December 5, 2015 8:09 AM

Dear Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes: Your immorality and inhumanity is over

The New York Times is running an editorial on its front page on Saturday, the first time the paper has done so since 1920, calling for greater regulation on guns in the aftermath of a spate of mass shootings. The editorial, headlined “The Gun Epidemic,” describes it as “a moral outrage and a national disgrace that people can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill with brutal speed and efficiency.” It suggests drastically reducing the number of firearms, and “eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.”…. “It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment,” it reads. “No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.”…. “[W]hat issue is more important than our nation’s failure to protect its citizens?”

There can be little doubt but that we’ve reached a point in our collective history that’s beginning to feel like a tipping point. With a mass shooting happening on average (depending on whose figures- and which definition of “mass shooting”- you use) once a day, the status quo is simply not sustainable. How any biped with a shred of humanity can look at the current carnage without being horrified is difficult to imagine. Yet this is exactly what the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © have done time and time again. As long as they’re not burying their own, gun violence remains an abstract concept to them, and human life is viewed as far less important than gun rights.

For too long, the mainstream media has been complicit in helping maintain the primacy of Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©. Whether it’s been Fox News Channel pushing the NRA’s narrative that “only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun” or other outlets attempting to remain “objective” in the face of the growing carnage, there’s been no real effort made to report the truth of the bloodshed and suffering.

[M]otives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut, and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated tp profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

Now the New York Times has, for the first time in 95 years, taken the bold step of publishing an op-ed on today’s front page. America’s “newspaper of record” has finally taken the lead and declared gun violence in America to be what it has been for so long now: an epidemic that must be addressed. Taking the novel tack of bypassing the language of the 2nd Amendment completely, the Times says that “[n]o right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.”

If Americans were dying from Ebola, the cry for action would be loud and long. That they’re dying from the epidemic that is gun violence is mutely accepted as the norm.

It’s time Americans stood up for themselves and their loved ones and demand that Congress consider and pass reasonable regulations- common sense gun control- that may well save lives. Or we could continue to acquiesce to the status quo and stand idly by as yet more innocent lives are cut short.

The Times’ editorial board is spot on. For far too long, Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © have been allowed to claim the 2nd Amendment as Divinely-inspired, inviolable, and immutable. They’ve been allowed to put forward the argument that 27 words promulgated in the late 18th century are every bit as relevant today as it was more than 200 years ago…and should be considered as if etched in stone by God’s own hand.

What happens next is impossible to know. After Sandy Hook (three years ago next week), many believed there was no way change couldn’t happen. Surely, the murder of 20 children and six adults would shake Congress from their self-interested stupor and bring about change to our Guns uber Alles political environment. The “Connecticut Effect” that was eagerly anticipated fizzled, as has outrage from every other mass shooting…and in the end nothing happened.

With the Times on board, and the New York Daily News having declared war on the NRA, the environment seems ripe for change. A note of caution: hope is great, but we’ve too often felt hopeful. Now is the time for action. Until and unless the vast majority of Americans who favor common sense gun control demand change, the carnage will continue unabated. The only uncertainty is where, when, how many dead, and the motive.

Kudos to the Times’ editorial board for (finally) getting out in front and demanding something be done.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 5, 2015 8:09 AM.

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