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Obama has nothing to lose from a gun lobby fight

Lainie Anderson

by Lainie Anderson

16 Dec 05:59am

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Filed under: America, Barack Obama, Gun Laws, Gun Lobby, Mass Shootings

54 comments

For hours, I’ve been arguing with my husband about how to start this column.

The time is now

I want to begin as a mum, with an emotional response to America’s worst school shooting – to write about how sad and angry I feel that 20 little kids have been gunned down.

I want to express my sorrow for the families in Connecticut who will never again experience the joy of Christmas without grieving for a lost child – who are right now planning funerals instead of wrapping presents.

My husband, who has American relatives, is rather less emotional.

He says it’s an American horror movie we’ve seen too many times before, and it always ends the same way: hand-wringing for a week, then business as usual.

He says the Republicans refuse to restrict handguns and semi-autos, so rogue nut-jobs remain free to kill large numbers of people quickly and efficiently.

Which just makes me more emotional – thinking how blessed I am that my children live in Adelaide, in our beautiful bubble of moderate highs and lows.

I’ve never been John Howard’s biggest fan, yet today I think how lucky we are for the political courage he showed in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, driving home national gun control laws that made Australia a safer place.

It’s unfathomable that American mums and dads aren’t marching in their millions right now to put an end to the insanity.

A child’s right to return alive from school must surely hold greater constitutional weight than a person’s right to bear arms. (The constitution is not bullet-proof – it once enshrined prohibition.)

But I have to say, this time I think there will be change. Already Newtown seems different.

This is an almost unimaginable end to a grim year marked by 16 mass shootings carried out against the softest of targets in America’s churches, movie theatres and shopping malls.

And now it’s primary school kids between five and 10.

The innocent just got more innocent. The gun lobby just got more indefensible.

“Twenty young children, at the age where losing a tooth should be the limits of their trauma, were shot to death,” wrote a columnist for USA Today. “And the plaintive cry of child survivors, ‘I want to go home,’ could have been the plea of a nation.”

On social media and online news outlets across the US, the uprising has begun.

“I don’t think I want to live here anymore,” one reader posted on the New York Times. “Too many people in this country love their guns more than they love other people’s children. Instead of tighter gun laws, we get lunatics defending lunatic’s right to tote lethal weapons.”

And another:  “When a lobbyist group like the NRA ([National Rifle Association] has the ability to effectively neuter politicians who might fight for any resemblance of sensible gun control laws then it is clear that Americans have lost control of the Republic to special interest.

“I seriously doubt any meaningful change will occur until millions of citizens march on the capital to demand their country back.”

(The lead post on the NRA official blog in the hours after the massacre, by the way, made no mention of the Connecticut bloodbath, but “Friends of NRA can win a Golden Moose award.”)

Sitting above all this anger is the raw response of the nation’s President, Barack Obama.

“Our hearts are broken today,” he said, in an unusually emotional address.

Broken – and perhaps emboldened.

Obama is a Democratic leader at the beginning of his final four-year term. He has nothing to lose in a fight with the gun lobby.

“As a country, we have been through this too many times… and we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

If American parents – from Barack Obama down – don’t fight for change now, they never will.

Comments on this post close at 8pm AEST

Most commented

54 comments

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    • Gravelly says:

      05:12am | 16/12/12

      It will never happen, it should happen, but it never will! The consequences for any president who tries are obvious. It’s not political, the Dems love their guns just as much as the Conservatives.

      Reply

    • Gratuitous Adviser says:

      08:48am | 16/12/12

      Just like the poker machine lobby in Australia, the politician that can overcome these despicable vested interest groups has not been born yet.

    • ronny jonny says:

      05:29am | 16/12/12

      The only thing your knee-jerk reaction will achieve is to force normal law abiding citizens to hand in their guns or make criminals of them. The crims and nuts who hold weapons illegally will still have them, same as here in Australia. The Democrats will be histroy if they try to capitalise on this terrible tragedy by implementing their long desired wish to remove guns from regular citizens. Which is why you’ll hear a lot of talk but nothing will be done.

      Reply

    • PW says:

      06:57am | 16/12/12

      The woman who owned the guns that killed these 26 people was a normal law abiding citizen. If she had not owned the guns this massacre would not have happened, her weasel of a son would have had to find some other way to deal with his personal crisis.

