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Our View | Newtown Shootings

Nation's leaders need the courage of their convictions


They were just children, 6- and 7-year-old children. Beautiful kids. By now, you've seen their photographs, maybe watched a video of them, heard in the bottomless grief of their families the awful weight of a pain that will never end.

And you wonder how a disturbed young man with a gun he never should have had, equipped as if going to war, could commit such evil.

Just as you wondered after Columbine. Aurora. Oak Creek.

Twenty bright and beautiful children - gone.

Six heroic adults who tried to protect them - gone.

And what remains is a question:

Are the deaths of 20 schoolkids in Connecticut enough to overcome the warped sense of freedom that the most radical gun-rights groups claim for themselves? A sense of freedom that the founders of this nation surely would be stunned to learn their actions had bred?

If not now, then how many children have to die?

Is it 40?

Is it 100?

Is it 1,000?

President Barack Obama noted in his remarks Sunday night that "no single law - no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can't be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this."

The president's speech was meant to soothe. But we've heard such rhetoric after each of the shootings. After Tucson, after Aurora, after Oak Creek. The president has not made stricter gun laws a priority during his presidency. The ever-cautious president hasn't seemed to think it was worth the political risk. Will he now?

There were signs Monday that maybe this time will be different.

Two prominent Democratic senators, Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said they would be open to tighter control of assault rifles. Both have been favorites of gun-rights groups. But there is a long way to go. This is what needs to be done:

End the sale of assault weapons, such as the one that Adam Lanza took inside Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Ban the sale of extended magazines, such as the ones that Lanza used inside the school. Authorities in Newtown, Conn., say Lanza fired dozens of rounds, shooting every victim at least twice, and that he still had hundreds of rounds left when he took his own life.

Close the loophole in federal law that allows sales of firearms at gun shows to avoid federal background checks.

A clear majority of Americans supports a nationwide ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and assault weapons while still supporting, as do we, the Second Amendment rights of citizens. Hunters have no need for either assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. It's far too high a price for society to pay so that collectors can have them.

Let's be clear-eyed about what tightening federal law can and cannot do. There are thousands, if not millions, of assault weapons in circulation - and even more extended magazines. If a determined killer wants a high-powered weapon and a cache of ammunition, it will be very difficult to prevent him from getting it.

And there is no doubt that the killings in Newtown raise again the hard questions about mental illness. Do we adequately fund mental health services? Should civil commitment be so difficult? Are there better ways to identify and get help for disturbed people who might be violent? We'll have more to say about this aspect of the tragedy later this week.

But we believe there is a good chance that banning the sale of assault weapons and extended magazines could save lives. As Obama said "If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that - then surely we have an obligation to try."

If they want the lives of these poor children to mean anything at all, our leaders will need to overcome their fear and find it in their hearts to honor their memory.

Should the federal government ban the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines? To have your opinion considered for a letter to the editor email Please see letters guidelines.


What the polls show

In a Time magazine poll in June, 2011:

62% said the government should be allowed to ban semi-automatic assault weapons.

In a CNN poll in August:

57% "generally" favored a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of semi-automatic assault guns; 42% were opposed.

60% "generally" favored a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips; 40% were opposed.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted last weekend:

52% supported a nationwide ban on semi-automatic handguns.

59% supported a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips.

© 2014, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.

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