Might Obama take the hook and stand up for something?
Guns, Parents and Sandy Hook: Time to Take The Bullet
By Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic
On Saturday afternoon, a grim state official, Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner Wayne Carver revealed to the world that the primary weapon used on the Sandy Hook school victims was not a handgun but rather a long gun, a Bushmaster .223 assault rifle, a formidable killing machine eschewed by most hunters, unwieldy for self-defense, similar to weapons used by our soldiers in Afghanistan and the weapon of choice of the Beltway snipers. The 26 victims inside the school, Carver announced, were dead from three to eleven wounds each….
The most famous and powerful parent of them all, President Barack Obama, understood immediately what the Connecticut school shooting meant. Somehow more symbolically than the Aurora shooting or the Wisconsin shooting or the other Wisconsin shooting. Somehow more politically than the Tucson shooting or any of the other acts of gun violence which have unfolded upon this president's watch. No one who watched his remarks Friday, watched him wipe away the tears, heard the choke in his voice, can plausibly contend otherwise.
The president teared up when he talked about the lives the young victims would never get to live. No doubt he reflected, too, upon the pain and anger he would feel if his own girls never came home from school one day. I suspect that every parent in America teared up Friday with the same thought. What if it had been my kid? What would that frantic drive to school be like? What words would the police officer use to tell me my child was dead? What would life be like on the day after I sent my child to school and had to pick up that child at the county morgue?
These are emotions, raw and powerful, and if the president can ever harness them, can ever direct the shock and outrage that tens of millions parents felt this weekend, then what Obama called "meaningful" gun reform wouldn't just be possible — it would be inevitable. The NRA is a mighty thing. But as mighty as it is, it is no match for the political power of the "parent lobby" in this country. If we parents ever decided to take a stand between our children and the gun lobby, we would perhaps be shielding thousands of our kids from the deadly bullets yet to come. (Full article here)
*****
Dianne Feinstein To Introduce Assault Weapons Ban On First Day Of Congress
By Dave Jamieson at Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — In the wake of Friday's mass killing at an elementary school in Connecticut, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she plans to introduce an assault weapons ban bill on the first day of the new Congress.
"I'm going to introduce in the Senate, and the same bill will be introduced in the House — a bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The shocking murder of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Conn., on Friday has sparked a national discussion on gun control, with mostly Democratic legislators saying laws need to be tightened….
"Who needs these military-style assault weapons? Who needs an ammunition feeding device capable of holding 100 rounds?" Feinstein wrote on her campaign website. "These weapons are not for hunting deer — they’re for hunting people."
On Sunday Feinstein laid out details of the bill.
"It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession, not retroactively, but prospectively," and ban the sale of clips of more than ten bullets, Feinstein said. "The purpose of this bill is to get… weapons of war off the streets."…
Full article: Dianne Feinstein To Introduce Assault Weapons Ban On First Day Of Congress.