    • Super D says:

      05:34am | 16/12/12

      They never will. Obama is free to campaign for gun reform but I doubt he will. Mistrust of go ernment is deeply ingrained in the American psyche.

      Oh and Howard was an absolute legend for his efforts here. Probably the best government program of either party in living memory.

      Reply

    • TChong says:

      07:06am | 16/12/12

      Sper D
      Shock, Horror !
      I agree.
      To me, Howard did 2 good things
      1) intervened ( call it what you will ) in E Timor, and Solomons Peace Keepers
      2) removed the majority of weapons from the majority of the public.

      To those loons who claim it is all a sinister conspiracy to disarm the population, so “They ” can take over etc -,drink less alcohol before midday.

    • Gregg says:

      05:48am | 16/12/12

      Obama would I imagine like nothing better than to see much stricter gun control in the US and to have his words on meaningful action to be converted into just that and have his final term remembered for bringing about a momentous change and I am sure there are many other Americans who would love to see it happen, just as there are likely many Australians who would wish for better for them.

      Unfortunately and very sadly I suspect that it may be just business as usual and there will be a number of reasons:
      1. The NRA will point to the fact that the weapons did not even belong to the shooter but were registered in his mother’s name and that though she may have been a responsible owner, this example just demonstrates how someone else can access guns if they really want to.
      2. It will be claimed that responsible owners do not carry out mass shootings and that citizens deserve the right to own arms to protect themselves.

      And then there is just how much gun ownership is not just enshrined in their constitution but also ingrained in the psyche of many, like even without our own Port Arthur gun buy back, I suspect very few if any teachers aides in Australia ever owned a personal arsenal and away from farmers and sporting club members, hunters etc., the most likely weapon that someone might have had would have been a seldom used single shot or semi auto 22.

      That ingraining to me was somewhat illustrated in how quite a few parents at that school seemed not at all concerned in allowing their sons and daughters of a very young age to be interviewed by the media and talk of boom, boom etc. in recounting their experiences without too much emotion.
      Is it that even the children are so accustomed to use of weapons being an accepted part of their life?
      That kind of amazed somewhat.

      Reply

    • John says:

      05:54am | 16/12/12

      Even if Obama manages to grow a pair and to take on the gun lobby, which is highly unlikely, the Democrats in the Congress won’t, because they face reelection in 2 year’s time. Americans are paralysed by fear of people with guns and their reaction is that must have guns themselves. Why else would a kindergarten teacher, the mother of the mass murderer Adam Lanza, own so many deadly military style guns, which were used in the massacre?  This paranoia cost her her life and the lives of 20 children and two of her colleagues.

      It’s a vicious circle: perverse, stupid and self-defeating in equal measure. In the meantime, the gun lobby, who are truly evil, pray on the fears of the weak, the frightened and the deluded.

      Reply

    • cheap white trash says:

      05:57am | 16/12/12

      FACT. It wont happen,go and read The US Constitution Amendment 2.

      A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear ARMS, shall not be infringed.

      That Amendment will never change and thats a Fact.
      Will Obama change it,NO..you will get platitudes, mother hood statements and so on,but in the end nothing will change.
      It will happen again and again Obama is a Democratic leader at the beginning of his final four-year term. He has nothing to lose in a fight with the gun lobby.
      No, but the Democratics do in 4 ys time, its called Politics, thats the end game.

      Reply

    • Pete says:

      01:45pm | 16/12/12

      I don’t think anyone realistically suggests cancelling the 2nd amendment. But, there’s still enormous latitude for the states to implement tight gun control laws and ban certain weapons as well as limiting sales etc, otherwise there’d be no NRA. The yanks reap what they sew with guns, but still have the power to limit accessibility of these more deadly types of guns, particularly to mentally ill people, who seem to make up most of the massacrists these days. If Obama doesn’t encourage control now, it will never happen, but bear in mind, like Australia, the states are highly autonomous and it’s up to them to design and implement laws. It’s easy for us to see the idiocy of their laws, but guns are part of the American psyche, and they have the history of a civil war etched into their memory. Many intelligent people support current gun laws there, and see these Calling them all idiots is an unsophisticated way of contributing to the debate, and counterproductive.

