatory background checks for people buying firearms at gun shows. In the latest A.P. survey, eighty-six per cent of respondents said they supported extending the checks to gun shows and to online purchases. As Gabrielle Giffords and her husband said in a statement after the Senate failed to muster the sixty votes necessary to pass such a measure, the elected representatives blatantly “ignored the will of the American people.”
From a strategic perspective, that isn’t necessarily good news for the N.R.A. Lobbying effectively for an unpopular cause depends on the ability to work quietly and out of the public eye. Whenever the finagling comes to light, as it did, for instance, in Wall Street’s efforts to water down financial reform a few years ago, the public gets engaged and the power of the lobbyist is greatly reduced. In the case of the Dodd-Frank legislation, anger at the banks and their political agents allowed the bill’s sponsors to push through the Volcker Rule and to stand firm on forcing a lot of derivatives trading onto public exchanges, where profit margins are smaller. If the overall legislation wasn’t as draconian as many critics of Wall Street had hoped for, it did force the banks to change the way they did business.
We don’t know yet how the public will react to the N.R.A.’s latest power play, which involved spreading blatant falsehoods, such as the suggestion that President Obama was pursuing a “gun ban.” But we do know that the gun-control lobby is already a lot stronger than it was even a couple of years ago. Partly due to the efforts (and wallet) of Mayor Bloomberg, it is well-financed, well-organized, and increasingly effective at the ballot box. Thanks to Newtown, it has the attention of the public. And thanks to the Senate, it has a miffed, energized, and popular President at its helm.
To be sure, it’s difficult to see the measures that were voted down yesterday being revived anytime soon. But the advocates of gun control aren’t completely out of options. In the coming months, they will pursue further restrictions at the state level and seek to exert pressure on the four Democratic senators who voted with the Republicans: Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Max Baucus of Montana, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Since all of these politicians represent states that Obama lost heavily, it won’t be easy to change their minds, but the prospect of facing well-financed primary challenger might just concentrate their thinking.
At the executive level, President Obama said yesterday that his Administration would do what it can through administrative measures, such as giving law enforcement more information about the origins of lost and stolen guns. A more radical strategy that the White House might want to consider is extending the consumer-safety laws to cover the firearms industry. Ultimately, it was going down this route, rather than imposing outright bans on sales, that led to big drops in deaths from tobacco, alcohol, and auto accidents. Even the mere prospect of being subjected to federal legislation, and ultimately government lawsuits, might prompt the gun manufacturers to have a quiet word with their friends in the N.R.A. and ask them to behave a bit more reasonably.
Having already won the arguments, it’s now up to the proponents of gun control to win the politics. Yesterday, they suffered what appeared to be a big loss. But theirs is a long game, and history is moving in their direction.
Original Article
Source: newyorker.com
Author: John Cassidy
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