(HOST) State of the Union speeches are by nature, laundry lists of important things presidents say they have done or are planning for the future. This morning commentator Barrie Dunsmore laments one subject that was missing in President Obama’s address last Tuesday evening.
(DUNSMORE) Virtually every member of Congress was wearing a black and white lapel ribbon in honor of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. An empty seat in the House of Representatives chamber had been reserved for her. Among First Lady Michelle Obama’s special guests in the visitors gallery: the young intern who had bravely come to Giffords’ rescue after she had been shot in the head at a routine political meeting in Tucson; the brain surgeon who had successfully operated on her; and the family of nine year old Christina Green, the child who was one of the six bystanders randomly killed by Giffords’ assailant.
For the first time most people could remember, many Democratic and Republican members of Congress chose to sit – with each other – rather than join the usual two hostile camps that have become the norm for State of the Union speeches. These new seating arrangements were meant to symbolize an effort to restore some civility to what in recent years has become a relentless, bitter, partisan debate between the two parties.
Appropriately, President Barack Obama began his speech with tributes to Congresswoman Giffords and the other victims and their families. But – that was it. In his report to the American people on the State of the Union, the president ignored the eight hundred pound gorilla front and center in the House chamber – the laws, or lack of same, that made the Tucson tragedy possible.
I am aware that two recent decisions by the current Supreme Court have explicitly made gun ownership an individual right under the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I don’t see that being re-litigated any time soon.
It is also evident that Democrats have decided that gun control is a losing political issue, and for the past two years party leaders, including President Obama, have been silent on the subject.
But, even conceding those political realities, doesn’t the massacre in Tucson scream out for common sense regulation of firearms? Can liberals and conservatives not agree that putting military style assault weapons into the hands of psychopaths is not a good idea?
Given all of the atmospherics, the House chamber Tuesday night could have been the perfect setting to begin a bi-partisan discussion about the licensing and regulation of firearms. These should be reasonable rules that preserve the rights of people to own guns but also protect society from some of the dangers of their all too frequent misuse.
We now know the president made a conscious decision not to raise what he worried would be a contentious issue that would distract from the theme of his speech on America’s economic future. Perhaps feeling a little guilty about this decision, senior White House officials briefing the television network anchors Tuesday afternoon apparently promised that Mr. Obama planned a speech about guns sometime in the future.
In the president’s shoes I might well have made the same political calculation. This was a special moment; but, sad to say, it won’t be the last.