    • I don't like guns says:

      06:06am | 16/12/12

      Let me preface my words by saying that I don’t like guns, never have liked them, never will like them. The modern ones are especially ugly and have no intrinsic beauty of form. They are in essence a tool to be used - for hunting, for survival, for sport, and in the hands of police and military - for offence and defence. Guns alone are not the problem, far more people die daily and yearly in Australia and America from car crashes than from guns, yet no-one sane is calling for outlawing high powered motor vehicles.

      A gun in the hands of a mature, moral, responsible, well-balanced adult is a thing not to be feared - yet for some odd reason, guns seem to get into the hands of those who should be nowhere near them. I think instead of banning guns (so the responsible are unfairly punished) there should in the US be a tighter control on: #1. How and where guns are stored; and #2. Gun licensing.

      Regarding #1, guns should be under lock and key in a gun safe, and the key kept separate to the safe and the location known only to the holder of the gun license. As for #2, well I think it’s time that if someone goes for a gun license, then they need to be either personality tested/profiled, or there should be a National Register for anyone who has been medically diagnosed with any of the autism spectrum disorders, or anti-personality disorders such as Sociopathy etc - anyone on this list, in my opinion, should be nowhere near guns.

      Decisions made during times of emotional stress are never good ones. Judgement is clouded and people react with their hearts instead of with their heads. The restrictions that happened in Australia post Port Arthur were made with emotion, and years later, and in the cold light of day we can see that the decisions that were done, have not made Australia any safer - as people who have been shot at in drive-by shootings, home invasions, burglaries, and homicides could attest (that is, they could, if they were still alive). Yes, what Howard did probably prevented another Port Arthur, but gun crime has not diminished, and Australia is not a safer place - personally, as a woman, I believe it has become far more dangerous due to our soft courts, and their slap-on-the-wrist bleeding-heart sentencing.

      You can bring in all the banning and legislation and gun-buybacks you like, but the truth of the matter is that criminals will never voluntarily hand in guns, and by their very nature, will find ways of obtaining more guns, circumventing all the controls in the world.

      Reply

    • Lucky says:

      08:16am | 16/12/12

      Mostly agree, but if, as you suggest these laws did possibly prevent another Port Arthur, how the hell does that not make this country a safer place??
      Obviously US gun laws will have to be changed at a snail pace - so slow for the end goal to be barely recognizable in the initial licensing/security stages. But hey, maybe in 30 years or so, a generational change is effected and people are accepting of more stringent measures.

    • ramases says:

      06:06am | 16/12/12

      John Howards Gun Laws did nothing but take guns from law abiding citizens and allow those with criminal intent free reign. I’m a Howard fan but that one policy was not really in the interests of Australians.
        Those people who want guns have a ready supply of them at hand, you only have to look at any major drug bust and see the amount of illegal firearms that are seized.
      The Americans however have it enshrined in their constitution that they have a right to bare arms and any hope of changing that even with these massacres has a snowballs chance in hell.

      Reply

    • Gregg says:

      09:20am | 16/12/12

      That’s where you kind of miss the point with massacres ramases for though there are always going to be criminals who will seek to have illegal weapons, those weapons would I expect be rarely used in a massacre such as those like Port Arthur or the many we hear of in the US.

      If it is mentally disturbed people that committ the atrocious massacres, it is in the US that they can likely get hold of weapons easily enough just as it would be in Australia if weapons were more widely held by the public.

      We should not be comparing criminals with unstable people and massacres when looking at the benefits that could be had with better gun control.

    • Achmed says:

      03:46pm | 16/12/12

      Lets not forget how much Howards policy cost taxpayers when he levied taxpayers to implement the policy.

      But heaven forbid Gillard introduce a levy to assist Qld after the floods.  Just another example of the Liberal hypocricy

    • acotrel says:

      06:08am | 16/12/12

      I love guns, however I would never own one.  I believe they are technically extremely good, and I have no problem with people who shoot at pieces of paper or even feral animals. I was trained to shoot by the Commonwealth Police but these days I wear bifocals and so cannot see the sights and the target at the same time, so I don’t usually go near a range because my wife always scores higher than me.  Some years ago I was drinking with a group which included two Vietnam Vets in the Duckboard RSL in Melbourne .  My mate mentioned that he had a very nice rifle.  One of the vets asked him why he needed it. The answer was ‘in case I need to protect my home’.  The vet said’ so if I get pissed and go to your house looking for you, fall over your rubbish bin, you are likely to shoot me ? - Get rid of it !’.  Most gun fatalities in Australia involve police shooting each other, and anyone can go off their head. Why would you risk losing your loved ones by owning a gun? I suggest that shooters should be questioned about their need to own a gun when undertaking any transaction involving them. An information campaign about a sensible approach to gun ownership could be useful, but it might give kids ideas which they might not normally have.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      07:10am | 16/12/12

      >Most gun fatalities in Australia involve police shooting each other…

      Could you please provide a source for that assertion?

