Senate May Do Nothing But Gun Restrictions Are Succeeding

As the Senate heads towards actually voting on a number of gun control measures later this afternoon, Republicans seem to be focused on how people mistakenly on the terrorism watch list will have their Constitutional rights to due process infringed if they are not allowed to buy a gun.  Because of the 60-vote margin required for cloture on all these proposals, it is doubtful that any of the bills will actually pass.

But while the Senate dithers, there is some other surprisingly good news for gun control advocates today. Ever since 1997 when an amendment passed Congress that specifically did not allow the Centers for Disease Control to engage in any research that would “advocate or promote gun control”, the NRA and its lackeys in Congress have managed to restrict any substantive research of gun violence as a public health issue. But what can not be done on a federal level, can still be done by the individual states. Last Friday, the California legislature approved a budget allocating $5 million to establish the California Firearm Violence Research Center which will specifically have access to the state’s gun violence records and will then be able to pursue valuable research into the public health effects of gun violence and the efficacy of programs to restrict gun violence.  Yes, $5 million is just a drop in the bucket. But at least there will soon be real studies that are backed up by real data when discussing gun control. And California is a large enough state that many of the conclusions of those studies can be broadly applied to the country at large.

In an even more significant development, today the Supreme Court let stand lower court rulings that upheld the assault weapons bans that are in effect in the states of Connecticut and New York. Ever since determining in 2008 (District of Columbia v. Heller) and 2010 (McDonald v. City of Chicago) that there is a constitutional right for a citizen to own a handgun in the home, the Supreme Court has repeatedly denied challenges to subsequent gun restrictions. And, with the emergence of a liberal Court, I would expect that pattern to continue for the foreseeable future.

The expected failure of the Senate to take any meaningful action later today will frustrate and outrage those who favor sensible gun restrictions. And it should. But it also should not blind us to the fact that progress is being made and that the Supreme Court is clearly signaling that sensible restrictions will pass constitutional muster.  Yes, the NRA still has enormous power in the political arena and the progress will be slow and not uniform and probably not enough to please us all. But the tide has clearly turned in favor of reasonable gun restrictions and that can only be good for everyone’s health.