Another day, another anniversary, another bitter reflection on a year in which far too little changed in America’s deadly and dysfunctional relationship with firearms.
It was Feb. 14, 2018, that a teenage gunman used high-powered weaponry to murder 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. And wound another 17. And traumatize countless more.
As the nation that had endured the horror of Sandy Hook Elementary, the carnage of the Las Vegas Strip, the cutting down of church worshippers in bunches, absorbed another body blow, there was briefly a belief that this time might be different.
In a bipartisan meeting with congressional leaders, President Trump boasted in front of cameras that he could, would, take on the National Rifle Association. He wanted tougher background checks on gun sales, believed in seizing guns from mentally disturbed people. He would push to eliminate “bump-stock” devices that turn semi-automatic rifles into de facto automatic ones, plus support age limits for buying rifles.
Days later Trump abandoned all but the bump-stock tweak.
It’s not as if any of the ideas floated on the federal level were out of left field. In the massacre’s wake, Republican then-Gov. Rick Scott and a conservative GOP legislature passed a 21-year-old age restriction for rifle ownership, imposed a three-day waiting period for gun purchases and expanded the power of the police to seize guns from persons deemed a threat.
In other words, they finally swallowed some sanity, as did a few other states.
Meanwhile, the carnage continues.
Firearm deaths are on the rise, says the Centers for the Disease Control; the latest totals show them at their highest level in nearly a half century.
If there was one bit of possible good news on guns in the past year, it’s the level of civic engagement from scarred teenagers, including Parkland survivors like David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and Cameron Kasky. They took to the streets and social media platforms. Thanks in part to their fearless advocacy and November’s election result, there is at least one part of the federal government openly discussing how to address the gun madness. So low are expectations in Washington, candor and conversation count as progress.
— New York Daily News