    • Sickemrex says:

      07:22am | 16/12/12

      “Most gun fatalities in Australia involve police shooting each other”. Acotrel the self appointed Punch police expert does it again. Where did you get that statement from?

      “I suggest that shooters should be questioned about their need to own a gun when undertaking any transaction involving them.” They are. You have to be an active member of a club, a farmer with feral animals or a hunter with somewhere to hunt. Evidence is required upon applying for a licence and when renewing a licence. You can only acquire firearms which fit the conditions of your licence.

    • Geronimo says:

      06:22am | 16/12/12

      The time for change was when the semi literate Unca Dubya, the expedient hero of his opportunistic Deputy Sheriff, had the 100% support of the US Gun Nut Group.

      Reply

    • PW says:

      07:08am | 16/12/12

      Semi literate maybe, but GWB was smart enough to reaslise that he would have completely lost the Gun Nuts if he tried to part them from their toys.

    • Seano says:

      06:28am | 16/12/12

      The right to bear arms a perversion of the right to have an armed militia in the fight for independence from the British. And what arms? Flintlock muskets that fired one shot then took a minute to reload.

      Anyone defending the right to carry military grade weapons that can be used execute children has is a moral and intellectual vacuum.

      The one of the few things that Howard achieved in 11 years of populism, middle class welfare and riding the mining boom was effective gun control and I will always be grateful to him for that. Grateful that my children are now safely playing in the backyard whilst those poor people start to think about funerals.

      Reply

    • Rose says:

      08:05am | 16/12/12

      This is why we should NEVER have a Bill of Right enshrined in the Constitution. A BoR is a snapshot of the rights that are important at the time, but as time moves on and circumstances change then particular ‘rights’ may no longer be appropriate. There is also the added complexity of the independent Court system re-interpreting rights as different challenges come before the Judge.
      It is ridiculous to presume that a handful of rich, white guys 300 years or so ago had the foresight and required knowledge to devise a series of rights which would still be appropriate centuries later in a completely different technological age, in a nation with a completely different racial and cultural make-up and with completely different foreign and domestic policy considerations.
      It is time for America to overhaul this part of its Constitution so that it reflects the reality that America currently faces.

    • Markus says:

      10:28am | 16/12/12

      Except that flintlock muskets were the top of the line at the time.
      If fully automatic M4 carbines were available to their militia armies they would be including those too.
      It would be fairly odd to believe the founding fathers were advocating the right to form a militia armed only with obsolete weaponry, don’t you think?

    • Seano says:

      12:48pm | 16/12/12

      Markus while we’re playing the make it up as you go along game…..Do you think the founding fathers would have looked at today’s America where mass shootings of civilians have become common place because American civilians are allowed to own modern military grade weaponry, that they wouldn’t have been more circumspect in how they framed the 2nd amendment?

      Surely they would have been clearer about what they meant with regard to an armed militia?

    • the cynic says:

      03:49pm | 16/12/12

      The ‘Militia’ bit in the 2 nd ammendment I read differently. The 2 statements.. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear ARMS, shall not be infringed.” should be taken as a whole.

      I would think that the intention of the 2nd ammendment at that time in the US constitution would be of a similar nature in that a Militia should have access to weapons and the only reason that it was all encompassing was due to the thinly spread limited population back then where it would have been impractible to have centralised weapons storage areas

      A Militia should only be needed in times of conflict. The CMF of Australia in years past were all civilians save for the limited regular NCOs and Officers in the Admin roles at drill halls around the country is a case in point. All the weapons needed by the civilians were kept in armouries locked and strictly controlled, no one took them home. I can’t comment on the present Reserves but I assume the system is the same.

      The US with its present population doesn’t need a Militia that has everyone of them with a gun at hand.  Therefore having weapons locked up available to civilians to act as a Militia in times of need does not infringe on their rights to bear arms. 

