Unfortunately, sometimes people have to see the consequences of their actions before it can.
If there’s one issue I’ve sadly become so pessimistic about that I can hardly write about it anymore, it’s guns. The ongoing tragedy of our fetish for the grotesque weapons of war with which so many Americans believe they have a right to play makes me feel like pulling the covers over my head and never coming up for air. I’ve noted the failure of NRA in the last couple of years and they did manage to pass a very tepid gun safety bill in the last congress. But even with that it just seems so hopeless that I’ve lost heart.
But I read a story this morning in the Washington Post that makes me wonder if maybe something might be changing and I’m sharing it with you with a gift link so you can read it too. It’s about four current and three former Senators who have changed their minds. That’s not something I expected to see.
They interviewed these senators who all voted against the bills that were proposed in the wake of the horrific Sandy Hook massacre in 2013. It’s emotionally wrenching to be reminded of that horror and witnessing these Senators confront what they did is quite moving. An excerpt:
It is rare for politicians to shift their viewson policy issues as culturally divisive as gun rights. But the expressions of remorse underscore how the failure to change laws in response to Sandy Hook continues to haunt many who held power at the time — prompting some of them to openly wonder if they allowed short-term political considerations to cloud their judgment on votes that might have saved lives. Obama, addressing Sandy Hook families last year at an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of the shooting, called Congress’s inaction that spring despite his personal lobbying “perhaps the most bitter disappointment of my time in office, the closest I came to being cynical.”
The Democrats have changed, not the Republicans which means that any real change will require the Democrats either winning the White House and the congress with either a filibuster-proof majority or the will to eliminate the filibuster. We’re a long way from that. But this article made me think for the first time in a long time that it might be possible.
Read the whole thing if you have the time. Maybe there is a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel?