Fatal shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., and Pittsburgh prompted renewed calls for stricter gun control from traditional advocates such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. But such calls haven’t echoed in the halls of Congress or in statehouses across the country.
“The silence has been deafening,” Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political scientist, said of federal lawmakers’ response to new incidents of gun violence across the country.
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In the late 1980s and 1990s, gun-control debates were a staple of political discourse. But in more recent years, the national Democratic Party — intent on expanding the party’s natural constituency — has abandoned efforts to impose new restrictions on gun ownership.
“On the national level, the issue is considered toxic by Democrats,” said Ross Baker, an expert on Congress at Rutgers University. “I think part of it has to do with [the Democrats’] remarkable success in capturing seats previously held by Republicans.” Accepting his party’s nomination last year, President Barack Obama heartened gun-control advocates as he said, “The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the
Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.”
The White House Web site’s description of the administration’s agenda calls for a variety of gun-control measures. But the Democratic majority at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue has shown no appetite to act on any of those proposals.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. — during an inspection tour focused on violence along the Mexican border — recently called again for a return to the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was quick to dismiss the notion.
The political reality behind that reluctance was reflected in a recent Gallup Poll, which found record low support for gun restrictions.
The survey was conducted in October, before some of the recent series of fatal gun incidents. The Gallup analysis noted that was the lowest level of support since the organization first began asking that question 50 years ago.
Even Obama, while supporting some gun restrictions, made a repeated point on the campaign trail of emphasizing that he believed that the right to bear arms was an individual right as opposed to one restricted to militia members — a view subsequently affirmed in the closely watched Supreme Court ruling District of Columbia v. Heller.
When asked about responses to the recent spate of shootings in a CNN interview this week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. cited recent increased federal funding for police departments, but did not mention any of the gun-control measures theoretically supported by his White House.
