As if Joe Biden didn’t have enough trouble selling his administration’s agenda failures, a Monday event on the White House South Lawn to celebrate recent passage of a new bipartisan gun control package comes one week after the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park underscored the failure of long-existing laws that promised to reduce so-called “gun violence.”
The Associated Press is reporting how Biden’s event comes 16 days after the new law was signed, yet it “already has been overshadowed by yet another mass shooting.” The much-touted “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” was hailed as a breakthrough on gun control, but some believe at least part of the hoopla was media driven to distract public attention from the significant gun rights victory handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision of June 23.
Just ten days later, a killer opened fire on a Fourth of July parade. Seven people were mortally wounded and dozens of others were injured.
Adding traction to arguments that even the strictest gun control laws cannot prevent violence, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s broad daylight murder while he was speaking to a crowd signaled once again how people determined to commit evil will find a way to do it. In the Abe slaying, the suspect allegedly built a crude, yet deadly, double-barreled firearm in a nation were private gun ownership is prohibitively regulated.
The Monday event provided an opportunity for one gun prohibitionist to signal the battle over Second Amendment rights is far from over. Igor Volsky, head of Guns Down America, called the new gun law “the very bare minimum of what Congress should do.”
Writing at NBC News, gun control advocates Joseph V. Sakran and Fred Guttenberg suggest passage of the new law was a good first step.
“Indeed, the new law is a big step in the right direction,” they say. “But while we take a moment to celebrate this historic win in the passage of gun legislation after nearly 30 years, it’s critical to recognize this is, metaphorically speaking, Day One.”
Translation: More to come. Their message to anti-gunners is to turn out the vote this fall to elect more gun grabbing politicians. They admit it, stating, “Tomorrow begins today. Stand up in your communities. We cannot ignore any elected office; from school boards to the White House. All elected positions matter in our democracy. Make sure that your voice is heard. And as gun control activist Sarah Brady once said, “If you can’t change the laws, change the lawmakers.”
According to CBS News, Biden “will continue to press Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, among other things, both of which are near impossibilities in a 50-50 Senate with midterm elections months away.”
As noted by the AP story, Volsky observed, “We have a president who really hasn’t met the moment, who has chosen to act as a bystander on this issue. For some reason the administration absolutely refuses to have a senior official who can drive this issue across government.”
Gun control remains a toxic issue, even moreso since the high court ruled New York’s “good cause” requirement for citizens to obtain a concealed carry permit is unconstitutional, which means it always was unconstitutional. The fact that it had been in place more than a century did not make it any less illegal.
But the gun prohibition lobby seems more determined than ever to press its agenda, making the looming November midterm elections increasingly important.
