Don’t be afraid, Mr. President (Make our day gun grabbers!)

Barack Obama and his party have been too terrified of angering gun owners to realize they can win without them

There’s no disputing that the Democratic Party has regressed dramatically on the issue of gun violence over the past two decades. When a shooting rampage on the Long Island Railroad killed six people and injured 19 others in December 1993, Bill Clinton responded immediately by calling for specific legislative action to prevent future tragedies. Contrast that with the response of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Friday to a question about whether the carnage in Connecticut might prompt President Obama to pursue gun control measures. “I’m sure there will be another day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates,” Carney said, “but I don’t think today is that day.”

It can be hard to remember now, but well into the 1990s, national Democrats proudly associated themselves with gun control, championing laws that restricted access to deadly weapons. Under Clinton, the Brady Bill, which mandated a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handgun, was passed, and so was a ban on assault weapons. The 1996 Democratic Convention that nominated Clinton for a second term featured Jim and Sarah Brady as primetime speakers.

The years since then, however, have been marked by a steady and thus far enduring Democratic retreat on the issue, with the Second Amendment crowd now largely dictating the terms of public discussion and Democrats mainly trying to avoid their wrath. Consider Obama’s record on guns, which includes one achievement: a law making it easier to carry concealed weapons in national parks.

While the violent crime rate that fed the gun control zeal of the ’90s is much lower today, horrifying mass shootings seem to be on the rise. Six of the 12 deadliest sprees in American history have taken place just since 2007. In his own remarks Friday, delivered a few hours after Carney’s, Obama seemed to hint that the latest deadly outburst might actually shake him and his party from their defensive crouch on guns. “[W]e’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of politics,” the president said.

What that means is anyone’s guess right now. It appears that the Connecticut killer used several weapons, at least one of which would be illegal if the assault weapons ban – which the Republican Congress refused to reauthorize in 2004 – were still in effect. Obama is on the record supporting the ban’s reinstatement; might he now demand action? Or will he pursue other policy changes? Or maybe he’ll just end up doing what leaders of his party have done for more than a decade now: nothing.

The Democrats’ cowardice on guns traces back to the fateful election of 2000. Clinton, despite his aggressive pursuit of gun control measures, fared relatively well with rural gun-owning populations in his 1996 reelection campaign. But those same voters turned hard on Al Gore in ’00, shifting Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee to the Republican column. A victory in any one of those states – all of which Clinton carried twice – would have made Gore president. Democrats concluded that they’d scared off rural, lower-income white voters who had traditionally supported them – and that guns were the big reason why. A new consensus emerged: Gun control could no longer be a central component of Democratic messaging. So it was that John Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008 and 2012 did their best to ignore the issue. Kerry went so far as to embark on a goose hunt in rural Ohio just before Election Day.

In terms of political strategy, there’s been one obvious shortcoming to this approach: It hasn’t worked. Kerry did no better than Gore in West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas, and Obama has failed to win any of those states in two elections now. What’s more, there’s been no improvement in Democratic support among gun owners in any election since 2000. As Nate Cohn pointed out Friday, the lesson Democrats should be drawing from Obama’s two victories is that they can win nationally without the pro-gun vote. The Democratic coalition continues to evolve and grow, and the rural white voters who were key to its success generations ago have become a reliably Republican constituency.

What’s more, Democrats continue to be painted as the party of gun confiscators by the NRA and its allies. Even though there was nothing in Obama’s first term record for them to object to, the NRA bitterly fought his reelection this year, treating him as if he were Michael Douglas’ character in “The American President.” In other words, Democrats are already paying the political price that comes with being the gun control party. So if they believe in it, why not just say it – and act on it?

The answer typically provided to this question is that there are a number of Democrats in Congress from states with large gun-owning populations – think Joe Manchin and Jon Tester – and that the party’s current posture makes it possible for them to win. But a better way of understanding the success of these Democrats is that it’s come in spite of the national party’s reputation. Democrats like Manchin and Tester are already winning over voters who believe national Democrats want to take their guns away; this challenge will be exactly the same if national Democrats actually do start pursuing gun control again.

There were a few notable Democratc voices on Friday demanding that the party recommit itself to tackling gun violence. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Long Island Democrat who entered politics in response to her husband’s death in the ’93 LIRR tragedy, said Friday that she will be pushing “full force” for new gun laws in Obama’s second term – and that she’s willing to “embarrass” the president if necessary.

McCarthy, it should be noted, was showcased by her national party when she first ran for Congress in 1996. Her story of turning her loss into a crusade for gun control was one with which Democrats very much wanted to be associated. As her congressional career progressed, McCarthy became lonely voice, on Capitol Hill and within the Democratic Party. But the spike in mass shootings has given her a new audience and an opportunity win new allies (and to win back old ones) – and to exert real pressure on Obama to get serious. We’ll know soon enough if Obama is really feeling the heat.

