An article in the San Francisco Chronicle details how James Holmes, who murdered 12 moviegoers in Aurora, CO, including a six-year-old girl, obtained his weapons.
Like so many, I feel a sense of hopelessness and outrage that Congress continues to bow to the NRA lobby. It seems that no number of dead children and innocent citizens will sway them. The sensible voices in Congress–like Colorado Senator John Morse and Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York–are drowned out by the voices of those who want the NRA’s money and approval, at just about any cost.
We aren’t talking about sweeping measures that will limit the rights of citizens to protect themselves. We’re talking about basic measures:
1) Limiting large capacity magazines, so that murders will have to pause to reload, giving more victims a fighting chance
2) Requiring background checks at gun shows. Currently, ANYONE can walk into a gun show and purchase an automatic weapon with no ID or background check
3) Banning the sale of guns to suspected terrorists on the US’s no-fly list
4) Re-instating the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which took effect in 1994 and expired in 2004, because Republicans in Congress opposed it.
The NRA opposes all four of these simple measures, despite the fact that passing them would do no harm to hunters or those who feel they need to have a gun to protect themselves and their families. You do not need an assault weapon to protect your family. You do not need a large-capacity magazine to shoot a deer.
Colorado State Senator John Morse, a Democrat, said he wished the state barred large-capacity magazines and guns like the AR-15, but he does not expect the attack to make that likely. “The NRA has managed to convince the country that this has to happen to protect our Second Amendment rights,” Morse said. “As long as we let people buy these guns, we will bury our children.”
Rep Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), whose husband was killed in a mass shooting on the Long Island Railroad in 1993, has proposed a ban on high-capacity magazines in Congress but acknowledges it has little chance of passage. She said she was horrified by the shooting but most shocked by the other material that Holmes allegedly accumulated — the bullets and combat gear.
“It befuddles me to think those things should be sold to the general public,” she said.