by Eric Sorensen
Dollars to donuts, U.S. President Barack Obama is not satisfied with his response to the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. He has been splendid as the consoler-in-chief to grieving families and a shocked nation.
Obama, however, did not address gun violence in America, though he must surely want to say more on behalf of a nation so scarred by such ugliness.
Mass murders in the United States seem to come about once a year now. My first and only visits to Virginia Tech, Fort Hood and Tucson, Arizona were to cover human slaughters. It is a shame that those places, said together, evoke but one common memory.
I can’t recall all of the other killing fields of the past five years…somewhere in Alabama, a school in Illinois, a student centre in New York state, and now a Colorado movie theatre.
Successive killing sprees would be terribly frustrating for this U.S. president who is nothing if not rational and logical. When asked this week about the biggest regret in his first term, true to form, he said his mistake was thinking it was enough to get the policy right in order to succeed. He learned he also needed to convey the story.
In this photo dated July 22, U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Stephanie Davies, who helped keep her friend, Allie Young, left, alive after she was shot during the July 20 movie theatre shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Photo by Rex Features, via The Associated Press.
When it comes to guns and bullets Obama must be gritting his teeth because he’s getting neither the policy nor the story right. There is a clear need for rational policy change – just the kind he believes in – and yet he can’t even talk about it. At least not in a meaningful way in an election year.
Obama has to satisfy himself with the “greater good” argument that every president uses to justify a policy position that doesn’t dovetail with his personal beliefs. In this case, Team Obama worries that speaking out about guns would cost him a few votes in a few swing states that could just tip the election against him.
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So the greater good is served by not losing the election – and thereby losing control of every issue – for the sake of this one issue. Progressives, including gun control advocates, mostly realize they’d be cutting off their noses if they pounce on Obama over this.
They may also harbour the hope that after November, unencumbered by electoral considerations, Obama will finally tackle the issue.
An American flag waves in the wind at half mast outside the State Capitol on July 22 in Denver. Photo by Joshua Lott, Getty Images.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) and the pro-gun lobby have made the same calculation. In fact, they are absolutely convinced Obama is just waiting for a second term to act. They know in their hearts that Obama is different. Not that whole Kenyan-Muslim-Communist guff, but the way he thinks. Obama’s basic appeal to rational logic is the polar opposite of their emotional appeal to gun lust.
The gun lobby fears rational and reasonable limits on the acquisition of assault weapons and gun clips, which are designed with one purpose: to kill many people and kill them quickly.
They fear that normally uninterested Americans might glance at the horrifying statistics of gun violence in this country relative to any other western country and begin to ask, “Why?”
And they fear that one more massacre could be the tipping point, where the emotional arguments against gun control – “it exploits the victims” – don’t hold up to even a teensy bit of scrutiny.
(Put another way: Gun control doesn’t exploit victims. Guns exploit victims.)
There’s been one such revealing moment already. CNN’s Piers Morgan had the temerity to raise gun control just hours after the Colorado slaughter. A pro-gun spokesperson chided Morgan for tastelessly introducing a political argument before the victims’ funerals had even been held. “It’s too soon,” the man said.
Morgan shot back that it’s not too soon at all, rather “it’s too late” for victims of this shooting.
Kaboom.
One of the standard ploys of the gun lobby – to delay discussion until the outrage subsides – was cut down. Hopefully for good.
If Obama were watching, he’d probably have given a Tiger Woods fist-pump to Morgan’s “the emperor has no clothes” declaration. But only in private. I’m sure Obama wants to say more in public in this tragically teachable moment. Maybe he will.
Maybe this is the massacre that shakes up America’s policy-ambivalence towards mass murder.
Eric is Global National’s Washington Bureau Chief. Follow him on Twitter: @ericsorensendc.
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