Blue Mass Group

Adam Gopnik lays it out in the New Yorker:

So don’t listen to those who, seeing twenty dead six- and seven-year-olds in ten minutes, their bodies riddled with bullets designed to rip apart bone and organ, say that this is impossibly hard, or even particularly complex, problem. It’s a very easy one. Summoning the political will to make it happen may be hard. But there’s no doubt or ambiguity about what needs to be done, nor that, if it is done, it will work. One would have to believe that Americans are somehow uniquely evil or depraved to think that the same forces that work on the rest of the planet won’t work here. It’s always hard to summon up political will for change, no matter how beneficial the change may obviously be. Summoning the political will to make automobiles safe was difficult; so was summoning the political will to limit and then effectively ban cigarettes from public places. At some point, we will become a gun-safe, and then a gun-sane, and finally a gun-free society. It’s closer than you think. (I’m grateful to my colleague Jeffrey Toobin for showing so well that the idea that the Second Amendment assures individual possession of guns, so far from being deeply rooted in American law, is in truth a new and bizarre reading, one that would have shocked even Warren Burger.)

Gun control is not a panacea, any more than penicillin was. Some violence will always go on. What gun control is good at is controlling guns. Gun control will eliminate gun massacres in America as surely as antibiotics eliminate bacterial infections. As I wrote last week, those who oppose it have made a moral choice: that they would rather have gun massacres of children continue rather than surrender whatever idea of freedom or pleasure they find wrapped up in owning guns or seeing guns owned—just as the faith healers would rather watch the children die than accept the reality of scientific medicine. This is a moral choice; many faith healers make it to this day, and not just in thought experiments. But it is absurd to shake our heads sapiently and say we can’t possibly know what would have saved the lives of Olivia and Jesse.

On gun violence and how to end it, the facts are all in, the evidence is clear, the truth there for all who care to know it—indeed, a global consensus is in place, which, in disbelief and now in disgust, the planet waits for us to us to join. Those who fight against gun control, actively or passively, with a shrug of helplessness, are dooming more kids to horrible deaths and more parents to unspeakable grief just as surely as are those who fight against pediatric medicine or childhood vaccination. It’s really, and inarguably, just as simple as that. [emphasis and link added.]

And of course, we all know who fights against childhood vaccination: “Taliban kills five women aid workers in Pakistan as they administer polio vaccine.”

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere on related threads, but I think it is important enough as a stand alone point that I want to make clear and know progressives are with me on.

We have an obligation to stop being delicate, and sensitive, and look for compromise. Democrats love governing and that is always our first priority and in doing so we lose a lot of ground to those forces that are against rational government. The NRA is one of those forces.

I want progressives, maybe with the help of pro-gun control centrists and independents like Bloomberg, to organize and go after the gun lobby and BURY IT. Let us stop calling mass shooters loners, psychopaths, or criminals. They are not Mike Myers from Halloween or Jason or Freddy. They are not criminals like Al Capone. They are terrorists like Osama bin Laden and its time we start calling them that. Maybe the media will follow. Anyone who kills a large number of civilians on purpose is doing so to inspire terror. My fiancees little sister, a senior in high school, is terrified to go to school. How many other children younger than her must now face that same worry?

The terrorism analogy is exactly apt and will help the average voter wrap their heads around this question. Why is it easier to buy a gun than it is to get sudafed at a pharmacy? Why is it easier to buy a gun than it is to get a license? Why is it easier for a former felon to get a gun than it is for him to vote? Why is it against the law for me to bring oversized shampoo on a plane but in 38 states I can carry a gun on me at all times? These are the questions we have to ask. Lets approach Sandy Hook as the latest in a string of mass casualty events that are as bad as 9/11 and let us call those responsible terrorists and call those forces like the NRA that are against government action the terrorist enablers that they are.

It sucked to be an anti-war progressive when Dubya said you are with us or with the terrorists, but you know what, it worked as at tactic. Let us use the same tactic-you are either with the majority of Americans on sensible gun control or you are with the terrorists. Thats the way Im framing it going forward and everyone who wants better gun control should follow suit.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the National Rifle Association’s considered response to the horror of Newtown was (a) we need more guns in the schools, in the form of federally-funded armed guards, and (b) it’s all the video game industry’s fault, with an assist from Hollywood.

