President Obama is trying to make a simple plea about gun violence legislation.
If senators who are opposed to overhauling the nation’s gun laws are willing to cast a “no” vote in that regard, they ought to be free to do so. But it appears unlikely that a minority of senators, mainly Republicans, are not going to allow that to happen.
Obama went to Hartford, Conn., Monday to make the case for an up-or-down vote in the Senate on a package of bills the president thinks will help curb gun violence. He wants universal background checks on anyone purchasing a gun and limits on the size of magazines that hold ammunition.
Whether they’ll do the trick is the subject of debate. The National Rifle Association and its allies say they won’t; proponents of the gun laws say they will. The debate is raging. Obama, though, is expressing justifiable frustration – bordering on anger – over senators’ tactics to block even a vote. About 15 of them, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are erecting procedural roadblocks to bringing the issue to a vote.
This is wrong. If a majority of senators don’t want to change the gun laws, then let them put it on the record. Let them state clearly why they think existing gun laws are sufficient. Let them then explain to their constituents – who just might favor tougher gun regulations – why they voted the way they did. And let them defend that vote at election time when their careers just might be on the line.
I happen to side with the president on this key point: Nothing in the legislation violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans to own a firearm.
As the president said in Hartford, with family members of the children and teachers killed in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre listening to his words, most Americans favor the background checks and want to see limits placed on the size of magazines. Even families that belong to the NRA favor them, he said. Democrats favor them; so do Republicans.
So … let our elected Senate cast a vote to defeat these measures if most of its members want to do so. And then let them explain to their constituents why they’re refusing to do the people’s will.