U.S. President Barrack Obama's gun control reform will prove to be this generation's Berlin Wall moment.
Surrounded by children, who asked the president to use his power to help stop gun violence, and parents of the
innocents murdered in the Sandy Hook School shootings, with a swoosh of the pen, he signed what will be one of the most significant reforms in U.S. history. Let's hope this pen is mightier than the NRA.
While gun lobbyists can argue personal freedom, safety and the ever-so-brilliant people-kill-people arguments, Obama finally had the courage to do something no other president in recent memory has done - stand up to the National Rifle Association.
The NRA, the most powerful lobby group since Jimmy Hoffa died, has the power to elect and defeat candidates.
For an organization as well-organized and with as much money as the NRA, one would have expected far more convincing arguments on the right to bear arms.
How did they react? They launched a television commercial explaining that Obama's daughters attend a school where there are armed guards.
Never mind the fact they're getting really personal by involving Obama's two children, close relatives of the president and vice-president are
required, by law, to be guarded by the Secret Service.
They've mocked the president's
for-the-children message, but Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colo., and Columbine must never happen again. Those examples are only the tip of the iceberg.
It's bizarre. Much of the extreme right-wing believes in the right to bear arms. Yet, they're also deeply religious, which is puzzling. Does Christ want us to own semi-automatic assault weapons?
The extreme right wants lower taxes at the cost of social programs, but sees no problem in committing $6 billion to place armed guards in every school in America? (How about more textbooks for children or programs for
special-needs children?)
It will be interesting to see if this passes Congress. Many Republicans are saying "over my dead body," yet the majority now realizes the time has come to rewrite this wrong.
Of Obama's six major planks in his gun reform bill, the NRA has compromised on only one.
Gun lobbyists will use such words as constitutional and freedom. We say it's selfish.
Penticton Editor James M. Miller