Negative reaction to the NRA’s comments is pouring in.  There’s something in it for everyone to hate – even small-government conservatives were surely taken aback by the proposal for many millions of federal dollars spent on new guns for “retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military, security professionals, certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel.”  And, as many have already pointed out, there were two armed guards in Columbine High School who tried to stop the shooters.  They failed.

Representative Chris Murphy (D-CT), who represents Newtown in the House and who will soon be sworn in as Connecticut’s next Senator, had this to say, and he’s exactly right:

He called it “the most revolting, tone-deaf statement” he’s heard.

“While Newtown continues the horrifying work of burying twenty children and six adults, the NRA has the gall to say that the solution to this problem is more, not fewer guns.

“The NRA has now made itself completely irrelevant to the national conversation about preventing gun violence, by saying that the answer to the tragedy in Newtown is to put more deadly semi-automatic assault weapons on the streets and into our schools.”

Also worth a read is the New York Times’ editorial:

we were stunned by [NRA executive VP Wayne] LaPierre’s mendacious, delusional, almost deranged rant.

Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times as he said the killing was the fault of the media, songwriters and singers and the people who listen to them, movie and TV scriptwriters and the people who watch their work, advocates of gun control, video game makers and video game players.

The N.R.A., which devotes itself to destroying compromise on guns, is blameless. So are unscrupulous and unlicensed dealers who sell guns to criminals, and gun makers who bankroll Mr. LaPierre so he can help them peddle ever-more-lethal, ever-more-efficient products, and politicians who kill even modest controls over guns.

One imagines that the Members of Congress who for years have been cowed by the NRA’s supposed prowess in the electoral realm are today shaking their heads and thinking, “geez, these are the guys we were all so scared of?”  As Alec MacGillis at TNR writes:

this was the first time many in Washington and across the country had actually focused squarely on him and his organization in a long time, and this newfound focus, combined with the post-Newtown context in which LaPierre was speaking, was enough to make the NRA seem utterly, surreally amateurish and out of touch.

Here’s hoping that the country will, at long last, stop listening to LaPierre’s rantings and instead start listening to Tom Menino, Michael Bloomberg, and others in positions of actual responsibility who have to deal with gun violence.

UPDATE: Dang, check out the New York tabloids telling it like it is.  Why can’t the Herald do it right?

Someone who’s retiring from Congress at the end of his term in January 2013.

Imagine how great that would be.

Michelle Wu, who worked full-time on the Warren campaign, where she directed statewide outreach to communities of color, is running for Boston City Councilor-at-Large.

I met Michelle when she called me to tell me that I was a delegate to last spring’s Democratic Convention. (I had been elected as an alternate but no one from my caucus committee had let me know I could be a delegate.)

She later asked me to be the EW campaign coordinator for Allston-Brighton and even after her promotion to statewide responsibilities she helped out with anything I asked.  At one point I emailed her a question and she replied immediately saying she was at her graduation and would get me the info in an hour.  What graduation you may wonder?  Harvard Law.

My admiration for Michelle’s ability to get things done and her abiding good nature grew exponentially when I learned about her profound family responsibility of legal guardianship for her sisters.

At some point during the campaign (a campaign during which she also got married and took and passed the bar exam) I asked what she was thinking about for her future.  She said that she believes in city government as a place where you can really make a difference in people’s lives.

I later learned that she had been a Rappaport Fellow in Law and Public Policy working at Boston City Hall in Mayor Menino’s Office and had designed a one-stop guide to the city’s restaurant permitting process from start to finish.  She has a background in community advocacy, providing legal advice to low-income small business owners at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain,. And, she worked at the Medical-Legal Partnership at Boston Medical Center on immigration cases for survivors of domestic violence.

I hope you’ll all consider supporting Michelle’s candidacy starting with a donation this year at http://www.michelleforboston.com

In case you don’t know, the Boston City Council has only one woman, the terrific Ayanna Pressley, and we sorely need a council that represents the diverse population of the City.

Thanks for reading to this point and joining me in supporting Michelle.

Wishing us all a healthy, peaceful and productive 2013.