      What Australia had with the CMF would do the trick. The nutters would be weeded out and those who were ready to be in a Militia could do so and have access to the guns in a controlled environment. Satifies the whole 2nd ammendment ! A well regulated Militia with citizens able to get their hands on and use them when needed.

    • gobsmack says:

      06:42am | 16/12/12

      Yesterday individuals from the “pro-gun lobby group” came out in numbers to argue why gun ownership shouldn’t be limited.

      I think the question needs to be turned around and these people should explain exactly what are the benefits of unrestricted gun ownership.

      The usual spurious argument was advanced that knives, vehicles or hijacked airplanes can equally be used to kill.  Leaving aside the fact that, in the case of knives, the potential for carnage is much less or that to commit terrorist attacks using planes or fertiliser bombs requires months of planning (thus not being the method of choice by the person who “snaps” and decides to shoot up the neighbourhood), we can justify having knives, vehicles and airplanes because each serves a valuable function is society.

      What utility is there in having widespread gun ownership?

      I’m not talking about the rifle a farmer owns to carry out necessary tasks on the farm.  Nor am I talking about pistols and other guns used (and securely stored) by participants of shooting clubs.

      It’s the notion that there is some public good in allowing nearly anyone to own a gun for self defence.  This is what has resulted in guns lying around in most homes in the USA.

      The argument routinely trotted out is that having an armed citizenry is an effective counter against armed criminals.

      One would like to believe that.  One would wish that before these nutters can kill any more than one person in their rampage, that one of these “armed citizens” would whip out their legal firearm and shoot the person and prevent the massacre.  But it never happens.

      Cases of people having been able to defend the lives of the family with guns are rare.  Cases of people using guns against their own family are only too common.

      While in a free society people should be able to do or own what they like without government interference, if something is demonstrated to be the cause of harm the examination should then turn to what benefits does that thing bring to society.  In the case of guns, the answer is almost none.

      Reply

    • KB Bitter says:

      07:05am | 16/12/12

      What like drugs?

    • gobsmack says:

      08:12am | 16/12/12

      @KB Bitter
      Yes, thank you for that example.

      The ban on certain drugs is justified on the basis that the deaths and wasted lives caused by the abuse of them outweighs any civil liberty argument.

      Of course there are some nutters who think both guns and drugs should be freely available.

    • ronny jonny says:

      08:13am | 16/12/12

      “One would wish that before these nutters can kill any more than one person in their rampage, that one of these “armed citizens” would whip out their legal firearm and shoot the person and prevent the massacre.  But it never happens”...  Actually it happens all the time. I have worked with many Americans for a long time and more than a few bring along gun magazines from home to read. Most of them carry pages and pages of police reports detailing incidents where properly licensed and trained people have been able to prevent crimes by shooting the armed perpetrator. These incidents have taken place in shopping malls, small shops, banks, out in the street, in homes, you name it. Sure, they only publish this stuff as propaganda for their pro gun stance but it is all properly sourced and documented and provides a balance for the undocumented claims that people mostly shoot their own families. It is however, scary reading, blows my mind and I’m glad I don’t live there.

    • KimL says:

      06:55am | 16/12/12

      While I like Americans I find their insistence on having a gun scarey, it only take one nut too take it out and kill people. Surely they would be starting to get the hint by this that not every American, just like not every person in every country is sane. I feel for Obama but I doubt he will ever get them to see sense and part with their guns. I have heard Americans say..well they will just kill with knives.. they don’t seem to comprehend that you have a chance to run with a knife welding nut but not much chance with a gun

      Reply

    • nihonin says:

      06:57am | 16/12/12

      If you’re all so interested in what America should do about it’s gun laws, go live there.  Nothing is more shallow or worse than ideological driven opinion pieces/rants by journalists, trying to project how they feel Australia should be, by using the tragedy of the innocent in another country.

      Reply

    • KB BItter says:

      07:00am | 16/12/12

      At 89 guns per 100 US citizens, you can ‘blame’ the NRA as much as you like, but in reality, it’s the people WANT them.

      Reply

    • Cathyn says:

      07:08am | 16/12/12

      If they do not take steps to review and update their second amendment after this, they deserve international condemnation, boycott, and perhaps an international intervention.

      Reply

    • Criminologist says:

      07:12am | 16/12/12

      I don’t think people quite understand the enormity of the crime problem in the US.

