A Field Day for Cowards, Cynics

Last week, the House of Representatives gave Charlton Heston a complete sweep in the political ratings game. By killing gun control while voting for the Ten Commandments, a majority of representatives obviously meant to pay homage to two deities represented by Heston--Moses and the National Rifle Assn. Otherwise, there is no coherence to the House’s action.

With all due respect to Heston and his congressional followers, I believe Moses was done a disservice. No matter which version of the Ten Commandments one consults--and a religious dispute could break out over which version to post in government buildings--there is nothing about picking up arms.

Then, too, the commandments contain that inconvenient stricture on killing, which even fervent gun lovers must concede is the more-than-occasional consequence of firing a gun. Post the commandments in schools and kids might question the wisdom of bombing innocent civilians in places like Iraq and Yugoslavia, or the inequity of justice dispensed on death row.

True, there are students of Scripture, like Jerry Falwell and Laura Schlessinger, who overlook the admonition against killing in their zeal for capital punishment. But with no less an authority than the pope telling us otherwise, those House members of who keep extending the death penalty might want to think twice about calling too much attention to the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

In any event, it’s doubtful that the majority in the House, which voted to allow states to post the Ten Commandments in schools and government buildings, were taking Scripture seriously at all. Surely there’s no commandment to enlist the power of the state to bludgeon people into getting right with their maker.

Those who voted for turning the Ten Commandments into bureaucratic wallpaper knew that this silliness would never pass a constitutional test. Nor could they have sincerely believed it when they said that the Littleton, Colo., killers, who came from religiously respectful, patriotic, nuclear families, would have been dissuaded from their slaughter by sighting a poster of the Ten Commandments. Those congressional opportunists seized on sacred Scripture just for show--to pretend they were doing something about schoolyard violence when they weren’t.

Consider the cynicism of those so-called representatives of the people who thought to duck the gun control debate by hiding behind the Bible. Good people of varying faiths can disagree on the wisdom and constitutionality of gun control, but they cannot deny that the issue is of urgent importance and requires courageous attention. There is no happy middle ground between those who believe they have an absolute protected right to unregulated gun ownership and the majority that doesn’t. For that reason, even the most limited steps, such as the one defeated in the House, are difficult to take.

The controversial issue in the latest legislative flare-up had to do with background checks of the most sensible sort. It is unfathomable how those who claim to be strong law-and-order advocates can ignore the advice of local police and the FBI and object so strenuously to a three-day waiting period to permit a proper background check on those who buy guns at gun shows. Surely the authors of the 2nd Amendment did not mean to include convicted felons, wanted criminals and documentable sociopaths in the ranks of that “well-regulated” militia to which they alluded.

Freedom does not rest on the chaotic commerce of rural gun swap meets or the urban street traffic in Saturday night specials. Were it not for the power of the NRA and a lack of decent leadership on the Republican side of the House, the obviously sensible measure approved by the Republican-controlled Senate would have easily passed.

Gun control is not a panacea for all that ails us. Regulating gun ownership as stringently as do other developed countries wouldn’t end violence in all its forms. But it’s difficult to believe that it wouldn’t seriously lower our much higher levels of gun mayhem.

After all, countries with much lower violent crime rates are exposed to the same violent movies, lyrics and video games as are Americans, and often even nastier ones made for their home markets. Nor are their young people necessarily any more religiously oriented than our own. The prevalence of guns is what distinguishes us, most decisively, from them. That, and the cowardliness of our politicians.