Congress Lacks the Balls to Pass an Assault Weapons Ban

My Tuesday column:

With each new report of a brutal firearm attack, our minds can’t help but to nearly forget the previous attack. We can only absorb so many events before they begin to blur together. One after another the body count increases, the weapon names are familiar, the tragedies both stir and anesthetize our emotions, and Congress continuously fails to act.

This past weekend in Boynton Beach, Florida, north of Fort Lauderdale, Isidro Zavala entered the home of his ex-wife, Victoria, and forced her to watch as he strangled to death one of their sons, 12-year-old Eduardo. Then Zavala brandished his TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun and fatally shot the other child, 11-year-old Mario. After killing both boys, Zavala spared the life of his ex-wife and, instead, blew his own brains out with a .38-caliber pistol.

The Boynton Beach Police Chief G. Matthew Immler told the press, “She tried fighting him off and begged him to kill her and not the children. He told her she was going to stay alive and suffer the loss of them.”

It’s not surprising to learn that the weapon of choice, the TEC-9, was one of the assault weapons that had been banned in the 1994-2004 Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, also known as the assault weapons ban. Puppeteered by the National Rifle Association, the Republican Congress, along with the George W. Bush administration and too many Democrats, allowed the ban to expire in 2004. It’s also worth noting that the TEC-9 is one of the dozens of weapons listed in Senator Diane Feinstein’s newly proposed assault weapons ban.

Would those boys in Florida still be alive if the ban had been renewed? Who knows, but maybe.

Eight-plus years and countless thousands of assault weapon deaths later, Congress has obviously failed to pass a new ban on the deadliest firearms available and, in fact, can’t even muster the political balls to pass even the most innocuous gun control laws. [continue reading here]