Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Denver Post On Guns

This last Sunday the Post ran an editorial calling for more gun control. Nothing excessive, mind you, just the usual "reasonable" bits like magazine limits and assault weapons bans.I clipped the article and went down it paragraph by paragraph, and noticed a couple of things.

While most of it looked like a cut-and-paste job from Brady Bunch press releases, note this:
True, polls in recent years have consistently affirmed that Americans believe it's more important to protect the right to own guns than to enact gun control. In fact, a Denver Post poll published a week ago revealed the same pattern in Colorado: 56 percent of those asked said it was "more important" to protect the right of Americans to own guns than "to control gun ownership."
Politicians have cushy jobs and are loathe to lose them by crossing their constituents on hot button issues like guns. Hope springs eternal, however just a few paragraphs later:
So, yes, it's important for elected officials to understand that Coloradans for the most part remain strong supporters of Second Amendment rights even in the wake of the mass shooting in Aurora. But that doesn't mean those same officials shouldn't take the lead in promoting sensible reforms that reduce the likelihood of such crimes — or at least the likelihood of their success. 
The message here is to ask the pols to stab their constituents in the back in order to curry favor from  the "better sort" of constituent who buys ink by the barrel.

The pols for the most part are no dummies and know fairly well that the dead tree pundits aren't buying nearly as much ink as they use to and for good reason. Still, it doesn't hurt to remind them of this with a friendly e-mail or letter from time to time.

I'm with the 56% and I vote.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"This last Sunday the Post ran an editorial calling for more gun control."

In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.