We’ll Be Cheerful if It Kills Us - GAIL COLLINS

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/opinion/guns-conceal-carry-reciprocity.html?emc=edit_th_20171207&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=59914923

By Gail Collins,   Dec. 6, 2017

Hey, there are a lot of big movies opening up this month. One is a “Star Wars” installment and another involves Matt Damon becoming five inches tall.

I am mentioning this just to prepare you for a short discussion of gun laws. There’s been another big vote in Congress, and attention must be paid. But I promise to break up the story with totally unrelated cheerful information whenever possible.

First, the news: On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make it impossible for states to do anything about people who carry in guns from other states.

We have seen this idea, known as “concealed carry reciprocity,” before. It basically says gun owners only have to follow the laws of the state they hail from. Some states will give a permit to carry a concealed weapon to an 18-year-old. Some don’t care about a record of stalking. Some don’t have any rules at all — you’re O.K. to pack a pistol if you can breathe.

“The Republicans yell states’ rights all the time, but they’re hypocrites,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. He claimed, in a phone interview, that the last time Congress passed a bill to impose the laws of one state on a different state “it was the Fugitive Slave Act.” We can look forward to more of this discussion since Nadler is now the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. It used to be John Conyers, but then there was that sexual harassment matter.

Did you know “Top Chef” is coming back to TV this week? Perhaps you’re tired of reality cooking contests. But imagine how relaxing it could be to spend an entire hour in a world where the worst possible thing that could happen involves under-seasoning.

The gun bill’s Republican handlers refused to permit an amendment banning bump stocks. Those are the devices that were used by the gunman who killed 58 people in Las Vegas. But you knew that, right? We now live in a country where average people know what’s required if you want to make an assault rifle work like a machine gun.

The concealed-carry bill is also now chained to another measure aimed at making background checks more efficient. This modest, bipartisan plan came up after the Texas church shooting, when it turned out the gunman had a criminal background that should have precluded him from buying firearms.

The Senate, which really likes the background check bill, is going to have to take the two of them up together. “A cynical ploy,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, one of the co-sponsors.

This year a Brussels griffon named Newton won the National Dog Show. His handler said he likes ice cream and is “happy all the time.”

Blumenthal thinks the Senate Democrats can separate the two ideas, kill the concealed-carry bill and send the good background check plan back to the House for passage. This sounds promising, except for the part where it depends on the House Republican leadership taking a principled stand.

On Wednesday, those leaders had everything well under control. So there was no suspense whatsoever and the gun debate took place in a near-empty House, with a half-dozen people hanging around waiting for their turn to say something … inevitable. Democrats decried the fact that the Republicans didn’t want to work together. Republicans said carrying a gun made you safer.

Liz Cheney of Wyoming declared the right to carry a concealed weapon is “God given.” We will not pursue the question of What Would Jesus Pack.

American Airlines, which accidentally gave its pilots Christmas vacation, has worked out a deal so there will actually be people available to fly the planes.

Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican who was in charge of getting the gun bill through the House, expressed dismay at the tenor of the debate, such as it was. “Shame on us,” he said.

Collins seemed particularly offended when a Democrat called him a “puppet” of the National Rifle Association. Which seems a little impolite, if reasonably accurate. However, Collins did refer to the opposition as “a group who enjoys killing babies.”

A family in Florida says a cat saved their kids from a rattlesnake. The cat’s name is Oreo and he is recovering from a nasty bite.

The Democrats complained that there were much better ways for the House to spend its time. Representative Alcee Hastings of Florida — home of Oreo! — suggested that instead of trying to mess with the states’ right to do their own gun regulations, the members should be working on preventing a government shutdown. Which is right around the corner.

Actually, it could come on Saturday. Followed by the deportation of 800,000 Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children.

And did you know the queen of England has invited Prince Harry’s new fiancée to Christmas dinner? This is highly unusual, but that Meghan Markle is so nice.

