G.O.P. Candidates and Mass Shootings [View all]
Despite the repeated horror of mass shootings in churches, movie theaters and schoolrooms, the Republican candidates running for president are remarkably quiet about how they would deal with this most pressing public health challenge.
“We define gun control real simple — that’s hitting what you aim at,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told a political gathering in New Hampshire earlier this year, typifying the level of pandering by the Republican field to the gun lobby.
In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, is taking up the gun control issue once more, 15 years after the defeat of Al Gore left her party leaders swearing off the subject as a losing cause. “We have to take on the gun lobby,” Mrs. Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd last month. “This is a controversial issue. I am well aware of that. But I think it is the height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.”
Tell that to the Republican candidates staunchly opposed to gun safety laws, like limits on ammunition used in the rapid-fire, battlefield-type weapons favored by mass shooters and a ban on unregistered weapon sales by dealers at gun shows. Mass shootings involving three or more murder victims have been on the rise in recent years, according to federal data, while gun production has more than doubled since 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/opinion/gop-candidates-and-mass-shootings.html?_r=0
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