Another Mass Shooting, Another National Shrug in the NRA Era

Yes, this was just another week in the gun culture wars. An Alabama professor with a long history of public outbursts and involvement with guns, a bomb -- even killing her brother with a shotgun many years ago -- is charged in a mass shooting on campus. Three fellow academics died and three others were wounded.

First, there's no longer a party of gun control. Democrats, in their never-ending pursuit of the middle ground and fear of taking strong stands, hardly ever raise it as part of their national agenda. A few past Democratic presidential candidates have spent more time slaughtering ducks to brandish high-testosterone, pro-firearms reputations than they have comforting family members who've lost loved ones to needless gun violence.

Republicans, on the other hand, sit in the lap of the the National Rifle Association, having their heads stroked and feasting on doggy biscuits (in the form of campaign contributions) every time they obstruct any type of reasonable gun control bill, no matter how trivial its impact might be.

The gun control war has ebbed and flowed over time, as have all culture wars. There are times when gays are up and religious fundamentalists are down or abortion-rights advocates behind and the pro-life lobby ahead. This is an era in which the NRA's claimed 4 million members run the country's gun agenda and the other 304 million of us just sit back and get shot at, literally and figuratively. (A Pew Research survey last year did show a near-equal split on the issue, with 49 percent of Americans saying it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right to own firearms -- 45 percent said the opposite. A year earlier, the split was 58-37.)

How did we get here? Remember the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and his press secretary, James Brady (who suffered debilitating wounds) by John Hinckley Jr.? That produced the so-called Brady Law, which nationalized background checks and a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases. Then there was Columbine in 1999. The Senate took steps to enact more stringent national gun control laws, but the House put the kibosh on that. As NPR reported, "Then-Vice President Al Gore cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to require background checks for firearms purchases at gun shows and to include safety devices, notably trigger locks, for new guns that are sold. The measure [stalled] in the House after a series of compromises left people on both sides of the issue disappointed."

In 2002 John Allen Muhammad, the so-called D.C. sniper, and his accomplice killed 10 people, but no major push for gun control ensued.

The assault weapons ban, signed into law by then-President Clinton in 1994, expired in 2004 and has not been renewed.

In 2007 a mentally disturbed Virginia Tech student was able to purchase two handguns. He later used them to open fire on campus, killing 32 and wounding 24 others. Congress' response was to push through a law, signed in 2008 by President Bush, aimed at preventing the severely mentally ill from purchasing handguns. Woohoo -- what a victory!

Republican Paul Helmke now runs the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. This former mayor of Indianapolis and onetime U.S. Senate candidate is not as disheartened as I am by the gun lobby's seemingly overwhelming power. He calls the NRA "a bit of a paper tiger" and cites as proof a recent federal victory for his side. The gun control lobby stopped North Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune from passing a national concealed-carry initiative last year. This would have allowed citizens of one state that permits the carrying of concealed weapons to do the same in other states. Helmke says that was the first time the NRA lost on a "scored" vote in five years. (In a scored vote, the NRA lists and "scores" senators and House members for their positions on gun related legislation.) Pardon my lack of enthusiasm, but this is a push-back rather than a full-tilt-ahead in the progress department.

In October 2006, a milk truck driver rounded up kids in an Amish schoolhouse and massacred five young girls for no discernible reason other than that he could. It made me think about the NRA's emphasis on constitutional freedoms. But how free are we, when peace-loving Amish children and thousands of others are slaughtered? How free are we when 30,000 Americans die by gunfire each year?

Are we in an era of progress on gun control? Hardly. We've done nothing but move backward since 1994.