States across the country have made faltering but commendable progress in adopting sensible gun safety measures — red flag laws, background checks and purchase age requirements. They have to deal with strong headwinds. A federal court this month overturned a California law that set the age limit for buying semiautomatic weapons at 21. But lawmakers are now considering other promising bills that would restrict the advertising of certain guns to children and allow Californians to sue gun manufacturers. Anything that introduces friction into the weapon acquisition system is for the better.
In New York, a federal judge this week dismissed a challenge from gun groups to a law allowing civil lawsuits against companies that have endangered public safety. And Governor Kathy Hochul called on lawmakers to raise the age limit for buying assault weapons to 21. The Texas gunman waited until his 18th birthday to buy a few assault weapons and hundreds of ammunition.
In Washington, DC, there is talk that Republican and Democratic lawmakers could negotiate a deal on some sort of national red flag law that would allow police to take guns away from people deemed an immediate danger to themselves or others.
Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy has led a bipartisan group of senators considering introducing a more comprehensive federal background check system, a reform supported by 88 percent of Americans.
We’ve seen these two-pronged arms security efforts come and go without success. But despite the Republicans’ inflexibility, the Democrats—especially Mr. Biden—should do what they can. Senator Murphy, who has led the indictment for tougher gun regulations since Sandy Hook, has put it well on the Senate floor this past week:
“What are we doing?” he asked his colleagues. “Why go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority,” he wondered, if the answer is to do nothing “as the carnage mounts, while our children run for their lives. ?”
It’s a question that speaks directly to the Senate and the entire US government system more broadly. Yes, the country’s democratic system represents the diversity of views in this country about weapons. But as it is currently structured, Congress is fundamentally unresponsive to the needs of its most vulnerable citizens and has been corrupted by powerful interest groups, allowing these groups to block even modest changes that the vast majority of Americans support.
We Americans all share this vast land and need to figure out how to make it better and keep each other alive and thriving. Right now we are failing in that primary responsibility. There are glimmers of hope, especially at the state level, that things are changing. But even there, progress is painfully slow and will not be enough for the hundreds of Americans who will be shot today and tomorrow and every day until action is taken.