Newtown tragedy brings push for gun control

More than 150,000 people have responded to the deadly shooting in Connecticut on Friday with action of their own — signing a petition on a White House website calling for immediate action on gun control.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., says getting legislation passed to re-instate the ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004 will be very tough, but with support from President Barack Obama, she’s hoping to have more success than she has had in recent years.

“If you go back to 1993, President Clinton was able to get the assault weapons ban put in place,” she said. “Unfortunately, in 2004, Congress let it expire even though President Bush at that time said that he would sign (an extension). This is not going to be easy, legislation will be introduced on the first day of the session … and from there we will start.”

McCarthy, whose husband was killed and son severely injured in a mass shooting on a Long Island commuter train in 1993, says Mayor Michael Bloomberg will also play a big part in getting legislation passed.

“I believe (Bloomberg) will put his full force on trying to talk to Republican members and try and get them to sign on,” she said.

Her concern, McCarthy says, is the American people won’t continue to talk about the issue months from now. And another concern for some is that an assault weapon ban would lead to a wholesale collection of weapons by the government. But McCarthy says that’s not true — and faults the NRA for spreading that misinformation. 

“This is not going to be a slippery slope. After we passed the assault weapons bill (under) President Clinton, people were still able to get their guns,” she said. “There are over 4,000 guns that you can still be able to buy. People will still be able to buy their hand guns for home protection, that is the law of the land, that is now part of the Constitution from the Supreme Court.”

The problem is large magazine clips, paired with semi-automatic weapons, McCarthy says. Together, they can kill a large number of people in a very short amount of time.

“I’ve always said I cannot save every single person, I can’t. There’s no law in the land that we could ever do to be able to do that. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take the precautions to do our best to try to reduce the gun violence in this country,” she said.

A nurse prior to being elected to Congress, McCarthy says she looks at situations holistically. But with increased discussion on the importance of mental health, she’s wondering where the support has been all along.

“Of course we need to do something about mental health, but how many of them support when we’re trying to get money to make sure there are mental health clinics in those communities that have troubled young people. What about the money that they’ve cut so we can’t have social workers or psychologists in schools? These are all things that have to come together,” she said.

Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway’s Washington Correspondent, says it’s too early to tell if there will be any bipartisan approach to gun control.

“You are, however, hearing something that tends to be typical, to be honest, after horrible tragedies like this, and that is outcries for action,” he said

But those outcries aren’t just from the president, Zwillich says. More surprisingly, support came from Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat with an “A” rating from the NRA. Manchin said “it’s time to move beyond rhetoric.” He said he wants “meaningful action” on mental health, culture and guns.

Whether an assault weapons ban is meaningful action or symbolic, Zwillich says it may be both.

“There has never been any evidence from the CDC or any other public health organization that the assault weapons ban of 94 to 2004 led to a decrease in that kind of violence. This kind of violence with assault weapons does remain relatively rare,” he said. “Is it meaningful or symbolic, I think that depends on what you’re impression of the problem is.”