How Likely Is Gun Control in America?

Like many Americans, I have been consumed over the past days by the senseless murder of innocents and the American love affair with weapons. Like many who have spoken out recently about the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in my heart I too believe that gun control is the only answer.

But as a rational observer of American politics I do not see a realistic scenario in which guns will not continue to be an ordinary and familiar element in our lives. Keep in mind that the 2nd Amendment speaks directly to weapons that would be used to support a militia, in other words, an Army. Thus, assault rifles are precisely the type of weapon the 2nd Amendment wants to have in the hands of citizens.

But, the only legitimate first step, repealing the 2nd Amendment, is not realistic, not with so many Americans opposing such a move. With weapons already in the hands of the citizenry numbering in the hundreds of millions, effective gun control is not much more than a pipe dream. Physically, those existing weapons have been made to last for 100 years or more and would almost certainly be grandfathered into any gun control legislation that may pass. Those weapons will not disappear from our lives — their confiscation is unthinkable — no matter how weapons are restricted in the future. How can they be controlled? Not by any scenario I believe is politically feasible.

Americans should admit that we live in a country where gun ownership is worshiped and guns themselves are objects of quasi-sexual fetishistic fantasies and dead children are quickly forgotten by most, with the exception of close relatives and friends. That’s the harsh lesson taught by Columbine High School and too many other examples.

The bottom line concerns a realistic scenario I see that’s based on our recent history with gun violence. People will rant and rage over the bloody slaughter of innocents for a few months, demanding politicians pass meaningful gun control legislation while the powerful gun lobby wraps their arms around politicians from both parties and pressures them to protect the right of every American to own weapons. What we will get in the end is pablum that will allow both sides to declare some sort of moral victory. Then we’ll hope and pray that we've seen the last of senseless mass killings. But when it does happen, as it inevitably will, outraged voices will be raised once again for meaningful gun controls. That’s life in America, where people love their guns.

America is an “exceptional” nation favored God over all others, or so the conservatives would have us believe. Just tell me how it is that, when the far greater majority of those conservatives proclaim themselves as born-again Christians, they are such fanatical gun worshipers? Was it Jesus who told them to buy assault weapons, or 30-bullet magazines? Would Jesus arm himself to the teeth and shoot the first person who tried to break into his house or steal a loaf of bread? What in the world happened to love thy neighbor as thyself? Or turn the other cheek? Naturally, that hypocrisy fits right-wing ideologues like a glove.

So, to finally answer the question posed above, America will adopt meaningful and effective gun control when an openly gay woman Cardinal is elected Pope.