No jokes this week:

Not that anyone will be surprised, but a New York Times alert says it’s official:

President Obama plans to nominate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts as secretary of state, a senior administration official said, succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton and putting in place the first member of his second-term national security team.

Can’t say I’m ready for yet another election for U.S. Senator, but looks likes that’s what’s heading our way.

I’m rooting for Markey to run for the seat. He’s got gravitas, proven record of constituent services, deep knowledge of how Washington works and he sure was there for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign.

This is for our esteemed BMGers who appeared to have difficulty grappling with the political implications of my post this morning “Nate Silver explains politics of gun tyranny,” and voiced their concerns in the comments.

Richard Painter is a professor of law at the University of Minnesota and was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. In other words, a former top Republican White House official speaks. NYT Op-Ed:

But the last election showed the costs to Republicans of succumbing to the N.R.A. and to other groups with extremist views on issues like homosexuality and stem cell research. The fringe groups, drenched with money and the “free speech” that comes with it, have stood firm, and become even more radical, as the population as a whole — including many traditional Republican voters — has moved in the opposite direction.

Gun violence in particular frightens voters in middle- and upper-income suburbs across the country, places like my hometown, Edina, Minn. These areas, once Republican strongholds, still have many voters who are sympathetic to the economic platform of the Republican Party but are increasingly worried about their own safety in a country with millions of unregistered and unregulated guns. Some suburban voters may keep a hunting rifle locked away in a safe place, but few want people bringing semiautomatic weapons into their neighborhoods. They also believe that insane people should not have access to guns.

A few clicks on the N.R.A. Web site lead you to the type of weapons the group wants to protect from regulation. Many are not needed for hunting pheasants or deer. They are used for hunting people. They have firepower unimaginable to the founding fathers who drafted the Second Amendment, firepower that could wipe out an entire kindergarten classroom in a few minutes, as we saw so tragically last week.

This is not the vision of sportsmanship that soccer moms and dads want or will vote for, and they will turn against Republicans because of it. Who worries about the inheritance tax when gun violence may kill off one’s heirs in the second grade?

Military grade weapons technology like that used to slaughter 20 first graders and their teachers one week ago — semi-automatic rifles and pistols, high capacity magazines, and special ammunition, weaponry “for hunting people,” as Painter accurately characterizes it — has to be banned for private ownership, just like hand grenades, machine guns, and mortars. Yvonne Abraham and the 99 percent of Americans who are not members of the NRA — let alone the nation’s children — should not have to live under their tyranny.

Yvonne Abraham describes the tyranny we are living under in moving terms in today’s Globe. Nate Silver helps to explain the politics:

Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic, whether she lives in the South or a number of other demographic characteristics.

It will come as no surprise to those with a passing interest in American politics that Republicans are more likely to own guns than Democrats. But the differences have become much more stark in recent years, with gun ownership having become one of the clearest examples of the partisan polarization in the country over the last two decades.

 

In other words, one group in the society is becoming more integrated and confident and another, driven in part by fear, is trying to resist change. But you can’t stop progress, or progressives: 2012 was an encouraging election and there is more work to be done along similar lines, from a ban on the military-grade weaponry used to massacre 20 first traders and their teachers last week, to reality-based economic policies, to defeat of the zombie Republican Scott Brown should it be required.

Perhaps not too surprising …

A WBUR poll of 500 registered voters (PDFs – topline, crosstabs) finds U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is in a strong position should there be a special election to fill U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s seat.

Kerry is believed to be President Obama’s choice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The poll, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group on Monday and Tuesday, finds voters view Brown favorably, despite the fact that in November they chose to elect Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren in his stead. Fifty-eight percent of those polled say they have a favorable view of Brown, compared with 28 percent who view him unfavorably. Rounded off, 12 percent say they are undecided, and 1 percent say they have never heard of him.

Exactly. Warren got elected because there was unprecedented grassroots interest from across the country, much less our state; and because she was the right person at the right time with the right message.

But unfortunately, for all that we may hope that Brown burned through some of his good will and nice-guy image with the goofy, overplayed “as you can see” attack lines … that may not be the case. But I still attribute these big leads to name recognition: He is better known than the folks who have been in Congress for decades. He doubtless also still benefit from distance from the political establishment … for better or worse. If the election comes down to one of the Dem Congressfolk against Brown, there will definitely still be an insider/outsider, experienced-vs.-lightweight dynamic.

