Political leaders must ban assault weapons or lose our support at the polls: Opinion

I told myself I was not going to look at the customary montage of photos of the slain victims of the latest mass shooting in the United States, especially since I knew they would depict school children. But suddenly, Yahoo flashed the group photo on my office computer screen before I could log into my e-mail.

There they all were, in color, incongruously looking so healthy and happy, the 19 children and two teachers gunned down at the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. One dead child’s face mesmerized me for a few seconds, for he looked exactly like my grandson, Alex. This Texas fourth-grader had a darker complexion, but the smiling, handsome face with the school-yearbook picture haircut was a virtual twin of my similarly-aged Alex. That dead child, murdered in cold blood – his own cold blood – could have been my grandson.

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The massacre in Uvalde was yet another atrocity committed by a seriously mentally-ill individual using an assault rifle that he freely and legally purchased, at the tender age of 18, along with 300 rounds of high-velocity ammunition. The aftermath of this seemingly monthly carnage always follows a familiar pattern that poses two questions: how did it happen and how can it be prevented from ever happening again?

After the mass funerals, the answers to the first question are almost pointless. The second question is the more intriguing and the ultimate challenge for people who serve in the legislative branch of government — the people who, by instinct, are hard-wired to “do something” to address the critical mass of an emotional and tragic crisis.

In the U.S. Congress, the big news revolves around the startling development that not only is there a so-called gun control bill on the table, but that it is a bipartisan effort that the national press corps is absolutely giddy about since they work in a town where Democrats and Republicans rarely even greet one another.

The proposed legislation would include, surprise (!), vast allocations of money to entice reluctant states to pass “red-flag” laws designed to stop mentally ill people from purchasing firearms, more money for mental health programs, raising the minimum age to purchase an assault rifle to 21, and a few other lesser provisions that might draw a vote or two for final passage. This effort, which hasn’t even passed out of committee yet, has already been called “progress” by people desperate for change.

I hate to throw cold water on such a noble pursuit, but this measure can only be called “progress” insofar as a 95-degree day in Louisville is cooler than the preceding 98-degree day. Anybody not currently serving in a state or national legislature knows that the only path to real progress on these mass shootings is to ban outright the sale or possession of assault rifles. Any other provisions are, as we lawyers say, mere surplusage.

Rifles like the one used in Texas and at so many other shootings (the AR-15) are military weapons designed to fire high-caliber bullets very rapidly that, if they hit their target, create gaping, fatal wounds on enemy combatants. If we allow these types of mass-killing weapons to be sold to the general public – as they currently are nearly everywhere – why not rocket-propelled grenades or .50-caliber machine guns, too?

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Gun rights supporters pose for a photo with their assault rifles inside the Kentucky state Capitol during a second amendment rally in Frankfort, Ky. on Friday. Jan. 31, 2020
Gun rights supporters pose for a photo with their assault rifles inside the Kentucky state Capitol during a second amendment rally in Frankfort, Ky. on Friday. Jan. 31, 2020

I have a good friend who is a true gun enthusiast and the proud owner of a .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine gun. It took him years to purchase this firearm with lots of bureaucratic red tape and obstacles put in his way by a seemingly-reluctant federal government. By contrast, the Uvalde killer, on his 18th birthday, simply walked into a store and bought two assault rifles off the shelf with practically no questions beyond “cash or credit?” If someone really wants to use one of these mass-killing weapons as a hobby, let them be able to do so at gun ranges where these lethal arms can be maintained in a secure setting.

How many more innocent, defenseless school children, teachers, churchgoers, grocery store customers, concert fans, nightclub patrons, office workers, have to be killed before we disabuse ourselves of the notion that there is any realistic hope of preventing these massacres that does not include banning the sale or possession of military assault rifles?

Congress has acted before: in 1994, it passed – also on a bipartisan basis – an assault weapons ban. That measure wasn’t perfect either – it was “sunsetted” and allowed to expire after ten years, the tragic cost sometimes of compromise that gets a controversial bill passed.

But there can be no such compromise now. Any reform bill that does not include a ban on these weapons is a fraud and a nullity. And any sitting U.S. Senator or Representative, or candidates for those offices, who doesn’t support such an obviously-necessary provision should suffer, not a physical death like these poor dead schoolchildren, but a death that some of them (us) fear even more – an ignominious defeat at the polls.  

Bob Heleringer, an attorney, is a former member of the state House of Representatives (1980-2002). He can be reached at helringr@bellsouth.net

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Elected officials must ban assault weapons or lose our votes: Opinion