Please Hate Me. Love, The NRA

Rekindling the culture war with the gun lobby is a losing proposition. Heres what can be done to curb violence.

- Paul M. Barrett

For the first time in 16 years, guns will play a prominent role in the presidential election. In 2000 energized gun-rights activists helped cost Al Gore his home state of Tennessee and Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas. As much as Florida’s hanging chads and Ralph Nader’s third party self-indulgence, pro-gun agitation put George W. Bush in a position to enjoy the Supreme Court’s delivery of the White House in Bush v. Gore.

After the Oct. 1 killings at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., a visibly angry but oddly passive Barack Obama pointed out that the U.S. experiences a mass shooting every couple of months and “if you think this is a problem, then you should expect your elected officials to reflect your views.” In her response to the massacre, Hillary Clinton detailed how, if elected president in November 2016, she’d pursue a more aggressive gun-control agenda than Obama. “It’s time the entire country stood up against the NRA,” she said during the Democratic debate on Oct. 13.

Clinton sees the gun issue as a way to motivate her progressive base while simultaneously outflanking her main primary challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders of rural firearm-friendly Vermont. Asked during the debate whether Sanders is “tough enough on guns,” Clinton answered, “No, not at all,” noting he’d voted repeatedly in the early 1990s against the criminal- background check law. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party likes what it’s hearing from Clinton. “For a major presidential candidate to break the logjam in the way she’s doing is a momentous shift,” says Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).