Here’s how change happens in this country.
First, there is a problem — say, the gun violence epidemic or climate change. A few people notice, but most ignore it. As time goes on, more people notice and start talking about it. But the vast majority remain in denial or think, “It’s not that bad” or “That’s just the way it is” or “Nothing will ever change.”
As the voices pointing out the problem get louder and more numerous, the forces of denial become more aggressive and try to cast doubt on the character of those drawing attention to the problem. They’re unreliable, overreacting.
This works for a while, but if the problem is real, more and more people start calling for a solution. Specific ideas are suggested, at which point denial turns into active resistance. Unrealistic. Too much (or too little). Too costly. Won’t work. Might even make things worse. Better to do nothing than do something imperfect.
As time goes on, the problem worsens because it isn’t being addressed. More and more people become actively engaged in efforts to find a solution. The resistance spends more and more money to buy off and/or intimidate politicians so they vote against every solution.
But the problem-solvers don’t go away because what choice do they have? The problem is getting worse. It is now so obvious that the passive deniers go silent. More and more evidence is compiled demonstrating the extent of the problem and showing that a few efforts to address it have paid dividends. The courts begin to see lawsuits. Some politicians start paying attention because they’re afraid the pendulum is swinging and they might lose their jobs if the problem-solvers get the upper hand. The resisters become desperate and turn into extremists. Their reasons for resisting sound more and more irrational.
The tide begins to turn.
That may have begun — finally — last week when President Obama announced executive actions to remove the gun sale loopholes that rendered all previous gun regulation efforts ineffective. The president had nothing to lose by his actions — a major tactical error on the part of the resisters. You always want your opponent to be scared of you. Obama is no longer afraid of the do-nothing Republicans or the NRA, and they know it.
Executive actions aren’t permanent. The next president can reverse them. But giving the voters a taste of something that works makes them reluctant to give it up. They’re likely to vote for the candidate who promises to keep it going.
Even those sitting on the fence are finally catching on, having witnessed mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting: Columbine, Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois universities, the Tucson shopping center (Gabby Giffords, five years ago this month), Fort Hood, Aurora Colorado, Oak Creek Wisconsin, Sandy Hook School in Newtown, the Navy Yard, Charleston, Oregon, San Bernardino. It’s everywhere.
Sooner or later we’re all going to be caught in one or know someone caught in one. It’s just a matter of time. Too many guns going into the wrong hands too easily. The problem is no longer deniable.
But no true regulation of guns is possible as long as there are massive loopholes in our background check system. That’s obvious to anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in maintaining the current Swiss cheese system, i.e. those who are profiting from our misery and those who are delusional (They’re going to take away all our guns!).
An effective background check system with no loopholes will help prevent people from getting guns who shouldn’t have them. They won’t prevent every mass shooting because so many guns are out there already (an estimated 300 million) and because too many unscrupulous people are willing to sell them to people who shouldn’t have them. But closing the loopholes, going forward, is at least a start.
President Obama’s executive action was not what made me think the tide is turning, however. It was a column by Kathleen Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winner for distinguished commentary (2010), as conservative as they come, who broke lockstep and not only agreed with Obama’s actions but took Republicans to task.
“Isn’t it possible to reduce the number of guns in the wrong hands without surrendering our Second Amendment rights or invoking the slippery slope of government confiscation? Of course it is, and we can. … It is one thing to be in the pocket of the National Rifle Association,” she wrote. “It is another to do nothing and then assume a superior posture of purposeful neglect, as though do-nothingness were a policy and smug intransigence a philosophy.”
It’s always inspiring when an ideologue summons the courage to break ranks. More Republicans — and more NRA members — should follow suit and start criticizing the extremism of NRA leadership (which is out of step with its membership).
“In a civilized society, more guns can’t be better than fewer,” Parker concluded.
That’s how change happens in this country.