A Pistol for Every Bar Stool - Gail Collins

JUNE 16, 2016

The nation hasn’t exactly joined hands in a united response to the Orlando massacre. But since this terrible mass shooting happened in one of the most weapons-friendly places in the country, maybe we can at least all agree that having wildly permissive gun laws does not make a city safer.

O.K., probably not.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump took time out from vilifying Muslims and put some of the blame on gun control. If the patrons of Pulse, the gay bar in Orlando, had been carrying concealed weapons, he said, they could have taken control of the situation. The gunman would have been “just open target practice.”

(This was at the same speech where he congratulated himself for his stupendous relationship with the gay community, suggesting he didn’t “get enough credit” for having a club in Palm Beach that was “open to everybody.” This is a little off our topic today, but I have to once again point out that Trump’s club is open to everybody with $100,000 to cover the membership fee.)

But about guns. Let’s follow Trump’s thought. It’s easy to buy a gun in Florida and supereasy to get a permit to carry around a concealed weapon. Even the Florida Legislature, however, doesn’t allow people to carry guns into bars. Trump did not specifically say that we need to uphold Americans’ freedom to drink while armed. But there doesn’t seem to be any other way to interpret his argument.

Also, there actually was an off-duty police officer working in the club who tried to shoot the gunman but failed. This is important, because the myth of the cool and steady shooter is one of the most cherished beliefs of the National Rifle Association and its supporters. Trump himself has bragged that if he’d been in Paris on the night of the attacks there, he would have shot the terrorists. (“I may have been killed, but I would have drawn.”)

This is an excellent example of delusional gun thinking. Although Trump frequently reminds us he has a permit to carry a gun, there’s no indication he’s ever done so. And there’s certainly no evidence whatsoever that he has any skill in hitting things.

It’s very, very difficult to draw, aim and shoot accurately when you’re under severe stress. It’s one of the reasons that police officers so often spray fleeing suspects with bullets. They can’t hit a moving target, even though they get far more weapons training than your normal armed civilian.

In Florida, people who want to carry a gun merely have to be able to demonstrate they can “safely handle and discharge the firearm.” Nowhere does it say anything about accuracy.

A few weeks ago in Houston, a 25-year-old Afghan war veteran named Dionisio Garza walked up to a stranger sitting in a car at a carwash and shot him in the neck while railing about “homosexuals, Jews and Walmart,” according to local reports. He fired off 212 rounds, mostly from an assault rifle, hitting a police helicopter and a nearby gas station, which burst into flames. The police said a neighbor who heard the shooting came running with a gun, but was shot himself.

People who hear this story may draw different morals. The way we’ve been going, it’ll be a miracle if some member of the Texas Legislature doesn’t submit a bill requiring employees of carwashes to be armed at all times. However, others might note that the weapon in this case was an AR-15, the same type of military-style rifle that was used in the Orlando shooting, the Newtown school shooting and the terrorist attack in San Bernardino. It would seem as if the best way to cut down on mass shootings would be by eliminating weapons that allow crazy people to rapidly fire off endless rounds of bullets.

The possibility of banning assault weapons like the AR-15 is most definitely not on the table in Congress, although Hillary Clinton supports it, and has brought it up a lot since Orlando. No, the current debate in Washington is over whether people on the government’s terror watch list should be kept from purchasing arms.

The fact that even people who aren’t allowed to get on a plane can buy a gun in this country is obviously insane. Yet most of the Republicans in the House and the Senate regard changing the status quo as an enormous lift. “I think you’re going too far here,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told the backers during one of the bill’s pathetic trips to nowhere.

Since the Orlando shooter had actually spent some time on the terror watch list, the pressure seems to be growing. Trump says he’ll meet with the N.R.A. to talk over the matter. Perhaps, after all this time, we’ll get some pathetically minor action. Then only apolitical maniacs would have the opportunity to buy guns that can take out a roomful of people in no time flat.