Gun debate muzzles the middle ground

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0905/p09s02-coop.html

Gun debate muzzles the middle ground

The NRA and Brady Campaign are locked in an antagonistic embrace that

creates gridlock on solving the nation's gun problems.

September 5, 2007

Orlando, Fla. - Two years ago, Florida enacted a law that allows anyone who

feels threatened anywhere to use deadly force. Today the National Rifle

Association (NRA) is shepherding similar laws through legislatures across

the country.

The so-called Castle Doctrine extended the notion of a man's home being his

castle to public streets being his castle. When the law first went into

effect in October 2005, the nation's most prominent gun-control group, the

Brady Campaign, decided to fight back. Sort of.

The Brady Campaign - understaffed, underfunded, and generally floundering -

missed the news of the law's consideration until it was almost a done deal.

In behavior typical for both sides in a war of words, the gun-control

group's inability to keep the legislation from passing did not stop the

group from using the occasion to ratchet up the rhetoric.

The Brady Campaign put up a billboard in Miami that October, took out ads in

cold climates where people often take Florida vacations, and handed out

fliers at Florida airports - all warning tourists of their possible demise

on their trips to Florida beaches and Disney World.

The campaign got the biggest reaction in Britain and Canada, where it fit

perfectly into the notion of Americans as barbarians. A headline in the

British Birmingham Post read, "Going to Florida? Beware the gun-happy

locals."

Although Florida officials were unhappy about a potential blow to tourism,

the bigger upset was that the Brady Campaign's move played right into the

NRA's hands.

The dirty secret of both sides in the gun debate is that, without a powerful

enemy, they cannot woo supporters or raise money. They are like boxers in a

ring - propping each other up even as they try to get in blows. They are

locked in an antagonistic embrace that creates gridlock on solving the

nation's gun problems.

Of course, it is not an embrace of equals. The NRA has a $200 million annual

budget, while the Brady Campaign's is $8 million. Since 1990, according to

the Center for Responsive Politics, gun rights groups have given $18.7

billion to political candidates, while gun control groups have given only

$1.7 billion.

In fact, no one knows whether shootings have increased in Florida as a

result of the Castle Doctrine because the Brady Campaign and other

interested groups cannot afford to have lawyers track the results.

Paradoxically, the NRA's Goliath status forces the group to work harder to

make people believe that it has potent enemies - a challenge to which it has

risen. The cover of one issue of America's 1st Freedom, one of the NRA's

several magazines, threatened that the United Nations will seize Americans'

guns, an idea that is laughably implausible. The NRA also exaggerates the

impact of other stock enemies, including the Brady Campaign itself, the

French, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is trying single-handedly

to curb the flow of illegal guns into his city.

After hurricane Katrina, officials tried to ban guns from the streets of New

Orleans and from temporary housing for refugees. The NRA halted the efforts

in federal court. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive officer, painted

the attempts to check violence as proof that the US government would take

away its citizens' guns.

"To stop such civil disarmament - the greatest threat of all - will require

massive NRA member pressure at every level of government," Mr. LaPierre

wrote in his monthly letter to NRA members. "In these upcoming battles, our

battle cry must be REMEMBER NEW ORLEANS! Never, ever forget."

Certainly, most Americans would say that the shootings at Virginia Tech

should never, ever be forgotten either. But somehow, though school shootings

continue, though an average of 32 homicides are committed with guns in the

United States each day, though dozens of suspected terrorists are known to

have passed background checks to legally purchase guns, the gun-control side

cannot gain traction.

Instead the bluster and bickering continue. The warring lobbying groups call

each other "gun grabbers," "enemies of freedom," and "gun zealots."

"The two sides in this debate behave like spoiled children who won't sit at

the table together and play nice," admits Peter Hamm, the spokesman for the

Brady Campaign.

What the two sides don't acknowledge is that reasonable people can oppose

civilian ownership of machine guns or .50-caliber rifles so powerful they

must be shot using a tripod while still supporting hunting and owning guns

for self-defense. Americans can support background checks on guns sold

everywhere - not just by licensed dealers - without putting gun companies

out of business. The United States can require registration of guns and

proficiency tests for gun owners, just as we do with cars, without making it

impossible, or even difficult, for law-abiding citizens to buy guns.

The name-calling and breath-holding have made us all forget that a middle

ground is possible.