Thursday night at the White House, speaking to America with grim emotion, President Joe Biden used a single statistic to sum up two decades of national pain and revulsion we have all endured. His one statistic also seemed to sum up the horror of our last two weeks of mass-killings – in the Buffalo grocery store, the Tulsa hospital and especially the heart-wrenching record slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.
One statistic: “Over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined,” Biden told America. “For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say ‘enough’? Enough.”
“Enough” – Biden used the word 12 times in a 17 minute speech that was probably the most purposeful and powerful of his presidency. Yet, the very next day we began to see signs that even his best-ever speech may not have been “enough.”
On Friday, in suburban Buffalo, first term Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Jacobs became the first such sign – a blinking neon sign so glaring that even a pundit down in Washington can’t miss it. Jacobs was a Trump- and NRA-endorsed winner in 2020, a champion of the Second Amendment who had issued thousands of gun permits when he was the Erie County clerk. But after the grocery store mass-shootings 10 miles from his district (by an 18-year-old with an assault-styled rife), Jacobs called for an assault weapons ban and other reforms that Biden just urged. And he got politically pummeled by fellow Republicans. (“Caved to the gun-grabbers,” tweeted Donald Trump Jr.). Jacobs ended his reelection bid Friday.
And that brought me back to what I was really thinking as Biden began speaking Thursday. I hoped he would attempt something most untraditional – because this was the one topic where he just can’t be his own best messenger.
I wanted Biden to seek to enlist as his ally in safeguarding America the one group that is most persuasively armed for the job: America’s patriotic and law-abiding gun owners. They are most capable of convincing the Senate’s reform-killing Republicans to finally end their fatal gridlock-by-filibuster.
Biden recognizes this. And he started to say so Thursday, albeit sounding defensively: “For so many of you at home, I want to be very clear: This is not about taking away anyone’s guns. It’s … not about vilifying … gun owners. In fact, we believe we should be treating responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave. I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners.”
Too bad Biden’s team didn’t convince him to be more Bidenesque. Working with adversaries has always been Biden’s best insider skill. This is the moment when we need our best people to rise up and lead our failing leaders in Congress. Imagine if, Thursday night, Biden had tried to mobilize our gun owners by saying something like this:
“Tonight I want to especially speak to those of you at home who own guns and are proudly patriotic. America needs you to do what you are best capable of doing to safeguard us all. We need you to convince our leaders to help you keep America safe.
“When America’s parents send their children to school each day, they are all in the same bus. And as parents and families, we are essentially in the same boat. We all fear for the safety of our children in their schools – and loved ones everywhere. Now more than ever, we all want to prevent dangerous people from obtaining deadly weapons that were designed for our military to massively kill in wartime – but are being used to kill our loved ones. As law abiding gun owners, you know best that we need improved background checks and red-flag alerts. I favor a national ban on military assault-style weapons. But if you don’t want that, you still know our loved ones would be best protected by a national 21-year-old age limit for buying military-style semi-automatic rifles.
“You, as gun owners, can be America’s most powerful persuaders. I hope you will act urgently to lead our leaders in Congress. Convince them to end their gridlock that has put us all in danger. Convince them to take the common-sense steps you know are needed to safeguard your loved ones and your communities.
“You may also be America’s last hope for ending our mass-shooting nightmare. Godspeed.”