You mean like demanding that every school have at least 5 teachers trained at arms, and having locked access to their firearm in the classroom?

I can't believe it but some wise law enforcement types are already suggesting exactly this! Too bad Congress won't listen.

After Colombine, I was still teaching in an inner city high school. We had a bunch of vets on staff besides me and the retired JROTC staff. A few were special forces with combat time. So we met after school one day and walked the whole school making up rally points and contingency plans. A few of them started bringing a gun to school but left it in their car trunk. I never did, didn't feel the need. But there were so many tight corners in that old school that it would have been possible to take out an unsuspecting and untrained perp even armed with a "field expedient" weapon. But we all basically agreed that it wasn't going to happen at that school. The cops at Colombine did the wrong thing. Back then, we vets agreed a "movement to contact" and a "hasty ambush" was the answer. I never felt so safe in my life after that. That was a really good crew of teachers. Many of them retired within five years, though. I stayed in the inner city for many more years only moving to a suburban middle school two years ago. Now I'm all alone.

I'm not sure how I feel about arming teachers -- SHEEP. The folks like me, former military and only combat arms? Sure, but they'd have to have lock boxes with instant open combinations (not keyed!). But the inner city high school would draw gang invasions by night just to get the guns! I'm talking MS13 here.

I think teachers in those high schools ought to ALL have tasers though. I have known too many assaulted on a daily basis. One math teacher got jumped after school while I was there and they broke his jaw in three places. My kids all asked me what I'd do if it happened to me, or if I was now scared to come to work. I replied thusly:

"Look, folks, I'm too young to die and too old to take an A$$ whuppin' so ..... I'm just gonna KILL ya'!"

They all replied that they figured I'd say something like that. LOL! I've never had any serious (life threatening) problems in the 24 years I've been a teacher. I keep my military bearing as a former infantry captain and that works well. Yeah, I got tried once or twice here and there and I guess my responses to those incidents sorta got around...

God bless you and thank you for your service.

But the inner city high school would draw gang invasions by night just to get the guns!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Then take ‘em home at night.

Then our soldiers should become teachers, if teachers cannot discharge their “in loco parentis” duty of personally keeping their students safe, which BTW is the universal legal standard of each and every teacher in the nation.

I would feel much more comfortable having an armed soldier teaching my son or daughter than a freaky gurly man whose greatest skill is duck , run and CYA.

Then maybe the armed freaks and armed mentally ill will go to other no gun zones, like various blue state state legislatures where they might actually do some good.

God bless you and thank you for your service.

Thank you, your welcome ... and trust me, it was my extreme pleasure....

Then our soldiers should become teachers...

There is actually a very good government program for transitioning called Troops to Teachers but it's mostly for officers because all officers have to have a four year degree to get their commissions. But it's a really good program. Started during the Bush administration so that means OBOZO has probably already killed it....

a freaky gurly man whose greatest skill is duck , run and CYA.

Yup, you just described about 90% of the teaching profession. The rest are folks like me. ~sigh~ Can you imagine what I've been dealing with these last 24 years? I can't wait to retire in six years. If I live that long.

Or better yet: RAPTURE READY?

I can’t wait to retire in six years>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Watch your back, they may try to get rid of you like they did me, there were only 4 conservative teachers out of 107 at the privete high school where I taught in 2007.

I left early but I made em pay....20 G’s. I told my unqualified dept. head ( a political appointee)basically to go eff himself, I wasn’t changing my curriculum away from professional teaching goals in order to fit his personal liberal leftist politics.I won. Then I left.

On this issue, a large majority of conservatives are light years ahead of the uncivilized ideology which attempts to dictate that the basic human right of self defence must be delegated to government. Teachers have a personal duty to serve their contracts in loco parentis. Assure them the personal tools to protect their students, its their constitutional right to have that.

Every thing else is just dross. The liberal ideals of gun control and gun free zones have been proven faulty, arcane, and uncivilized. The result of that discivilization is spread all over the television networks who now attempt to demoralize the public under the camoflauge of “compassion”( How did it feel to have your son, little Johnny, shot in the head? How are you coping with that?)in order to sqeeze one more little bit of personal freedom of self defence out of them and into the dead zone.Television has grown into a morbid parent of a deqd kid watch, as if the networks are hanging around the parking lots of virtual funeral hiomes to broadcast demoralization and disempowerment propaganda ( psy ops)around America, in order to soften the public up for the gun removal debate.

What a laugh. This time there will be far fewer of us who play along.

Liberal gun control died with the vivid deaths of 20 x 1st graders in Connecticut. Count on it. Even the president’s dog “Bo” knows it, when he sees all of those armed SS body guards around, a benefit not afforded to the nations school children..

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