No new gun-control push despite tragedy
U.S. lawmakers even vowing to bear arms themselves
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2011 (4824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WASHINGTON — The attempted assassination of a U.S. congresswoman has put the hot-button issue of gun control back in the national spotlight, but even after a bullet to the brain left their colleague fighting for her life, Capitol Hill legislators are shying away from significantly toughening up gun laws.
A pair of them, in fact, have their own only-in-America solution: they’ll pack some heat themselves.
Two House of Representatives lawmakers — Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Heath Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat — are pledging to carry firearms to guard against potential copycat attacks, conjuring up action-movie images of guns blazing between politicians and would-be assassins.
And in the state where Gabrielle Giffords was shot point-blank in a barrage of weekend gunfire that killed six others, the Arizona Citizens Defense League has put together legislation that would require Arizona to train and arm all elected officials and their staff members.
Welcome to the United States of America, one of the most heavily armed nations on Earth. It’s a place where the right to bear arms is considered sacrosanct despite gun-related mass killings, and where attempts to revisit the Constitution’s Second Amendment invariably meet with vehement opposition in Congress and beyond.
Terrance Gainer, the U.S. Senate’s top law enforcement official, urged legislators against arming themselves.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Gainer, the Senate’s sergeant-in-arms. “I’ve been a policeman for 42 years and I don’t think introducing more guns to the situation is helpful.”
Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused in the attempted assassination of Giffords and the murders of six others, wasn’t breaking any laws when he purchased a powerful handgun and an extra-long ammunition magazine at a Tuscon sports store in late November.
A cursory background check was required and Loughner passed it despite having had trouble with the law, being rejected by the army after flunking a drug test and being considered so mentally unstable that he was banned from his college campus. In Arizona, anyone over the age of 21 can carry a concealed weapon in public. There’s also no need for a gun licence, no laws requiring fingerprinting or micro-stamping of guns, no limits on how many guns can be purchased a month, and no laws requiring background checks for buying ammunition.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who’s been railing against his state’s gun-happy environment since the weekend mayhem, has called the situation “the height of insanity.”
“I don’t know what else they can do. Maybe they could pass a law that would require that every child have an Uzi in their crib,” he told CBS.
Gun control, however, remains one of the most intractable issues in the United States, with public support for sweeping laws that would limit gun ownership declining steadily for years. Polls also suggest fewer than half of Americans believe new laws would reduce gun violence in the country.
Giffords herself is a longtime gun owner who believes strongly in the right to bear arms. The Arizona legislator owns a Glock handgun and in 2008, she voted to repeal the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C.
“As a longtime gun owner, I believe the right to keep and bear arms should not be dependent on the city in which you live,” she said at the time.
“The provisions of the U.S. Constitution apply to all Americans, regardless of geography. We have a long tradition of gun ownership in the United States. It is a tradition which every law-abiding citizen should be able to enjoy.”
— The Canadian Press