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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, July 9, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
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GUEST COLUMN
New gun legislation falls far short
n the wake of the Buffalo, Uvalde
and many other mass shootings,
Congress labored mightily — and
produced a mouse.
The new gun legislation is a milque-
toast measure that will will do little to
reverse a dramatic, two-decade increase
in mass shootings.
It is just an attempt to mollify the
public, the vast majority of which is hol-
lering for more serious
gun reform. The leg-
islation is a political
safety valve, an illu-
sion for Republicans
to appear to fight gun
violence while main-
taining peace with the
ANDRE
gun lobby.
STEPANKOWSKY
President Joe Biden
signed the bill into law
in late June. He and
other gun control advocates grudgingly
went along with it, saying something was
better than nothing.
Well, maybe. The law does allow
juvenile records to be considered in
background checks for 18- to 21-year-
old gun buyers. It encourages — but
does not require — states to adopt “red
flag” laws enabling judges to temporar-
ily confiscate guns from people deemed
dangerous. It closes the “boyfriend loop-
hole” by expanding current law that bars
domestic abusers from buying guns.
It cracks down on “straw purchasers”
— people who buy guns for those who
would not qualify. And it authorities a
paltry $300 million over five years for
school safety.
But voters should not be fooled. This
law falls far short.
It continues to allow 18- to 21-year
olds to buy and possess semiautomatic
weapons — despite the youth of recent
mass shooters. There’s irony in this:
They can’t buy a beer, yet they can buy
guns that can kill or wound dozens of
people in a minute. They can buy highly
lethal weapons despite the medically
proven fact that the part of their brains
responsible for logical skills like plan-
ning and controlling impulses still is
developing, making them more likely to
engage in risky behaviors.
Note here that 74% of Americans sup-
port raising the minimum legal age to
buy any gun to 21 years old, according
to a Quinnipiac University Poll released
early June.
The new legislation also does not
restrict magazine capacity. Nor does it
require universal background checks, as
I
Associated Press
A memorial to the victims of the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting.
many gun safety advocates had sought.
Washington state — thankfully —
already has adopted many of these more
restrictive measures. But in Congress,
GOP negotiators refused to go along
with them, saying they infringe on the
Second Amendment right of law-abiding
citizens to bear arms.
What’s happening here is that a
near-absolutist interpretation of the Sec-
ond Amendment is preventing govern-
ment from protecting the lives and safety
of its citizens.
No right is absolute. Even the conser-
vative U.S. Supreme Court noted in its
famous 2008 Heller decision that some
level of gun control is allowed. Unfor-
tunately, the high court’s conservative
majority is making our society more dan-
gerous — as it did in June in striking
down New York’s restrictions on carry-
ing concealed firearms in public.
I support responsible gun ownership.
But the court and Congress have surren-
dered to the radical gun culture, which
makes arguments like that espoused
recently by southwest Washington con-
gressional candidate Joe Kent. Oppo-
sition to gun control “is 100% about
keeping the government in check.
The government is supposed to have
a healthy fear of its citizens, and that’s
why the Second Amendment exists,” he
said.
Really? So we should arm citizens
with machine guns, mortar launchers and
other weapons of war so any nut case
with a perceived grievance can wage
combat against the government and ter-
rorize its people?
The framers of our Constitution
drafted at least partially in response to
the Shays’ Rebellion of 1786-87. They
were terrified of mob violence. Those
who adhere to “originalist” legal theory
— using the perceived meaning of the
founders to interpret the Constitution —
should remember this.
When America adopted our Consti-
tution 233 years ago, a good rifleman
could at best fire three rounds a minute.
Semiautomatics can do that in seconds.
Times and technology change, and the
Constitution was not meant to be a strait-
jacket. It’s mythical to think otherwise.
The National Rifle Association and its
devotees perpetuate many other myths in
opposition to gun control.
One is that treating mentally ill people
— who are far more likely to die from
gun violence than to perpetrate it — will
reduce shootings.
And two of the biggest myths: That
restrictions like the 1994 assault weap-
ons ban — which expired in 2004 —
don’t stop gun violence and that guns
make us safer.
This is a complex issue. Nevertheless,
statistics show that the number of mass
shootings dropped during that 10-year
ban on assault weapons, and they have
continued to dramatically increase after
it expired.
American civilians own far more fire-
arms per capita than any other nation —
about 120 per 100 people — but our gun
death rate is much higher than most other
nations, particularly developed nations.
Recent polls find that about half of
the nation — you can include me —
believes that sales of AR-15 rifles and
similar semiautomatic weapons should
be banned. One could argue that hand-
guns — which accounted for about
60% of 13,620 U.S. murders and man-
slaughter cases in 2020, according to the
FBI — are a bigger problem than rifles,
including semiautomatics. But tell that to
the grieving families and friends of mass
murder victims in Buffalo and Uvalde
and too many other American cities.
Who really needs such weapons out-
side of the military or law enforcement?
Politically, a ban is not going to hap-
pen, especially with the Supreme Court
so tilted against gun control. But if we’re
really going to reduce gun violence, the
bill signed into law in June should just be
a starting point.
Andre Stepankowsky is the retired city
editor of The daily News of longview,
Washington.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Finally
After owning a home here for 30-plus
years, I have finally been confirmed as a
Scandinavian immigrant. I was sitting on a
bench in the beautiful Astoria Nordic Her-
itage Park over the weekend, watching
tourists snap photos and heard a yell …
“Hey! Look at this!”
One family had a little girl about 5
years old, and a little boy about 4 years
old, who were busy looking to find the six
trolls. “I found six!” shouted the little girl.
“Seven!” shouted the little boy. I looked
over and he was pointing a finger at me.
What a hoot! I am 81 years of age, with
not an ounce of Scandinavian blood, but I
can finally say, yes, I am a true Astorian,
and a troll, at that.
What a gift the Nordic park is to all of us.
LARRY ALLEN
Astoria
More books
We loved the great letter on July 5 by
Laurie Caplan!
As a handicapped person, my wife
browses the shelves for me, and checks the
title to see if the subject may interest me.
I read four or five books a week. We have
always visited our local libraries!
Bad news if I am shut out of a great
story source, just so our mayor can make it
a place for the homeless to doze.
We need more books, and a reason to
call it a library! We don’t all read our toys
(phones).
DICK DARBY
Astoria
A fish by any other name
In your otherwise impeccably reasoned
editorial about California’s reclassification
of bumblebees as fish (The Astorian, July
7), you overlooked an opportunity to point
out just how slippery those aquatic critters
can be.
While most of us can still distinguish
between, say, a smallmouth bass and a
small, airborne pollinator, a certain seman-
tic confusion persists. For some of us,
a fish is a ghoti — the way you would
spell the animal if you sounded out the
“f” as in “tough”; the “i” as in “women”;
and the “sh” as in “notion.” This linguis-
tic ambiguity has caused misunderstand-
ings among FisherPoets and other literary
anglers.
The good thing is, you don’t have to
have a special license to reel in ghoti.
Unless, perhaps, you’re in California.
MIKE FRANCIS
Astoria
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