We Need to Talk About Guns

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
NYT

How many students have to be shot to death in their schools before this country has a serious discussion about guns? Are the 10 who have been gunned down just since Feb. 27 enough?

The question of the constitutional right to own guns is irrelevant here—even if you believe that the Constitution gives every last American the right to own a firearm (which The Times editorial board does not, but many other reasonable people do).

There is simply no defending the many states that allow people not just to keep guns in their homes, but to buy an unlimited number of weapons each month, and to carry guns, concealed or visible, into public areas, including schools and churches and libraries. The culture of permissiveness is now so out of control that the city attorney in Tampa has said he cannot stop people from carrying guns into the security perimeter that will be established around the site of the Republican convention in August.

There is no defending the federal Tiahrt Amendments, which prohibit law enforcement from using gun trace data in a civil proceeding to revoke the license of a gun dealer who was caught breaking the law. The Tiahrt Amendments also require the Justice Department to destroy approved background checks within 24 hours, making it harder to catch dealers who falsify their records, and harder to track straw purchasers.

(More here.)