Gun Control Opportunists

Kim Strassel has a great OP/ED in yesterday's Wall Street Journal titled Gun Control Opportunists and she starts out talking about how some politicians just can't resist the urge to use a tragedy for political gain.

Within days of the Arizona tragedy, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy renewed her call for a ban on high-capacity clips and said she'll reintroduce legislation. She's been joined by fellow New York Rep. Peter King, one of the only outspoken Republicans on gun control, who said he wants a new law that would make it a crime to knowingly carry firearms within 1,000 feet of high-ranking officials (which conveniently includes congressmen.) In the Senate, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg intends to pursue parallel legislation to Ms. McCarthy's on clips that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has piped up, again, in favor of expanding the sort of burdensome restrictions his city places on the Second Amendment to the nation as a whole.

But it's not just the politicians who look to advance an agenda.  We have all come to expect gun control groups like the Brady Campaign to waste no time in sending out email missives within hours of a shooting, in hope of turning tragedy into a political victory.  But unlike the early 90's when gun control still polled relatively well, the country has turned more firmly away from gun-control arguments. Americans have learned that things like bans on large ammunition magazines and semi-automatic rifles only burden the law-abiding, while failing to stop criminals or the mentally ill from obtaining firearms or doing great harm.

More proof that the average American is smarter than politicians or gun control advocates is the CBS News poll taken after the Tucson shootings, showed that most Americans don't believe stricter gun-control laws would have prevented the shooting. The Gallup organization has reported that support for  gun control laws has steadily faded over the past two decades. Far more common this week has been the response of Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, who said he wished there had been "one more gun" in the Tucson mall that day—that one in "the hands of a responsible person" who could have stopped the shooter.  Other congressmen, like North Carolina's Heath Shuler, said he will be carrying more and will encourage his staff to get carry permits if they don't already have them.

It has been reported that the leadership of the House of Representative has not desire to go down the gun control road.