Congressman’s shooting first test for Trump-era gun debate

Terry McAuliffe (D) advocated for stricter gun laws on Thursday after Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and several others were shot on a baseball field in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Va.

According to Attorney Sean Healy, this morning’s shooting is just another example of how expanded gun rights could save lives.

First, it’s unclear if the suspect – 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of IL whom President Trump said has died from his injuries – obtained or was carrying the gun legally. The shooter, who reportedly used an SKS semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, was killed after a shootout with police. And then the same old fight: Democrats will renew their calls for gun control, which have failed repeatedly at the federal level, and Republicans will maintain their staunch party loyalty to the Second Amendment, the NRA, and the gun lobby that donates so generously to their campaigns. “If there is a change from this I hope that people on both sides begin to temper the more extreme and hysterical political rhetoric”, he said.

“This is not about more guns, which we know would not have prevented this event in spite of the presence of Congressman Scalise’s armed detail”, said the group Sandy Hook Promise.

Gun control advocates are pushing ahead, hopeful for action.

Shaken and angry, Republican members of Congress seized on the brazen daytime shooting of their colleagues on Wednesday to demand that existing restrictions on gun access be loosened so that people facing similar attacks are able to defend themselves. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and lashed out at Republicans who support gun rights. “This shooting is an attack on all who serve and on all who participate in our democracy”, Giffords said in a statement issued by Americans for Responsible Solutions.

The Republican who sponsored the bill, Rep. Jeff Duncan, S.C., happened to be at the baseball diamond Wednesday morning.

“There shouldn’t be one standard for members of Congress and another for citizens who otherwise have the same right to self-defense”, he said. It is America’s fundamental gun problem.

The emboldened response on the right illustrated how much the center of gravity has shifted in the gun debate.

Hours earlier Scalise, two congressional staffers and at least two police officers were injured when a man apparently ambushed them as they practiced for a charity baseball game. She describes in the Journal of Firearms and Public Policy (2004) how “it is immediately apparent when speaking to American shooters that they find it impossible to separate their gun ownership, even their interest in sport shooting, from a particular moral discourse around self, home, family, and national identity”. I remember thinking, on my drive back to New York City, that this one, the shooting of six- and seven-year-olds, would finally alter the gun-control debate in this country.

Nearly immediately after Scalise was shot Wednesday, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence issued a statement decrying the attack. But Mr. McAuliffe said we “lose” said number of Americans each day, clearly indicating fatalities. But at exactly the same moment, another tweet came down from someone who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, particularly when it comes to talking about guns.