What Do We Want Our Country to Look Like?

This summer’s Congressional recess has been marred by many incidents that raise grave questions about the current political climate in America and what that portends for the future of the Republic. One of the more jarring elements has been the presence of guns at town hall meetings on health care reform. Last week, we even saw a man openly carry an assault weapon outside a public appearance of the President of the United States.

In an excellent article about this issue, columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. has asked some appropriate questions about this development. His first query: "What would conservatives have said if a group of loud scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?"

Dionne goes on to argue that the real question that must be addressed is what message the gun-toters are trying to send. As he sees it, “This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.”

This dovetails nicely with an excellent blog recently published by our executive director, Josh Horwitz, at the Huffington Post. In that piece, entitled, “‘Resistance Efforts,’ Guns and the Constitution,” Josh states, “If we let "the guys with the guns make the rules" then the very fabric of our democracy is up for grabs.”

I couldn’t agree more. All Americans need to take a close look at what is happening at these health care reform events and wonder what they want this country to look like for their children...

Lest We Forget

My dear friends Jim and Sarah Brady have issued a call for Americans across the country to join them on Monday, March 30, at noon for a National Day of Prayer to End Gun Violence. They are asking for prayers “for a peaceable society where all children have the opportunity to grow and prosper, and where everyone can live without fear of being cut down by firearm violence.” 280 people are shot every day in the United States.

This day is of special significance as it is the day that Jim was wounded in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan and it leads us into a month of anniversaries of gun violence that are all too familiar: April 4—Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated; April 16—Virginia Tech tragedy; and April 20—shooting at Columbine High School. Because every day in America brings new tragedies, we must now, sadly, add another to this list: March 29—Massacre at nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina.

President Reagan’s experience with gun violence, while horrifying, was far from unique. In the brief history of our nation, we have had 44 Presidents. Four of them were assassinated with guns while in office; six others were the victims of attempted assassinations:

Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed on April 14, 1865.

James A. Garfield was shot and killed on July 2, 1881.

William McKinley was shot and killed on Sept. 6, 1901.

John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on Nov 22, 1963.

Ronald Reagan was shot and severely wounded on March 31, 1981.

Andrew Jackson was shot at in the Capitol building on January 30, 1835, but avoided injury.

Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1912 while campaigning for president.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shot at on February 15, 1933, in Miami, Florida, just three weeks before his inauguration.

Assassins attempted to shoot and kill Harry Truman on November 1, 1950 but were stopped in a gunfight outside the Blair House.

Not one, but two, disturbed individuals attempted to shoot and kill Gerald Ford during his brief time as president.

As Sarah Brady has said in issuing the call for a Day of Prayer: “In this new day of hope and optimism, let us acknowledge our individual and collective power to create change through prayer.” Let us all do our part at noon today, as we envision a better future for America, “a future where criminals and dangerous individuals attempt to obtain guns and find it difficult or impossible to do so.”

Armed and Rudderless

In the wake of less-than-stellar results in the November elections, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is in the process of selecting a leader for the future, with six men vying for leadership of the GOP. Last week, all six candidates appeared together in a debate at the National Press Club here in Washington.

The debate was moderated by the “radical rightist” Grover Norquist. You may remember Norquist as the man who said his goal for the U.S. government is “to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

In addition to being the head of a lobby group called Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist is a prominent member of the National Rifle Association Board of Directors (along with Ted Nugent and other luminaries). So it comes as no surprise that one of the main questions he asked the candidates for RNC was about how many guns they own.

As reported in an entertaining “Washington Sketch” by Dana Milbank in the January 6, 2009 Washington Post, current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan claimed four handguns and two rifles. Saul Anunzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, boasted of two guns. Ken Blackwell, former Secretary of State of Ohio, reported that he has seven guns—adding, “and I’m good.” Chip Saltsman, former chair of the Tennessee GOP, responded, “In my closet at home, I’ve got two 12 gauges, a 20 gauge, three handguns and a .30-06. And I’ll take you on any time, Ken.”

The image of a six man shoot-out at the GOP Corral is admittedly an intriguing one.

Equally odd was the response when Norquist asked each candidate to name his favorite Republican president. The tally, reported Milbank, was Ronald Reagan 6, Abraham Lincoln 0. Perhaps this helps to explain why candidate Saltsman recently mailed GOP party members a CD containing the parody song “Barack the Magic Negro.” And why a minority of right wing gun owners continue to cling to the belief that the Second Amendment gives them the right to overthrow our democratic government by force.