Obama’s Gun Plan: Sense or Sensibility?
Perhaps the N.R.A. could have made a more frank play for fear and anger, maybe with an ad showing federal forces breaking into homes and melting down rifles. But it could hardly have been more transparent or, for an organization that works hard for the interests of gun manufacturers, more cynical. It is a safe bet that the N.R.A. will throw whatever it can get its hands on, even dirt, even things that are uglier. The personal animosity toward Obama is striking; but it is no longer entirely surprising, and the White House will need to reckon with if it is to make sure that it does not waste this moment, in which there is an opening, however narrow, to get something done about gun control. Guns cannot be another area in which Obama underestimates the irrationality of the other side until it’s too late for him to do anything but look like the sane one.
In talking about what he wants to do about guns, Obama has tried, as much as he can, to sound like a practical man. In a press conference earlier this week, he said, he would be coming to the American people with “a list of sensible, common-sense steps that can be taken to make sure that the kinds of violence we saw at Newtown doesn’t happen again.” In the next few minutes he used variations on the same phrase a half dozen times, talking about what he could do “in a sensible way that comports with the Second Amendment”; “what makes sense”; “common-sense gun control”; and, again, “some sensible steps that we can take.” Responsible gun owners, he said, had nothing to worry about from “some sensible, responsible legislation in this area.”
The proposals he will reportedly introduce Wednesday do, indeed, sound sensible, addressing the sorts of things many Americans might be surprised to realize are even legal, like the “gun-show” or private-dealer loophole that allows many gun buyers to circumvent the few background checks that are on the books if they buy their weapon at an exhibition or just from someone who put an ad on the web. The President is expected to ask Congress to renew the assault-weapons ban,and put limits on the sizes of magazines of bullets. According to Politico, there will also be a proposal for a new interstate gun-trafficking law.