The “Do Something!” camp are all about emotion, using the latest tragedy to stir up support for their solution, even if the solution is the wrong one and won't accomplish what it is they think it will. The two most often used phrases from this group are “If it only saves one life!” and “It's for the children!”.
The other camp doesn't trust either the solution or the motives of the first camp, seeing them as working to whittle away at yet another right so hard won starting at the battles of Lexington and Concord. They cannot understand how it is that the first camp believes that by punishing law-abiding citizens that their world will become safer. This second camp also has the government's own crime statistics to prove that the world will not be a safer place.
But what really brought a lot of this into focus was the defeat in the US Senate of seriously flawed gun control legislation that had been pushed hard by the “Do Something!” camp. Even the President got into the act after the Senate vote, lambasting the Senators who dared vote against the proposed legislation.
'A pretty shameful day for Washington," President Obama called it, with "pretty" being the only remnant of his famous cool. In the Rose Garden, he blamed the failure of gun control in the Senate Wednesday on three causes: "The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill." The Senators who voted against it are cowardly and had "no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics." And finally "a minority was able to block it from moving forward" through "this continuing distortion of Senate rules."Never mind that the senators were doing what their constituents voted them into office to do. Never mind that his claim about “the continuing distortion of Senate rules” is disingenuous, considering Harry Reid (D-NV) has laid waste to most of the Senate rules during his tenure as majority leader.
For a sitting president to call opponents to the legislation, including members of the Senate, “liars” and “cowards” shows Obama has hit a new low. His reactions were that of a spoiled child who didn't get his way. That is not how one goes about getting legislation passed. All he managed to do is damage the case for the “Do Something!” camp and destroy what little good will might have still existed between him and members of Congress.
This isn't an issue that will go away any time soon. It is an issue that is not nearly as important to the American people as are jobs and the economy, but then jobs and the economy haven't generated any emotionally laced crises that can be exploited by the “Do Something!” camp even though they are far more important than gun control.
If you can't figure out where I stand on this issue, then let me enlighten you. For me, gun control means “hitting the target in the 'X' ring” five times out of five.
'Nuff said.