      Reply

    • SoapBox says:

      09:02am | 16/12/12

      Turkey established its gun control laws in 1911, utilizing them to arrest and exterminate some 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1917.
      The Soviet Union prohibited citizen gun ownership in 1929 which in turn contributed to somewhere between 20 and 62 millions citizen “dissidents” being rounded up, imprisoned and exterminated.
      In 1938, the Nazi Party implemented strict gun control enabling them to collect and exterminate approximately 13 million Jews between 1939 and 1945.
      After invading Poland in 1939, the Nazi forces utilized pre-war gun registration lists to both confiscate firearms and arrest their owners. Thereafter they were free to round up the Jews for the Warsaw Ghetto and ship them off to concentration camps.
      Gun control laws introduced in 1956 allowed Cambodia police and military forces to arrest around 21 million professionals and intellectuals and exterminate them.
      This is the type of information the gun lobby use to further their arguement that gun control is an insidious means of government control. 

      Now before the tin foil hate brigade start their rants I haven’t said I agree, all I’ve done is provide examples of the gun lobby propaganda

      Reply

    • Notvelty says:

      09:51am | 16/12/12

      Ah. I see. It’s one of those irregular verbs. Republicans “refuse”, but Democrats… oh sorry , what was the excuse this week?

      How about “Republicans and Democrats refuse”?? Why this need to vilefy the other side?

      Reply

    • Bho Ghan-Pryde says:

      12:20pm | 16/12/12

      The usual Yanks are crazy and so on response. Over the last 20 years there have been more mass killings in Europe with tight gun laws that the US. And that is leaving out state sponsored mass killings such as in Bosnia that dwarf by orders of magnitude any thing else around them. Would those people have been better off with lots of gun?
      Remember that guy in Norway, 77 dead and the guy in Toulose this year shooting kids around schools and there is a very long list back to Dunblaine (forgot that?) and beyond. Tight gun laws did not help.
      You know, while you have been expressing your indignation and sorry over this 93 people per day have been dying in car accidents in the US. A couple of hundred since the massacre and not a word. They are just as dead, many are children and for each one dead many are maimed. Get a grip on yourselves, there are much bigger monsters out there.

      Reply

    • Bear says:

      01:00pm | 16/12/12

      Where to begin with such idiocy and lies. More massacres in Europe? Where, when? Prove it! And done people are do daft they can’t comprehend what guns are for and what cars are for which is the difference when you try and compare apples with elephants.

    • Seano says:

      01:23pm | 16/12/12

      You’re comparing acts of domestic terrorism with someone who has mental issues and access to military grade weapons snapping.

      You’re seriously suggesting that because road tragedies are bad or that other evil is happening in the world that people should get over the senseless execution of 20 children and several adults at a primary school?

      I don’t think it’s us who need to get a grip.

    • J.t says:

      12:24pm | 16/12/12

      I think it was Friday or Saturday, but a man in a small province in china went on a rampage and killed 22 people with a knife….

      We didn’t hear much about that, in fact It was the final story on CNNs world
      Wrap, I didn’t see it in an Australian paper….

      Time to ban guns? Or time for Australians to realise we are culturally different to the USA and we shouldn’t try to weigh in on a debate we have no reasonable influence on.

      Look at mass killings by arson, time to ban fire?


      These arguments are always silly.

      Reply

    • Austin 3:16 says:

      03:21pm | 16/12/12

      Hye JT,

      It was reported that 22 people in China were INJURED by a man with a knife. INJURED as opposed to KILLED. Bit of a difference. 

      How’s about you get some facts straight first before giving others a hard time about their silly arguments.

    • Carolyn says:

      12:40pm | 16/12/12

      Several adults were also killed in this tragedy, not just children.

      For some reason, we seem to regard an adult’s life as ‘less than’ in these situations - particularly if children are also victims. The focus appears to be on ‘the child’ victims. It’s the same with vehicle accidents and deaths - “four people were killed including two children”. It should not matter if there were no children, or four children. The fact is, in that example, four people were killed.

      It should not matter one iota if a child or an adult, a mother, elderly man, childless nurse, childless librarian is the victim. A life is a life is a life, regardless of age.

      Reply

    • Carolyn says:

      12:41pm | 16/12/12

      In referrence to my last comment about it not matter if the victims were adults or children. Yes. I am a parent.