Brown is canny enough to try to get some of the “moderate” middle ground – eg. his recent flip-flop on assault weapons. Now, the same line of attack can be used against him that Warren invoked: Where have you been? Everyone on Team Dem has been on the right side of this for ages.

Long live the eternal zombie campaign of Scott Brown … you can never kill it.

Fascinating.

Senator Scott Brown has reversed his position after the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school and now says he supports a federal assault weapons ban.

“What happened in Newtown where those children were subject to that level of violence is beyond my comprehension,” Brown said in an interview today with the Springfield Republican newspaper. “As a state legislator in Massachusetts I supported an assault weapons ban thinking other states would follow suit. But unfortunately, they have not and innocent people are being killed. As a result, I support a federal assault weapons ban, perhaps like the legislation we have in Massachusetts.”

Brown had long said he opposed any new federal restrictions on guns and believed the issue was best left up to the states. He reiterated his opposition to tighter federal gun laws after previous attacks at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and at US Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s meet-and-greet with constituents in Tucson, Ariz.

“I’m not in favor of doing any additional federal regulations relating to any type of weapons or federal gun changes,” Brown told the Globe shortly after the Tucson attack last year. “I feel it should be left up to the states.”

First, let’s state the obvious: Senator Brown is, for whatever reason, now on the correct side of this issue, and bravo to him for getting there.  We need all the votes we can get, and it’s heartening to see Republicans as well as conservative Democrats being willing to reconsider previously-held positions.

Now, it must also be said that it’s difficult to take Brown’s explanation at face value.  He cannot possibly have seriously thought that the best way to get assault weapons banned across the country was to have relatively liberal states like MA enact state-level bans and then figure that conservative, much more pro-gun states would follow suit.  Obviously, that was never going to happen.  So there’s something else afoot here.  Maybe it’s as simple as seeing Newtown as a game-changer that demands federal action; maybe it’s more complicated with considerations of a possible Senate race playing a role.  But whatever got Brown to where he is now on this issue, it’s an improvement over where he was before, and that’s a good thing.

Email from the Senator-elect:

[W]hen I get to the Senate, I will sign onto Senator Feinstein’s bill to re-instate a ban on assault weapons and other commonsense gun control measures. …

Re-authorizing the assault weapons ban is a responsible first step that we can take now. Is that all we can do? Of course not. Is it a full solution that will stop all gun violence? No, but it is a start.

Senator Kerry has made the same commitment.

Good first steps, indeed, but our Senators should lead, not just follow Senator Feinstein and whoever else may happen to introduce “commonsense gun control measures.” What is the good of being one of the most prominent politicians in the country, or a stellar law professor, from the greatest state in the nation, if you can’t draft the best laws?

Military-grade technology like that used to massacre 20 six-year olds and their teachers should not be permitted in private hands. This technology is relatively new in our society, and its impact is now being felt. Anything less enables future atrocities, which will happen again without fundamental change.

No semi-automatic weapons, large capacity magazines, and blow-a-six-year-olds-head-off ammunition, no Newtown. Effective anti-massacre legislation in Australia and England is a powerful example. No fatalities in a Chinese madman’s knife attack on school children and their teacher last week underlines the point.

Brian McCrory was closer to the mark in his column today:

To start, we need a comprehensive national ban, free of loopholes, on the weapon of choice for massacres: the lightweight, semi-automatic assault rifle known as the AR-15. Ban the high capacity clips that feed them. Require background checks for all purchases, including at gun shows and in private transactions. Fund a national buyback.

The AR-15, however, is a symptom, not the disease. What needs to be banned is not any particular weapon but the military-grade technology used at Newtown: semi-automatic rifles and handguns, high-capacity magazines, and special ammunition.

A more constructive approach is the estimable Peter Porcupine’s suggestion on Red Mass Group for affirmative legalization of a limited number of weapons with everything else prohibited. Single shot rifles and shotguns, which are useful for hunting and effective for self-defense, are plenty. If that had been the law, there would likely be a lot of six year olds and their teachers at home with their families this Christmas instead of buried in tiny coffins.

Our fabulous national representatives should lead, not follow.