      Reply

    • Trude says:

      03:21pm | 16/12/12

      Umm did you read the story or just assume that the ‘stabbed’ part of the headline meant killed? Thankfully none of the 22 Chinese victims died, it is actually much harder to massacre with a knife than a gun. I do not say impossible, but far harder. A person wielding a knife is easier to tackle as well. Seriously anyone who thinks the current gun laws in the US are healthy is not mentally healthy themselves. Today there are people in the US buying guns from certain gun shows without even a waiting period, just handing over their money and leaving with guns and even armor piercing rounds.

    • CJ Johnson says:

      03:54pm | 16/12/12

      OOPS, except none of those who were attacked in China died. Some are in bad shape, yes, but are expect to recover completely.

      And did you read in the article where he was subdued by Security guards. As in, this was violent and horrible, but not a single person lost their life.

    • sunny says:

      12:51pm | 16/12/12

      “The lead post on the NRA official blog in the hours after the massacre, by the way, made no mention of the Connecticut bloodbath, but “Friends of NRA can win a Golden Moose award.””

      I hope a moose sneaks up on one of these slack jawed yokels and rams an antler up his a-hole. Not that one would, moose are placid animals except when they’re jousting with a rival moose. They must be very proud of themselves for shooting moose, heroes you might even say.

      Reply

    • Tony says:

      01:17pm | 16/12/12

      Makes me a laugh when the NRA make comments in re to a law banning the sale of assault weapons that has expired, which means it’s now legal to buy Uzis and AK 47s. The NRA said that now its owners can protect their families from up to 200 burglars at once.

      Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.”
      This is why America will never change its second amendment as the Republicans fear “socialism” is more then communism and Obama needs the Republicans to have any success with gun laws. Howard was lucky, he had support of all parties in Australia. So whether its children, women, mothers, fathers that are murdered the US will never change its gun culture and the world just has to accept “its right to bear arms” and butt out.

      Reply

    • philip says:

      03:58pm | 16/12/12

      and once everyone is disarmed and hoIding fIowers just watch when another country invades and this is not a strawman argument either if you want peace you must prepare for war at aII times.

    • Brenda says:

      01:23pm | 16/12/12

      It’s not just the NRA, it’s their culture.  Democrats and Republicans believe they need guns to protect themselves and their families.  The horse bolted a very long time ago.  I doubt they can shut the gate now. 

      They could perhaps introduce incrementally stronger ownership qualification/regulations and place stringent conditions on storage of guns and ammunition.

      Howard foresaw what could happen after Port Arthur and did something about it before it was too late. 

      However, in this country we now have a frightening imported knife culture which didn’t exist before the early 1970’s.  Some astute parliamentarian should get legislation on the table that applies the same penalty for carrying a knife as would be applicable to carrying a gun.

      For some people, knives are now the weapon of choice in this country.

      Reply

    • Richard says:

      03:17pm | 16/12/12

      Regarding the title “Obama has nothing to lose by picking a fight with the gun lobby”, I disagree. All leaders, Obama included, have a responsibility to unite the country, not divide it.

      Any attack on the Civil Rights of All Americans to bear arms would be unquestionably decisive, and Obama would lose a lot of his ability to heal the divisions in society if he pursues such an attack.

      A constitutional right to bear arms is encoded in the very DNA of the American Republic. Any attempt to abridge these rights would be a sign that Americans have lost control of their Republic, not the other way around.

      Ultimately, the cliched truism “its not guns that kill people, its people who kill people”, holds the key to understanding the cause of these tragedies, and how to deal with them without attacking the Civil Rights of all Americans, by healing the divide in society, not exacerbating it.

      And that means reaching out to the entire generation of disenfranchised white males who are lost so deep in despair that they are turning to acts of mass violence just to find expression for their anguish.

      There is a serious boys crisis in our Western Societies, and its becoming more and more clear how utterly devastating the consequences of this boys crisis is becoming.

      The only rational response to this tragedy is to start the discussion in earnest on how to resolve our boys crisis, because trying to solve any problem by reducing citizens’ Civil Rights is a totalitarian and irresponsible approach.

      Reply

    • pete says:

      03:48pm | 16/12/12

      Yeah, do it Obama, just don’t tell anyone you’re killing children in Pakistan with drones.

      Reply
 
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